So after many conversations today, I do believe it necessary to procure a handsfree headset for the house phone. Or have it surgically attached to my head. Whatever the cheaper option is, let's go with that.
The doctor's office called and said that they hate us so very much (how dare we complain when they won't do their job!) that they refuse to treat her or write prescriptions even to get her through the end of the year. They tried having a conference call with the insurance company to get Mom a new doctor. It was the doctor's wife (yes, the same hostile woman who hung up on me) who tried conferencing with the insurance company. Mom told them that if he wasn't going to be her doctor anymore, she didn't want the doctor's office on the phone to know her business and that she'll talk to the insurance company sans conference call. GO MOM!! I had to laugh at that - my obstinate Mom is still in there and ready to kick someone's booty. Since she is confused, stressed, and forgetting everything, she told them to talk to me to work it out. The insurance company called without the doctor's office on the line, and since we haven't seen this doctor this month and he's refused any kind of service (again, I cannot sufficiently express my dissatisfaction, frustration, and outrage at the ridiculously unprofessional way in which this office conducts themselves nor my shock at what a BAD doctor he has become over time..simply disgusting), we may be able to get the insurance company to retroactively change her to a new doctor effective December 1st. If not, we'll have to wait til January 1st, which means that Mom has no doctor to name during the next two weeks. If she has any issues, we have to go to urgent care. Same with meds - and urgent care may or may not prescribe them.
The good news is that I've finally gotten through the maze of the insurance company's website and downloaded the formulary for 2013. The only drug I don't see covered is any sleeping pill of any kind, but since they are so common, I'm sure I must be missing it. It's 240 pages long, so I'm sure I'm just not looking in the right place. I've tried searching various drug names, sleep aid, insomnia, etc, and nothing. So I'll call them again and make sure. It also has lots of helpful information as to how we can ask for exceptions. For example, we can ask for an exception with her migraine medication. She must take brand name because generic does not work on her at all. Brand name is a higher tier, which means it would cost more, but we can ask for an exception to be charged at the lower tier, since it medically necessary and not by choice that she is restricted to name brand. It also looks like some of her meds have dropped tiers or that generics are now available - which means cost savings for us. I have no clue who told her that her liver meds weren't covered or that they'd cost $4K/month - that's insane and I have a hard time believing that anyone told her such things. However, she got this stuck in her head and has been weeping so much that she's caused her stomach to cramp again and she's moaning in pain in bed right now. I think we need to get her back on buspar. She was having fewer crying spells with it. The anxiety is going to kill her before the liver disease has a chance to.
The insurance company was genuinely shocked at the behavior and attitude of Mom's previous PCP. The rep told me that she completely understood that we'd need a new doctor because she has never spoken to an office as rude as this one. She said she was only trying to figure out what happened, and they were so rude to her that she wanted to hang up, but to help my mom, she didn't. I got a good laugh out of that. It's vindicating to hear that other people have the same problems with this office. Since they blamed me and called me names (btw, his wife said I'm a bitch, but we already knew that, and their actions were causing physical harm to my mother, so you're damn straight I'll be a "disagreeable woman"), it's a relief to hear that everyone else who deals with this office has the same problems. It allows me to put it in perspective. It's very difficult sometimes to decipher if I should be sweet and nice or persistent or demanding. It was very difficult for me to tell this doctor, who we'd been seeing for over a decade and previously loved and regarded as an excellent diagnostician with a generous heart, that he was not doing his job. Sometimes, as caregivers, we're told that we need to stand up to doctors who pass us off and don't treat the ill. That the squeaky wheel gets the grease. But it's terrifying to think that your squeaking led to your loved one not being treated. That I pissed them off by speaking up and made things worse. I hate the idea that this doctor is treating patients with this same attitude and lack of care, but I needed to know that it wasn't *me*.
I hope the new doctor lives up to his reviews and is willing to take Mom on, or at least to maintain her until we find a doctor willing to try to *help* be healthier and live comfortably for however many years she has left. As sick as she is, she's only 56 years old, and other than the HE, she doesn't have anything life-threatening. I've always said that my mom doesn't get the illnesses that kill you - she gets the ones that make life suck. The kind where you're in pain or limited in some way, but it just won't kill you. That's not what G-d had in store for her, for whatever reason. So, HE notwithstanding, she could live for another two decades as long as she has a doctor that actually treats her. It would be marvelous to find one that wants those years to be comfortable.
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