A friend asked me yesterday how you can get past the medical gatekeepers: clerks, secretaries, and nurses in medical offices, HMOs or insurance companies. My first suggestion was that you initially try to be very pleasant but firm and if that doesn't work then you need to use your "Big voice". If neither of these work, you can ask a doctor friend to intervene as I have done countless times. You can also send a registered letter to the doctor, the CEO of the insurance company or the HMO. If none of these work then I would either change doctors, change HMOs or change insurance companies.
The whole idea of medicine these days seems to be to keep people out of offices, HMOs or to get any benefit from their health insurance. People with disabilities or chronic health problems have the worst problem because their care takes time and costs money. There is a wonderful national agency to help those with disabilities. It is Protection and Advocacy and they are great. They have attorneys who will help and they want to help, not keep you away. There are other advocacy groups which I list in 101 Ways To The Best Medical Care.
When you write a letter to a CEO of an HMO or insurance company, there is one sentence that will almost always get results. If you say you are willing to consult an attorney unless you get the care that you need you will probably get fairly immediate action. The HMOs and insurance companies have had so many expensive law suits that the very mention of an attorney will usually light a fire under them. Medicine has come to a pretty bad place when this kind of statement is necessary to get adequate medical care. I hope the President and Democrats will ignore the Republicans and get a decent health care bill passed. I must admit that I don't see this happening unless we all start calling and writing our Congress representatives. They have wonderful health care so why should they care about the rest of us?
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Posted by: Jorge | November 14, 2013 at 02:14 PM