One of the minor stories from yesterday was the ongoing battle to get Jerry's meds straightened out.
It started out innocently enough the day before. One of the prescriptions he had filled (and he has a boatload of them) got bounced by the insurance company. There was no reason give to the pharmacy by the insurance company.
Fortunately, the disease has not progressed to the point where his thinking is impacted beyond chemo-brain so Jerry was able to play phone tag.
Jerry drilled through and finally got a human at the insurance company. The clerk looked up the reason and it was "Above accepted therapeutic dose" or some other such gibberish.
Jerry called the pharmacy and they read off the dose and it was twice what he had been taking. Thinking back, Jerry remembered that he had been given a "pulse" of 2X the medication (anticoagulant) after he had collapsed from a lung embolism. That double dosing is potentially fatal when taken for an extended period.
Jerry called the doctor's office and could not drill through the phone-answering person. That person promised to get a hold of a nurse and get it straightened out.
Ducky went to collect the meds the yesterday. The anticoagulant was not in the basket.
Still bounced by the insurance company.
Another phone chase.
The office had sent the prescription over BUT it was still the double-dose and the insurance had bounced it AGAIN.
Jerry's speculation is that the patient prescriptions are kept in a database and the old dosage keeps floating to the top. Jerry asked them to delete that entry but I am not sure anybody but the DB administrator has that authority. Meds history are potentially evidence in the event of malpractice and willy-nilly deletions would look bad.
At another level, this is a symptom of multi-tasking. Things get started and then get interrupted several times before they are completed. Quality suffers.
The issue is still unresolved at the time of this typing.
I empathize. Had a stroke almost 4 yeras ago, and it took awhile among the 5 doctors to find the right combination of BP meds, blood thinners and misc. others. They all settled on 5 drugs, which have been the only ones I've taken for 3 years. Every time I go to a doctor (including my GP), or talk to the pharmacy, they still say "Are you still taking...." these 12 others. If I were, I'd be dead aready from a massive brain bleed. The whole system is designed to fail. I always maintain we sicko's need actively engaged independent advocates present at every level of healthcare.
ReplyDeleteYep, ex-FIL takes THREE meds, but they have him down for EIGHTEEN!!! Docs, nurses, etc. have all tried to correct, but nope, pharmacy STILL tries to give him all of them every month... Gah!
ReplyDeleteI went through cancer therapy in 2014.
ReplyDeleteWhat got me through it was my wife. She turned into a honey badger.
She kept track of Doctors and Medications. She was relentless.
It's what you have to do.