We see primarily Medicare and Medicaid patients in our private medical clinic....mostly the patients the other doctors don't want to see anymore because the reimbursements keep dropping. I get calls all the time from sick people telling me their doctors are dumping them because they are on Medicare. As far as the Medicaid patients, most were already dumped a long time ago. "Are we accepting new patients?" they ask hopefully. And when I say "yes we are", I can hear the familiar sigh of relief through the phone. But, this is a topic for another blog entry.
Today I am the patient. I have been sick for 2 weeks with a progressively worsening sinusitis. Never mind the stressors in my life that have compromised my immune system and allowed me to become ill from all the infectious bacteria on the doorknobs and elevator buttons I have touched. Those stressors are also topics for another blog as well.
Today I desperately need an antibiotic to treat the infection in my body that my own white blood cells are struggling with. And...drum roll, please....that antibiotic of choice, after much conversation with the R.N., the N.P., the M.D., and the Pharm.D. is..Levaquin! Okay! The script is called into our pharmacy. I retreat to my office and place a few phone calls with my raspy voice that disguises who I am and then race downstairs to pick up my prescription. The cost? Why, it's a mere $148! And that's AFTER the newly implemented Anthem Blue Cross plan health savings account discount (The medical practice recently switched from Humana when we received notice that our monthly premiums were being increased; mine to $1,600). Sticker shock ensues. Suddenly I feel sicker than I already felt...and that was sick enough. Let me sit down please in one of your two chairs facing Suze Orman on Oprah.
One hundred and forty eight dollars for the 7 white pills which will eliminate the thick green snot, the coughing, the sneezing, and restore my sense of smell and taste. Okay, I get it now. The insurance company wants to discourage me from buying medication to treat my illness. Their plan is working. Next time I get sick like this, I may be disincentivized from getting treatment. After all, my premium only costs $1,000/mo for my husband, son, and me with a $10,000 annual deductible. Isn't that great? We only have to pay the first 10 grand (including medication costs), plus our annual premium of 12 grand and THEN any further expenses are covered 100%. I’m still paying off medical bills from 2007 that the insurance didn’t cover.
Who can afford this? I can't. If the doctors who I work for didn't pitch in a little to cover the costs, I know firsthand what the consequences could be. Tragedy.
And that is also a topic I will expound upon in another blog.
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