The Crystal Lady Sound Off

Image your 71 year old mother is taken to the hospital by ambulance in the early morning hours. It is determined. that she has suffered a mild heart attack with fluid build up and high blood pressure. She is transferred .to a regional Cardiac center. She under goes invasive test on her heart and spends 4 day of continuous monitored care as Doctors try to stabilize her blood pressure. Various combination of medication are tried as well as blood thinners and a continuous drip of Nitro .

She is taken off all her current medication ( which have not worked in a long time) and her blood pressure medicine consists of 3 new medicines.
Careful monitoring is necessary as she also suffers from a brain tumor and diabetes.
She also does not take new medicine well. For some unknown reason she has to take the blood pressure medicine every 12 hours.

After 4 days she is sent home with 3 new prescription that her heart specialist has decided are best for her.

Now the fun starts. Sitting in some office in well known insurance company, some clerk decides that she does not need the medicine that has been worked out and decided on in a hospital by a qualified doctor.

Instead the insurance company presumes to change the medicine and prescribes another medicine in its place. . In the mean time, The patient pays for the medicine out of pocket. in order to remain stable while the doctor, insurance company and pharmacy work out the problem. The doctor has prescribed one of the other medicine 5 mg to be taken twice a day. Insurance company says no. So patient is given a 10 mg doze and told to cut not scored pill in half twice a day. Even with a cutter how accurate a doze do you get by cutting pills in half.

It seems we soon will not need doctors at all. People in insurance companies will be able to control what medicine we are given and what dose. It is not your local pharmacy that is making big bucks off this new Medicare plan. It is the insurance company and drug companies who have now taken over the roll of health care provider. If the company that makes the medicine you need does not give a good kick back to the insurance company on price they can then require pre-approval and make it hard for you to get the medicine. Kick in or be kicked out.

I was the mother. I took the best policy I could find at a high cost of $56.00 a month with Aetna.
If this was the best plan I feel sorry for the old lady who got a cheaper plan.

Every body is talking about the " donut hole" in the policy. That will be my next problem.

But first I have to find out who decided that some insurance company was in charge of my medicine
and not my physician.

Sincerely
Joan Estelle High
Comments can be sent to crystal@ crystallady.com