keith’s new self

I’m thrilled to say that my insurance claim was approved. This is a big relief. Thanks all for the advice and support. It’s great to have this behind me.

posted: 2:53 pm

  3 Comments

I’ve been making noise at various parties trying to get this resolved. I’ve learned that the rep I was dealing with at IAP was in fact just a data gathering person, not someone who makes a decision on the claim (she just passes on the info to an adjudicator to make the decision). The COO at the benefits company (the middleman between me and IAP) has gotten involved as well, and I think has helped push the thing along - now my claim is being adjudicated without the missing file, to determine if that test result is even necessary. This is good since the adjudicator may very well approve the claim without it, but they may also come back and say that the file is required. I should know soon. In any case, I’m glad to see this thing pick up velocity.

Being the geek that I am, I wrote some Perl code to process my situation:

$person = JUNIOR_ASSISTANT_IAP_EMPLOYEE;
while($claim->unresolved()) {
    do {
        if (make_noise_at($person) == 'success') {
            $claim->resolve();
        }
        else {
            $person = $person->superior;
        }
    } until ($person == IAP_CEO);
    if ($person == IAP_CEO) {
        use Legal::Threats 'threaten';
        threaten($person) while $claim->unresolved();
    }
}
do_happy_dance();

Yeah, that should do it!

posted: 11:15 am

  2 Comments

I am in the middle of a “critical health” insurance claim with Industrial Alliance Pacific, which has now taken nearly 5 months to process, with seemingly no end in sight. They say they need to verify that I wasn’t being treated for Hodgkin’s 24 months previous to when I got the policy, so they need to follow up on every medical incident I’ve had over the last 3 years. This has taken a ridiculous amount of time, since their method appears to be “pursue one incident at a time” (rather than many in parallel - that would be waaaayyyy too efficient), and “use only the fax machine to contact doctors”. If the doctor doesn’t respond, wait a week and fax them again. Don’t call them and ask why they aren’t responding, that would again be waaaayyyy too efficient.

So here we are, five months later. I’ve ended up doing a bunch of footwork myself, visiting clinics personally, asking WTF is going on, just to move the process along. Now, there is only one record they need. In January 2003 I went to a walk-in clinic and got one of those “peace of mind” STD tests. In my provincial health record however, it just says that I had a “pathology” test, which I guess is suspicious to IAP as possibly being a test for Hodgkin’s. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t make any logical sense that I would have a single test for Hodgkin’s with no other related tests or treatment in years - the paper pushers at IAP need to see it in writing.

In the meantime the doctor who I saw for this test, Dr. Ocana, moved his practice to Bowen Island and sold his Vancouver practice to another doctor, Dr. Karim. Apparently IAP was having a heckofa time (read: weeks and weeks) finding Dr. Ocana, so it came back to me to find him, which I did in a about an hour with Google and a phone call. Problem is, neither Dr. Ocana or Dr. Karim have a record of my visit (each office told me to call the other, of course). One odd thing that has come up a couple times at Dr. Karim’s office is that they say it could be “in storage”, which they without explanation equate to being “irrecoverable”. That little contradiction I still haven’t got to the bottom of, but I am imagining a mini-storage full of badly-organized bankers’ boxes that the doctor’s office fears ever having to dig through, because it’s such a mess, and not worth their time.

So I call MDS Metro Labs, where I actually got the lab work done, but they don’t seem to have the record either, since they don’t do pathology-type tests themselves - they send the samples to be tested at provincially-run hospitals (they couldn’t tell me which one). I talked to my IAP rep, and she said that they “have a company” that will search for this record for them, hinting that this would be just as bad a bureaucratic nightmare (i.e. taking months and probably thousands of dollars to do the equivalent of a few phone calls of work).

So my options appear to be one or more of the following:

1. Pressure Dr. Karim et al to crack open the mythical mini storage and find my file. Pain-to-likelihood-of-success ratio: high. This clinic has shown almost zero desire or capacity to help me. Seems like pure pain.

2. Call/visit every local hospital, tracking down the records department inside the inscrutable, labyrinthine physical/organizational sprawl/jungle/mess that is the modern superhospital. Pain-to-likelihood-of-success ratio: medium. Looks painful, but if my record is indeed at one of these hospitals, it seems likely that I’d be able to find it.

3. Try to cajole IAP into overlooking this test result. Means navigating the inscrutable, labyrinthine organizational sprawl that is the modern insurance company, to find the bureaucrat with the power and willingness to hear my case. Pain-to-likelihood-of-success ratio: medium.

4. Do nothing. Wait for the ponderous wheels of insurance bureaucracy to churn out my claim dollars. Sun goes supernova. Total heat death occurs. Brahma, Shiva and Leonard Cohen have tea, play croquet. Pain-to-likelihood-of-success ratio: infinity plus one.

Observations:

1. Not sure how typical my case is, but I’m guessing many people probably die before getting their critical health insurance claims processed.

2. Doctors and insurance company bureaucrats have no incentive to process health claims quickly. The insurance industry is very consolidated, and I’m guessing competition around claim processing times is non-existent, most likely because it’s something you don’t think about until you need it. Woe to those who enter here.

3. Haven’t seen much in the way of consumer activism around insurance. Considering creating a website to help with this.

posted: 12:01 pm

  6 Comments

Hello sports racers! I’m now mostly recovered from my 10th round of chemo. The horrible chemo taste and smell distortions are almost gone, so I can enjoy a morning cappuccino again without it tasting like horseblanket purée* . One of the only things that is immune to this sensory jihad is ramen soup from Ezogiku Noodle Cafe, conveniently located a block from work. I eat there almost every day because I can actually taste and enjoy the food (you can’t imagine what it’s like to lose this basic comfort unless you actually do). Looks like I’ll be recovered from my last chemo in time for my 28th birthday, November 23rd. So it seems likely that my goal to outlive Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain will be, as my young friend Aidan likes to say, “mission accomplished”.

*credit to Kurt Vonnegut for this useful and effective simile.

posted: 10:29 am

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krista, i love you

you are beautiful, patient and kind

you are strong, wise and powerful

you are funny, caring, and compassionate

you are my true love

posted: 9:33 pm

  5 Comments

The folks ruling the neighbouring country to the south make me nervous/sad.

But Ze Frank makes me smile.

And Noam Chomsky is more relevant than ever.

And Ross Anderson, the mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, recently made one of the most important speeches of our time.

And people like Bruce Schneier are talking about sane, reasonable, effective methods of beating terrorism - instead of the fear-mongering, privacy invasions and “security theatre” happening at airports and elsewhere.

A few sparks of light in a dark time.

posted: 12:13 pm

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Just had an appointment with my extraordinarily good-looking oncologist, Dr. Savage. She said my CT scan looked “very good”. The formerly titanic pineapple is now a mere 5cm x 3cm. Lemon or smaller!!! I called it!!! Woo!!!! Woo!!!! (Red, white and blue balloons drop from the ceiling). Dr. Savage sez: The lemon is probably mostly scar tissue (fibrosis). It may never go away completely, as the chemo only kills the evil, freedom-hating Hodgkin’s cells, not the moderate, open-minded fibrosis cells. I’ll get a PET scan after my chemo treatment to determine whether we need to zap the lemon with WMDs (this blog post is gonna be picked up by Carnivore, for sure. Hello RCMP database entry).

She also remarked that I have the smoothest head she’s ever seen (I surmise she was speaking in phrenological terms, where a smooth head indicates a mind unburdened by cares or worries - an accurate diagnosis).

posted: 11:17 am

  7 Comments