Rant #4,024: Honesty

I am seemingly in some type of black pit, not of my own making, but I am there, and I simply cannot get out.

The medical establishment that we, as a society, have to deal with is broken, and while I won't be doing a "Mangione" on this situation, I am the perfect example of why the current system doesn't work.

Yes, it has to do with Obamacare from several years ago, and also the ultra-reliance on the Internet to do everything related to health care.

You mix those two things together, and you get a powder keg of problems ready to explode, and right now, it has exploded into my face, and mainly at my right eye.

And if you have Medicare, and probably with Medicaid too, you are sunk, like you are wearing cement boots.

Doctors do not want to deal with Medicare for one reason or another, but for people like me, who have only Medicare and no other health insurance, you are sunk.

I could count the ways, but let me describe to you the latest gaffe I have experienced related to this utter nonsense, stuff that I should not have to deal with, but stuff that has been thrown on my head to clear up all by myself.

Yes, it is time for--

More medical ineptness!

I was told that my medical insurance may not cover my upcoming operation, because it is a Medicare PPO. 

Even if it is under a well-known insurance company, Medicare is garbage, so the necessary surgery might come under some financial scrutiny that it wouldn't go under if it was not Medicare based.

I only found this out because I went through the Internet-mandatory check-in, and it only listed my insurance company name without the "Medicare" attached.

Anyway, I was not happy to find this out, but the woman I spoke to over the phone related to the check-in sent me a financial aid form, which I quickly filled out, with income-related attachments, via email.

Everything seemed to be hunky-dory.

WRONG.

I received an email telling me that the financial department of the medical facility received the form and the attachments--

BUT IT WAS THE WRONG, OUTDATED FORM!!!

And to add to the mess, my place of work sent me a 1099 form for the work I did for them in 2025, but it did not have the year that it covered on the form!

Funny, the state and federal tax departments accepted the 1099 form as is, but the hospital financial department would not.

I called the financial office nearly in tears, and a woman there apologized, stating that she will alert the person who sent this to me that the wrong form was sent.

To make a longer story shorter, I had to provide further tax documentation of my income, had to fill out the new financial document, and hopefully now that it is correctly done, I will find out the result sometime soon.

But again, I am a victim of gross ineptness and incompetency.

THIS IS NOT THE WORLD I WAS BORN INTO, AND THIS IS NOT WHAT RETIREMENT IS SUPPOSED TO BE ALL ABOUT.

Sure, you can say I sound like a broken record, but what I am telling you is the God's honest truth.

If you don't have to go through this, consider yourself lucky, and I do mean, VERY lucky.

And I am sure that I am not alone in experiencing this.

Inept doctors, staffs and insurance companies are ruining the quality of life of so many people, including me, and there really isn't very much I can do about it.

I am a peon, a number, an entity that they can make money from, and that is pretty much it.

Well, I am not a peon, I am not a number, and I am not an entity that they can make money from.

And as long as I keep my head straight, which is becoming more difficult to do lately, I will survive.

But I should not have to deal with such ineptness, no way, no how.

I don't even know how to end this Rant entry, because I know that I am far from done in dealing with these entities.

But let's just end it by saying that ...

Honesty is the best policy, and if I can alert just one person to be prepared for this nonsense, I think I have done my job.

Speak to you soon.

(P.S.: After making many calls yesterday, I reported the doctor and her surgical coordinator to the medical group they work for, and again, I had to use the term "getting a lawyer" to have them move on my complaints.

Late in the afternoon, the doctor actually called me on the phone from her car, and she defended herself in every way, which, of course, demonstrates her guilt more than anything I could ever do.

I also later found out that the doctor never forwarded information about my case to the new doctor who is actually handling the surgery, and that is why the new doctor told my wife and I that he didn't know why we were there when we went to his office last week.

Getting back to my former doctor ...

To end this discussion, as she was driving in her car, she said that she would look into firing her surgical coordinator for not providing her with the proper information about me ...

And the doctor yelled at me on the phone, and I ended up hanging up on her after she said she would look into firing the surgical coordinator.

Sorry, I don't like to see people lose their jobs, but in this case, putting me in such a negative physical position, it was warranted.

I am a quiet, shy guy, but if you get me started, you are going to get it right between the eyes.

All I ask is that people open up their ears and listen to what I have to say.

If they don't, they are going to get it, and going to get it the right way.

Incompetence needs to be addressed, and the moral of the story is that if something is not right --

OPEN UP YOUR MOUTH AND TELL PEOPLE THAT WHAT IS HAPPENING ISN'T RIGHT!!!

Period.)