Let’s Talk About the F@#^$*& Business of Health!
It is seven weeks into 2021 and I have invested over $11,000 of my savings into my healthcare and health care and am predicting I will invest a small salary this year. This includes my premium, anything against my deductible, my work with a Naturopath MD including supplements. This also includes things like acupuncture and that I elect to do, but feel are necessary for my recovery. I am on my own financially and I work freelance. I have to maintain my s-corporation status to keep the health insurance plan I can keep seeing the doctors I have been seeing. I pay a premium for an open network. I will keep seeing doctors until I can figure out why my optic nerves inflame and I can save my vision. Recently, I found a new primary care doctor as mine retired. I sought her out because specifically because while she has been a practicing MD for several years, she is also studying functional medicine. I discussed my approach and asked if she would help with tracking my inflammatory markers to see if I have any progress or change. After shaking her head while hearing my story, she told me would do what she could and then said, “western medicine is a band-aid.” We aligned that path to healing is the harder path, but for me, the one I want in the long run.
I am not saying this because I want you to feel bad. If you feel bad and want to help, I made a tool for that, the purchase of my book Blowing Up, that I am gratuitously plugging here. I am pushing it because I have dumped myself into it for eight months because I have a dream that I could make people laugh and that I had a tanginble option for people who asked how to help. I wanted to provide a piece of art in return for their support. Once I finish covering the hard costs, the sale of each book, after donations and taxes, will go towards those medical expenses and maybe give me a bit of a break. I made it a business and not a charity.
But back to the business of health care and healthcare. The cost and logistics around costs is one of the many challenges a patient takes on. Most people have to work while trying to recover to cover their medical expenses. The reality of becoming a patient is that the majority of the burden, if not all of it, falls on the patient. I am bewildered that HIPPA laws are so strict yet hospitals and clinics are not required to have one standardized way to request the release of medical records to other clinics and hospitals. I’d wager that this is because if your records go to another clinic, so will you and therefore, your business. I have spent dozens of hours in the last few years getting records shared, often to find that they have not been sent on first request.
Every single time I have fought with my insurance company on an issue, usually several rounds, I have won. I suspect they don’t want to pay and they bet that the patient doesn’t know or have the energy fight it. I have been sent the incorrect forms multiple times to appeal the same issue. When I get asked if I want a complaint form, I respond that I can’t keep track of all my complaints for them as well.
Recently when I was appealing the denial of coverage of the medication and it’s alternative that my doctors wanted me to take, I was informed not to worry. That the drug company had a program where I would pay as little as a few hundred dollars a year though that drug costs $18,000 a year directly to the patient. That tells me there is so much money going back and forth through these entities it just doesn’t matter. What the fuck? Yes, what the fuck? Where are all these dollars really going? And is the objective to heal patients or teach patients how to heal? Is there a business of keeping sick people sick? Yes, these thoughts keep me up at night.
So that is just one side of the business of health care. Let’s talk about the business of health care. I am talking about the work that a patient does. This month I will have had three doctors appointments, four lab draws with multiple tests, acupuncture three times, therapy three times (need to unravel the trauma of a four year battle) and I will probably spend an hour a week emailing between doctors and clinics. I will probably spend a few hours verify and paying medical bills. This is actually a light month. I take supplements five times a day and give myself a shot twice a week. I am focused on eating as many whole foods and vegetables as possible so meal prep takes at least an hour a day. I also try to get in at least a half an hour of aerobic exercise and a half hour of meditation a day. I try to sleep 9-10 hours a night. I am trying to launch a book and manage expanding my project to help more patients. And then I have to work to get money to pay for it. In the height of a global pandemic, though I spent most of my time all alone with nowhere really to go, I am as busy as ever. I am not trying to write a self-pity story. I am trying to paint a picture of a patient in America.
Here is the deal, I know I didn’t pick the easy button. I didn’t see any easy button, but it would have been a lot less work do immune suppression therapy and sit back and see if it works. I couldn’t. I didn’t feel after talking to a lot of informed people that I could sustain or get back to the quality of life I once had. My objective is to find the cause and heal. This takes effort, nutrients, time, and rest. Note, not one of those things is prescribed by western medicine, is covered by insurance nor can a drug company can’t make any profit off it. What do you think about that?
