The large corporations of the American healthcare industry were messing with me for the last six weeks. The insurance carrier provided through my employer decided to merge with another second-tier carrier that is also popular in the region where I live. When the two companies merged, their networks of doctors were supposed to merge. I say "supposed to" because the newly merged insurance company decided to renegotiate the contracts with its networks of doctors and lowered the "customary fees" it would pay. Some doctors did not like this, and left the network.
I decided back in June to go get the prescription for my glasses checked by an optometrist for the first time in years. Since my father has been diagnosed with glaucoma, and my eye pressure has always been a little on the high side, my optometrist recommended seeing an opthamologist in the same office. I did, and I had an initial battery of tests. My opthamologist saw now problems but wanted me to come back in a month to take the "vision field test" again because nerves can skew the test results and she wanted to get a good baseline.
Naturally, my newly found opthamologist was affected by this change between my first and second appointments. Thanks to weddings, visits with an attorney to get some estate planning documents drawn up, and a high pressure work schedule, I've been rescheduling this followup appointment for a month in order to get the insurance issue settled. First, I moved to a better plan in order to insure better coverage if my opthamologist was outside the network. Then there were problems that prevented my insurance carrier from knowing that I'd changed plans. Finally, there was some cryptic paperwork provided by the eye medecine practice describing what insurance they were now accepting that I didn't know what to do with.
All that finally resolved itself today. The plan change will be reported to my insurance company and I will be able to get a temporary card reflecting my new level of coverage. Plus, I discovered that I am covered (albeit through a negotiated back door), based on the paper work the office provided.
*sigh* Of course, I come to discover that Mrs. Geek's car is suddently guzzling gasoline and the steering wheel needs to be turned 10-15 degrees counter-clockwise to keep the car driving in a straight line. *double sigh* It's always something.
said drgeek
on 2006-08-11 at 10:02 p.m.
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The Wayback Machine - To Infinity And Beyond
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