Thursday's News
Virginia came very close to discharging today.
I am reminded that anytime anyone is in the hospital you really need to have someone close to you actively "ride herd" on every detail of the whole process.
The only hang-up to leaving was payment arrangements with Hillsboro Rehab. The discharge planner had me call them. It turns out that her primary insurance would pay 70% of the daily charges and my insurance would cover 60% of the remaining charges. That leaves us with "only" $60 per day. I gave a credit card number for the $250 deductible and an agreement to work out a payment plan for 30 days of care (refundable if she gets out earlier). Her doctor said 6-8 weeks.
So, now she could go "tonight." If I hadn't pushed for this we would have spent yet another day and insurance only allows so long. AMR was called but they ended up being late due to an "emergency run."
Then there was the snag of her wound vac. She was using a hospital size KCI wound vac that CAN NOT be let out of the hospital. You wouldn't believe how much KCI charges if one is lost. So we were awaiting a rental unit. No one had the kind of answer I needed. We were juggling the arrival of the wound vac versus the arrival of the ambulance.
I wanted to know exactly where the unit was currently located. No one would say "I don' t know." My thoughts were practical. If we knew where the delivery van was located we would know how long it might take to arrive and possibly offer to meet up in Hillsboro instead of Portland.
I know KCI has a toll free number so I called around 6:45. They had received the request and it was "pending." Everyone at KCI had gone home at 8pm (6pm our time). Then I thought "maybe" the request had been verbally approved and hadn't been entered into the computer.
Meanwhile the discharge planner and the nurse handling the wound vac (Linda) were checking this out. Linda had been told (not by KCI) it was approved but she found out the doctor hadn't signed the request. She and I both knew at that instant this d/c was cancelled for now. Virginia couldn't be off the wound vac for more than two hours.
So, AMR (ambulance) was cancelled just as they arrived at Adventist Medical Center.
I packed up Virginia's stuff and headed home. I would be working the next day (Friday) from 6:00 am to 2:30 pm.
Virginia came very close to discharging today.
I am reminded that anytime anyone is in the hospital you really need to have someone close to you actively "ride herd" on every detail of the whole process.
The only hang-up to leaving was payment arrangements with Hillsboro Rehab. The discharge planner had me call them. It turns out that her primary insurance would pay 70% of the daily charges and my insurance would cover 60% of the remaining charges. That leaves us with "only" $60 per day. I gave a credit card number for the $250 deductible and an agreement to work out a payment plan for 30 days of care (refundable if she gets out earlier). Her doctor said 6-8 weeks.
So, now she could go "tonight." If I hadn't pushed for this we would have spent yet another day and insurance only allows so long. AMR was called but they ended up being late due to an "emergency run."
Then there was the snag of her wound vac. She was using a hospital size KCI wound vac that CAN NOT be let out of the hospital. You wouldn't believe how much KCI charges if one is lost. So we were awaiting a rental unit. No one had the kind of answer I needed. We were juggling the arrival of the wound vac versus the arrival of the ambulance.
I wanted to know exactly where the unit was currently located. No one would say "I don' t know." My thoughts were practical. If we knew where the delivery van was located we would know how long it might take to arrive and possibly offer to meet up in Hillsboro instead of Portland.
I know KCI has a toll free number so I called around 6:45. They had received the request and it was "pending." Everyone at KCI had gone home at 8pm (6pm our time). Then I thought "maybe" the request had been verbally approved and hadn't been entered into the computer.
Meanwhile the discharge planner and the nurse handling the wound vac (Linda) were checking this out. Linda had been told (not by KCI) it was approved but she found out the doctor hadn't signed the request. She and I both knew at that instant this d/c was cancelled for now. Virginia couldn't be off the wound vac for more than two hours.
So, AMR (ambulance) was cancelled just as they arrived at Adventist Medical Center.
I packed up Virginia's stuff and headed home. I would be working the next day (Friday) from 6:00 am to 2:30 pm.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home