Thursday, February 5, 2009

Be prepared for the longest post in history

I have a couple days to catch up on so here goes…
Tuesday: I called West Coast Fertility (WCF) to check and make sure my approval from the insurance had come back, so I’d be all set for my appt there for today. The girl I’ve been dealing with is so nice and helpful and you can tell she’s got a really understanding personality. So I talk to her and she said that I needed to call my insurance, because they’re the ones that would have the approval. So I call Mike at work, because I was at work and didn’t have the number. So he called insurance. He called me back and said insurance said since our medical group is Saint Jude Heritage (SJH) and one of their doctor’s wrote the referral for us, then they should be the ones with the approval and insurance gave me their number. (Tiny bit stressed, but still ok.) So I called SJH and talked to a girl there and she said “Oh no, that’s your insurance that has to write the approval and you need to call them. (Getting more stressed.) Called insurance…nope they sent me back to SJH. (This point stress level is starting to really build up.) Talked to the same girl and she says oh, you have to call your insurance. I almost lost it and explained to her, I keep getting bounced back and forth, I’ve been calling both SJH and insurance and both groups say oh no that’s not us, I’m at the end of my rope here and I don’t know what to do, please help me. She assured me it was insurance that I needed to deal with and I said, ok they keep telling me no, and at this point I’m so confused to even know what to ask for, please tell me an exact sentence to say to them (I was so stressed I couldn’t even think lol). So she tells me to tell them “it’s only a consultation, which is a carve out, and no treatment is being done yet.” Ok so I call insurance back, get a different girl on the phone and tell her that exact sentence and she says “Oh yeah that would be us that approves that.” Thank God I finally talked to SOMEONE that knew what they were doing. She tells me it’s approved since it’s covered in our plan, so I asked her if she could send the approval to WCF. She says, she doesn’t have to and that it’s just automatically approved and then says have a great appointment. (Stress level came back down.)

Wednesday (yesterday): The girl from WCF called me in the morning to confirm my appt for today and wanted me to call her back to confirm since she got my voicemail. I called her back and she asked if I had gotten the approval. I said yes and told her what insurance said about not having to bring anything in. She said that they needed to send something to her. (Stress level waaaaaaay back up again.) I told her about everything I went thru on Tuesday and she (so so so nice) said, well why don’t you come in for your appt and while you’re in with the doctor I’ll call your insurance and figure it out. (love her). Then she asked if I could just call the doctor’s office that referred me to see if they had it. So I called my Dr’s office and talked with the same nurse that had written up the referral. She said oh yeah I remember you, let me go grab your info please hold. She came back and the tone of her voice was completely different. “Oh my gosh, I made a big mistake, I wasn’t allowed to refer you to WCF because we aren’t contracted with them.” “What?” I said. Then she tells me that I have to go see my OBGYN for everything instead. (This was the day that without my loving husband, my cousin Lauren and my parents being there for me, Amy would have gone on a murderous rampage blowing people away with a bazooka!) She said “give me 5 minutes and I’ll call over there so you can call and make an appt right away and not have to wait.” SOOO I got in the shower to try and de-stress, and then called SJH Medical Center for Women to make an appt with my OBGYN. Here’s the convo… ME: Hi I was referred by Doctor C to DR. H to make an appt. since we’re having trouble TTC etc… SJH: Oh ok, well you need to be referred here. ME: I just said I had a referral…Dr. C’s nurse said she called over to do a push thru so I could make an appt. SJH: Oh, well maybe it hasn’t come thru yet so cal back later today and try to make an appt then. ME: OK.
So I go run errands with Lauren and am totally venting to her and she’s letting me de-stress and I’m feeling better. So we go have a nice lunch at an English pub, right down the street from my place, and my phone rings and it’s DR C’s nurse again “Hi Amy? We have another little problem I can’t refer you to your OBGYN for fertility yet. They said you have to go thru all these steps by getting your husband checked out first. He needs to get an SA done…etc…” I said, “well that really isn’t the problem yet. I have NO periods, so there’s not even a chance of us getting pregnant right now, I’m not ovulating, It’s all me right now” So she said ok well, I’ll do a push thru just for you back to your OBGYN, not for fertility, but just for irregular periods.
So I was soooo stressed the past 2 days, had to call and cancel my appt with WCF, and I still haven’t called my OB to try and get in there.

This whole situation is stressful enough as it is, why does everyone have to make it THAT much harder?? I had that appt for 2 weeks!!! No one could have realized the two weren’t contracted with each other???

I think I’m losing it over here…I had a couple panic attacks yesterday during all this which I hadn’t had in a long time. None so far today (thank God).

Side note: The next person to tell me “just relax, you’re over thinking it, when you relax, that’s when it will happen” WILL get blown away by a bazooka!!!

A

2 comments:

Hollister said...

aww, hun!! I can't believe they can't get their stuff together. Sorry you had to go through all that calamity. Stay positive :)

Amy@LittlePinkDollhouse said...

Thanks girl!!!