navigating clover and health care

Have I mentioned lately how tired I am of the gloomy overcast wet and drippy days? According to a friend we've had 7” of rain so far this year. That's more than an inch a week as today makes just six weeks and we got at least 1/2” if not more last night. Everything is WET. The sun came out for about two hours yesterday, looked at everybody being all happy and chirpy and decided that was enough of that. The oft wrong weather app on my device says today starts a week or so of mostly sunny days. I'm for that as both pairs of my muck around outside shoes are soaked but so far I'm not seeing it. If that actually happens I won't be getting any glass work done this week either as I'll be out in the yard trying to tame it. hahahahahahaha I just kill me. The clover over at the shop is knee high 

can't even see the path I made through it to the burn pile with the garden cart yesterday

and as I was blazing a trail through it to the door of the shop something stung me on my big toe and for all you peeps who shake their heads at me because I'm always barefoot, I was wearing shoes! Well, sandals. I thought it was a bee but it hurt different (I looked through the clover but didn't see the culprit). It hurt like the sting I got on the bottom of my foot from the red velvet ant (wingless wasp aka cow-killer) that took two months to heal and damn if it isn't all red and sore and some swollen today.

And now what a clusterfuck this has become...today was supposed to be my cardiologist appointment with the Nurse Practitioner cardiologist (RNP) of my first choice, after the PCP said she was referring me to her on Jan. 21. To get this appointment I had to

1. call the Patient Concierge Services on Jan. 24 and found my referral request hadn't been sent yet and call the PCP and tell them to send the referral request

2. call the PCS Jan. 29 inquiring about my referral

3. received a call Jan. 31 from PCS telling me I could now call the WRONG doctor for my appointment and when I informed them of their error was told they would send the referral to the right RNP and it would just take a day or two.

So here is where it gets sticky. I figured maybe they ignored who I wanted to see because she wasn't in my network and just sent it to the guy who was, so...

4. called PCS Feb. 1 and told them I would just see the guy since it was taking so long

5. but didn't call the appointment desk to make my appointment til the following Thursday the 7^th, because I've been complaining about how long the whole thing is taking, only to learn he couldn't see me for 2 freaking months so, who else you got?

6. another guy who could see me the next week, I made the appointment for the 14^th. Then I decided to look up on my insurance company's website to see what doctors were in my network (because I couldn't remember the name of the guy I had an appointment with) and I only saw the one doctor's name, the one who had the long wait time.

7. so I called the appointment desk back but they checked and yes, #2 was in my network. So then, I'm thinking if doctor #2 wasn't on the site maybe neither was my first choice so I called my insurance company and yes she is.

Yay, right?

8. called the appointment desk back a third time and canceled the one appointment and made the one I wanted in the first place because apparently the woman on the other end of the line didn't bother or didn't know to check for the referral.

And that was for today and I went. I paid my co-pay, I was shown in the room, was going through the initial symptom and history interview with the nurse/assistant when we were interrupted by a young woman come to tell me that I didn't have the appointment, that they didn't have a referral for me, that she was really sorry, (poor thing), but I wasn't supposed to be here but they were working on it now trying to get the referral for the RNP and I could come right back in as soon as they got it so I got my co-pay back and left. So that's where I am right now, waiting for tomorrow to call the PCS...again. Because the referral has to be for the specific doctor/RNP instead of just the cardiology department. If they had just sent the referral to the right person in the first place we would have all been saved a lot of aggravation and misunderstanding and time.

I saw this on Ms Moon's blog today and it is eerily illustrative of trying to navigate what passes for healthcare in America.