Oriented

[judecorp]

I am now oriented to the hospital system. I attended two days of ice breakers, group activities, motivational speeches, and organizational policies. I learned about parking, safety, confidentiality, organizational values, benefits, etc. I also got free breakfasts and lunches. Since I am used to working for small non-profits, it was pretty intense.

I got all of our benefit info and we will be switching health insurances effective June 1st. The new insurance costs less per month and has cheaper copays, so it's a no-brainer. The conundrum comes up in terms of my upcoming tonsillectomy. As my insurance stands now, I will have a $500 copay for a hospitalization or surgery. (And I just had one a couple of weeks ago, ugh.) Ouch. I have my pre-op appointment with my ENT on May 5th to schedule my tonsillectomy in May.

With my new insurance, I will have a $0 copay for hospitalization or surgery as long as I use one of the affiliate hospitals I work for. And the hospital is in Springfield, so none of the doctors I see have privileges in that hospital. So it would require: 1) postponing the surgery, 2) finding a new ENT with privileges in that system, 3) getting all of my records to that person, and 4) seeing if that person thought I should get a tonsillectomy.

I can either get it over with and pay a lot of money, or wait it out and pay nothing. Part of me wants to just get it over with, but $500 is a lot of money, especially when I can pay $0. I wonder if my ENT is going to freak out. Should I call him first, or just tell him at my May 5th appointment?

Comments

[cappucinogrrl.livejournal.com]

I say call him.

[oxlahun.livejournal.com]

I agree. Call him. If you're switching doctors, it may not even make sense for you to go on the 5th.

And he may be able to recommend someone in the new hospital system.

[sudrin.livejournal.com]

At Vandy we have the "Affiliate hospital coverage" deal and it can save *a lot* of money. I recommend waiting personally. The only gotcha is even with those often times there is a yearly out of pocket you have to pay before the "groovy" coverage starts. I would hate for this amount of money to ALSO be $500 dollars. (For me its $250)

[keelamonster.livejournal.com]

I agree with talking to him. Basically say "here's the deal, I like you, you've been a good doctor, but I'm in a pinch because of insurance. I need to have the procedure done at one of these affiliate hospitals and you don't go to those, so can you recommend someone I won't have to go through all of the hoops with who can do it for me there that you trust?"

I'm sure if he's the good doctor he should be, he'll recommend someone for you.

[eeka13.livejournal.com]

See if your new insurance will do an out-of-network waiver? It can't hurt to try. I've had them do it when either I changed insurance or one of my doctors stopped taking mine, and most of them will accept "I want to keep seeing my same doctor who knows my history" as a reason, because they don't wanna get sued.