Who Should Pay This

[chaschata]

i was reading the thread “cash before chemo: hospitals get tough” and it made me think about the hospital coughing up the dough to pay for my medication i need because they were so careless as to put me in a room that had a c-diff patient in several hours before i was put in the room. the room was not cleaned properly, the bed, the phone, the tv remote, the bathroom, the floor, the sink, everything in the room. put the nurses in danger, put the people who delivered the meals in danger, put the people who run a mop on the floor in danger, put people who visit in that room in danger. do not get me wrong this has not a thing to do with the nurses and everything to do with the powers that be that are responsible to insure the rooms are cleaned from administration to the person cleaning any room and especially a room that had had an infectious patient in it.

in march of this year i had a bad copd exacerbation due to smoke inhalation from several neighbors using their wood burning stoves and a shift of wind lucky me towards my house and half opened window. went to er, all the usual stuff that goes on from (the angels from heaven) i.e.nurses, when you cannot breath and an 8-hour albuterol neb. because we live about 45 miles from hospital, doctor wanted to admit me and did. i was admitted on the medical floor, as the er nurse and i get off the elevator and i am being transported to my room i see these yellow carts that look similar to a mechanic’s tool box parked next to patient rooms with the patient rooms door shut. about the 5th or 6th one i see i ask the nurse, what the hell are those yellow carts for, she said those are isolation carts. i said isolation carts for what and she said different kinds of isolations. by the time we get to my room, i had counted 11, with the 11th one right next door to the room i was going in.

when my rn one of those angels from heaven shows up a few minutes later to do all the stuff she has to do, i ask her what kind of infections do all of these people have where those yellow carts are parked, she said i can’t tell you sorry you know privacy issues. it is now saturday so the doc does not do rounds until that evening, i tell him hey i want to go home, i feel 100% better and if i should for some reason start going downhill the fire dept is right across the street. i have the same junk (meds – albuterol inhaler and nebs, spiriva and oxygen) at home, as i am getting here and i am just taking up space, so he let me go home with a prescription short step down of prednisone.

i got sick the next day puking, diarrhea of a most unpleasant odor and a temp of 102, and sores and blisters are popping up on my fingers, top of my hands, wrists and arms this goes on for several weeks, i am living on ice cubes made out of pedelyte and in my infinite wisdom i am thinking the unpleasant aroma is from the pedelyte, what do i know. the next week i finally get a doc’s appointment, in the mean time i am tearing my hair out trying to figure out what was different the day i went to the hospital on friday afternoon and getting out on saturday the next day and it hits me, the day before i went to the hospital i started taking paxil. every thing that is going on can be side effects of paxil, so i quit taking it. go to my doctor and she send me straight to the hospital let me add another hospital and admitted through the er they take one look at the sores and blisters and off to an isolation room i go. i have c diff, where did i get the c diff, the hospital i was at in march. we did not know that then of course but after 2 weeks of cajoling and threatening come to find out the room i was in had been vacated by a patient with you guessed it c diffe, there were 7 with c-diff on the floor the night i was admitted. i was in the hospital 12 days on flagyl and sent home with a 2-week prescription of flagyl; cost me $40.00 and my insurance company $223.20. 4 days later i was back, even on the flagyl my poo was positive, this time 6 days in the hospital on flagyl and vanco. sent home with scripts for flagyl and vanco for 3 weeks, cost me $80.00, cost my insurance company $2,624.80.

now is where the irish luck comes in june 1 is the beginning of his company’s fiscal year and they had separated the medical insurance from the prescription insurance effective june 1, didn’t give it much thought until the c-diffe is back a 3rd time june 14th, this time the prescription insurance won’t cover the flagyl or the vanco they are considered tier 4 drugs under the new prescription plan. doc writes two prescriptions one for flagyl and one for vanco this time for 6 weeks, cost flagyl is $789.60 and vanco is $4,620.00, gee if i had $5,409.60, i would run away from home. i called the first hospital, explained the situation and they said so what, you can’t prove it. wrong i can prove it and their response was so what sue us. so that is exactly what i am going to do. provided i live long enough to do so and if i don’t my kids will have a good time on the money. i love nurses, but those hospital administrators are greedy little -------

[tk3100]

Best of luck in your endeavors, as they richly deserve it. Administration seems to care only for the bottom line. While I realize that not all admin is this way, I have not yet met one that isn't willing to throw patients and staff under the bus in favor of the almighty dollar.

[morte, LPN, LVN]

in the short term, you need to appeal your ins co decision....and get the doc to rewrite the script for iv vanco....the directions on how to dilute it and use it po are in the literature.....good luck