A story about Bad Doctor and good customer service

Brianna's eyesight is... poor. We found out at her 7-year well check that she's legally blind in her left eye, with her vision rated at 20/400. This came as quite a shock to us, since she'd never shown any of the "normal" symptoms -- she'd always done well in school, didn't squint when trying to watch television or read and didn't ever complain about it.

The first optometrist we'd taken her to understood the problem -- he was very smart, diagnosing Brianna with a "lazy eye", and even diagnosing some of the Lovely Bride's... quirks, like constantly telling me that I was stopping too close to the car in front of us, as related to her eyesight. Brianna (and the Lovely Bride) got their glasses (plastic lenses for Brianna, since the polycarbonite lenses were going to be an additional $100 we didn't have at the time), and all was right with the world -- with one exception...

The optometrist suggested a course of vision therapy for Brianna. He said that her brain had adjusted to her poor eyesight, and that her eyes were being used differently than most people. Rather than working in tandem, she was using one eye to determine where things were, and her "good" eye to determine what they were. His vision therapy would work on teaching her eyes how to work in tandem again. Sounds great, right? Well, it would be, except:

• Insurance won't cover it.
• The cost is over $7000.

Not what we wanted to hear.

Still, being dutiful, concerned parents, we went ahead and put her on the waiting list. We figured we'd take a look at our finances, and maybe by the time she was able to get into the program, we'd have found a way to swing it. Brianna's turn on the waiting list came up, and we had to pass -- finances being what they are for a one-income / four-person family, $7,000 didn't magically appear in the intervening six months. No problem, we thought. We'll just continue on with the glasses, and look for a more traditional (and insurance-covered) method of working through this.

That's where the problems started.

Brianna's glasses broke -- the arm came out of the socket on the temple hinge. We called her doctor, and they said that the glasses were still covered under warranty. No problem, only the frames Brianna had have been discontinued -- they could only get Plum or Honey colored frames, not pink. Given Brianna's complexion and hair color, we opted for Plum.

Shortly after that, Brianna's annual eye exam came up. Her vision was improving a little bit, which was good. We asked her doctor about more traditional methods of treating a "lazy eye", and he again suggested the Vision Therapy as the treatment of choice, and proceeded to make us feel like inadequate and uninterested parents because we weren't able to afford the program.

Let me repeat that:
Her eye doctor made us feel like inadequate and uninterested parents because we couldn't afford a program not covered under insurance.

I can certainly understand a doctor suggesting a course of action as the right thing to do, regardless of the cost. That's their job, to do what's right for their patient. What you don't do, under any freaking circumstances, is tell parents that if they cared about their daughter's eyesight, they'd find a way to fork over $7,000 for something their insurance company doesn't recognize as a valid treatment.

We changed optometrists. No-brainer. Since Brianna had just had her annual exam, we paid for this one out of pocket. Her new doctor is recommending more traditional methods of treatment, and doesn't feel that the vision therapy is necessary. We were glad to be done with the old doctor.

Her glasses broke again last Tuesday, in the exact same way. Crap. That meant we had to go back to her original doctor, since they had the warranty information. We stopped in, and they said that the glasses were no longer under warranty, and we'd have to pay $36 to get a replacement temple for them. We paid them, and then came the phone call. The Lovely Bride took the call from her old doctor's office, and they told her that the manufacturer didn't have any replacement temples -- we'd have to get the only frames they had left, which were the Honey-colored frames. Again, given Brianna's hair color and skin tone, this was less than ideal.

This is where the outstanding customer service comes into play. The Lovely Bride called VSP, our insurance carrier. After explaining the situation, they agreed to authorize an early exam, frame and lens benefit. Brianna's appointment was on Friday, and she's getting her new glasses (with the polycarbonite lenses, which are fully covered by insurance for anyone under 18, contrary to what her old doctor's office had told us) within two weeks.

It turns out that you can still find good customer service -- we couldn't be happier with the insurance carrier, and we're never going back to her original doctor again.

The Seinfeld of Blogs (a blog about nothing)

[This is a re-blog (how sad is that) from my first blog entry on MySpace. (originally posted 10/22/2008). Since there were things I just didn't like about the MySpace blogging system, I decided to try out Blogger to see how it goes.]

Or, "Jeremy's being a whiny bitch and just needs to suck up and deal with it"

I've been dealing with a bum leg for a long time. I'd actually consider it a really long time, but I'm still 6 years away from it being half of my life. It's something I've come to terms with as a constant -- death, taxes, linux fanboys bashing all things Microsoft, the Broncos not being able to field a competent defense and leg pain. On the off chance that anyone reads this that doesn't know, I took a little, 4-inch-or-so fall off a skateboard the only time I ever tried to ride one, and spent a week in the hospital as a reward. 1 surgery, 2 plates and 20-or-so screws later, my leg and ankle were put back together. My Lovely Bride has been reminding me for years that I ought to go and see a doctor about it, to get something done since the pain has gotten worse over time. I've always come up with some rationalization or other as to why now's not a good time, or some other nonsense to divert attention from the fact that I suffer from chronic procrastination syndrome. About a month ago, the Lovely Bride noticed that there was swelling in my leg -- not an uncommon occurrence by any stretch of the imagination, but the location was odd. Rather than being located around the ankle, it's centered right about at the top of the outside incision where they put humpty dumpty's leg back together. Finding this odd (and relatively disconcerting), I set up an appointment to have it looked at.

[Some day, I'll write about the HMO Primary Care Physician to Specialist referral "system". It's a good thing I only needed to see an orthopedic surgeon, and not an oncologist or cardiac specialist. That's a story for another day]

Fast forward a little under a month. All kinds of scenaros have been playing out in my head, most of which involve some sort of hardwarectomy, replacement, or other such thing that doctors, especially orthopedic surgeons, do to make pain go elsewhere. I've prepped both jobs, the kids, friends and family for the fact that we're guessing I'm going to be going under the knife for sai..omy, and I'm ready for it. After 15 years of constant problems, pain and magnet jokes, I'm pretty much ready to have the damn stuff out of my leg, hopefully get some mobility back, and try to live a more "normal" life for a 36 year old chubby guy with two kids.

So, we went to the doctor today. Hopes were high -- we were chatting, making jokes, and everything was generally right with the world. X-rays were taken, genetalia was protected, and time was spent waiting for the Doctor.

The doctor's suggestion:
nothing

That's not nothing as in "He got stuck in traffic and we never saw him". Nor is it nothing as in "He's mute, so he really couldn't tell us anything." Nope.

Nothing. As in "There's nothing we can do." Nothing as in "No surgery is going to fix what's wrong. There's two choices, but they're both down-the-road fixes: fusing the ankle, or a prosthetic replacement. In the mean time, here's a prescription for some anti-inflammitories. Have a nice day, see you (and your $40.00 copay) in a week."

Shit.

Dissappointed would be an understatement. I spent most of the last month getting ready, trying to figure out worst-case scenarios. What if they had to re-break my leg? What if the surgery falls around Halloween, or Christmas?

Not once did I imagine that the answer would be "nothing".

Oh, and the swelling? It should go away with the anti-inflammitories. It's not uncommon, just a new thing that I'd never seen before.

In short, nothing.

So, the running total: $70.00 in copays, 1 day off work, prescriptions still to fill.

Result?

You guessed it.