Why social services are not for me.
Mar. 26th, 2002 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
judecorpI stopped studying psychology because my mother used to always tell me, "When you are a psychologist, you can help me with my problems." That was enough to make me run away screaming. I went into education because it was safe. Then I realized I missed the social sciences and opted to pursue social work. I figured that I wouldn't hear, "When you're a social worker..." conversations.
Let me go on record as saying that my father is my nightmare client. I'll spare your friends pages the grueling details.
/rant on
My father had a heart attack on 17 December 2001, a few hours shy of his 54th birthday. A few days later, he had a triple bypass operation. My father also has no health insurance. This is due in part to being self-employed and in part to being what one would consider "working poor." He would go to the doctor out of necessity only, but this one really, well, bit him in the ass.
He currently has about $80,000 in medical bills - 2 hospitals, 2 ambulance companies, several doctors, a pharmacy, etc. etc. This is where I come in. "Jude, you're a social worker. Tell me what I need to do." So when it first happened, I told him about the state money that is put aside for life/death treatment of uninsured people. I told him about medical assistance and about the Department of Human Services. I told him to talk to a discharge planner at the hospital.
You see, my dad is tired, and frustrated, and I understand this. He is not able to do what he used to and that bothers him. He is behind in his job and really can't catch up. So he comes home and he watches television for probably 10+ hours a day.
In the meantime, he has mail piling up. Bills. He gets angry. "How can they send me these bills?!?! They're going to give me a second heart attack!" He calls the customer service centers for the billing people, and yells at the customer service reps. He asks for their names, and tells them he's going to sue them if he gets sick again. He hangs up and says they are giving him the runaround because they are giving him other names and phone numbers. I say, "Dad, they are phone bank workers. They make $8/hr. They have no idea about public policy, they only know that if they type in your account number, they get your statement. They are giving you phone numbers of managers." He yells at me.
This morning, I went through all of my dad's bills and made some calls. I started with the hospital he had the surgery at - the $50K+ bill. I politely tell the woman that I'm calling on behalf of my father, who has no insurance and had a heart attack and now is being lambasted with bills and threats of collections. She tells me, "We sent him the application for free service two months ago, and it hasn't been returned." Well, to quote Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, "Don't I feel like the asshole." So I apologize and say I will find out about that, and she says that he was also given the phone number to DHS Rhode Island. I ask for that number, and she gives it to me. I thank her.
I call DHS, who give me a local number. It is the same number that I see on a piece of yellow paper in my father's folder of bills. Remember this, because it will come up later. I call this number, and explain everything, and speak to a lovely woman who tells me that she will send a big booklet application for medical assistance and he needs to fill it out and a caseworker will call him. I thank her, I tell my father.
Well, today he gets another bill from hospital #1. Collections threat. So he calls (AGAIN!) customer service and threatens to sue the rep. At which point I get irritated. I calmly say, "Dad, you don't need to get upset with her, she is a customer service rep, she is doing what she's supposed to do." He yells at me. I sit there. He yells about how he sends $10 every time he gets a bill, so how can they send him to collections? I speak calmly. "Dad, they don't care about your $10. They want you to get medical assistance so they can get $15,000." He swears at me and yells about how he needs his tax returns, yadda yadda. I nod. "I realize this," I say, and am suddenly feeling like I'm not on vacation from work, "but you need to understand that when they pull up your record, they see that they sent you a form 2 months ago and there has been no action on your part." At which point he gets irate, and my grandfather and I are trying to tell him not to get upset.
Finally I realize he is not my client, and I verbalize words that I think (but never say) when I have an irate client yelling at me. "Please understand that I am taking my time out to help you, and when you are yelling at me like this, it doesn't leave me wanting to help." Well at this point the F-word comes out and it's all, "Fine. Don't help. Take their side!" (Because, you see, I am on the 'side' of the pencil-pushing bleeding-heart bureaucracy.)
I let him blow his steam and go to move this box of stuff he wanted me to move, and come back and explain to him that while I know he's waiting for the accountant, the billing people don't know this - they only know that they sent him forms to help him and he doesn't do it. They don't even know that all he does is watch television. Finally I say, "And by the way, while I was taking 'their side,' I was calling DHS and they're sending you an application for permanent medical assistance. He says, "Wow! Where did you find that? I call all the time and no one helps me." I say, "Well, I got the number from the Billing people at Miriam Hospital, and they gave it to you 2 months ago, and you never called them." He says they never gave him that number. I say, "It was on a piece of paper in your folder. In the front. In your handwriting."
At this point he asked me if I wanted to come upstairs with him. I said no thank you, I left the computer on at grandma's and I was going to get back to my email.
This booklet is going to come from DHS and he's not going to fill it out, and so they won't send a caseworker and he will get these bills forever, and he will call customer service representatives and threaten to sue them. And he will get more irate, and collections will get involved, and he will say, "Why are they doing this to me?"
And somehow it will end up in my lap again, only I'm not getting paid.
/rant off
Let me go on record as saying that my father is my nightmare client. I'll spare your friends pages the grueling details.
/rant on
My father had a heart attack on 17 December 2001, a few hours shy of his 54th birthday. A few days later, he had a triple bypass operation. My father also has no health insurance. This is due in part to being self-employed and in part to being what one would consider "working poor." He would go to the doctor out of necessity only, but this one really, well, bit him in the ass.
He currently has about $80,000 in medical bills - 2 hospitals, 2 ambulance companies, several doctors, a pharmacy, etc. etc. This is where I come in. "Jude, you're a social worker. Tell me what I need to do." So when it first happened, I told him about the state money that is put aside for life/death treatment of uninsured people. I told him about medical assistance and about the Department of Human Services. I told him to talk to a discharge planner at the hospital.
You see, my dad is tired, and frustrated, and I understand this. He is not able to do what he used to and that bothers him. He is behind in his job and really can't catch up. So he comes home and he watches television for probably 10+ hours a day.
In the meantime, he has mail piling up. Bills. He gets angry. "How can they send me these bills?!?! They're going to give me a second heart attack!" He calls the customer service centers for the billing people, and yells at the customer service reps. He asks for their names, and tells them he's going to sue them if he gets sick again. He hangs up and says they are giving him the runaround because they are giving him other names and phone numbers. I say, "Dad, they are phone bank workers. They make $8/hr. They have no idea about public policy, they only know that if they type in your account number, they get your statement. They are giving you phone numbers of managers." He yells at me.
This morning, I went through all of my dad's bills and made some calls. I started with the hospital he had the surgery at - the $50K+ bill. I politely tell the woman that I'm calling on behalf of my father, who has no insurance and had a heart attack and now is being lambasted with bills and threats of collections. She tells me, "We sent him the application for free service two months ago, and it hasn't been returned." Well, to quote Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, "Don't I feel like the asshole." So I apologize and say I will find out about that, and she says that he was also given the phone number to DHS Rhode Island. I ask for that number, and she gives it to me. I thank her.
I call DHS, who give me a local number. It is the same number that I see on a piece of yellow paper in my father's folder of bills. Remember this, because it will come up later. I call this number, and explain everything, and speak to a lovely woman who tells me that she will send a big booklet application for medical assistance and he needs to fill it out and a caseworker will call him. I thank her, I tell my father.
Well, today he gets another bill from hospital #1. Collections threat. So he calls (AGAIN!) customer service and threatens to sue the rep. At which point I get irritated. I calmly say, "Dad, you don't need to get upset with her, she is a customer service rep, she is doing what she's supposed to do." He yells at me. I sit there. He yells about how he sends $10 every time he gets a bill, so how can they send him to collections? I speak calmly. "Dad, they don't care about your $10. They want you to get medical assistance so they can get $15,000." He swears at me and yells about how he needs his tax returns, yadda yadda. I nod. "I realize this," I say, and am suddenly feeling like I'm not on vacation from work, "but you need to understand that when they pull up your record, they see that they sent you a form 2 months ago and there has been no action on your part." At which point he gets irate, and my grandfather and I are trying to tell him not to get upset.
Finally I realize he is not my client, and I verbalize words that I think (but never say) when I have an irate client yelling at me. "Please understand that I am taking my time out to help you, and when you are yelling at me like this, it doesn't leave me wanting to help." Well at this point the F-word comes out and it's all, "Fine. Don't help. Take their side!" (Because, you see, I am on the 'side' of the pencil-pushing bleeding-heart bureaucracy.)
I let him blow his steam and go to move this box of stuff he wanted me to move, and come back and explain to him that while I know he's waiting for the accountant, the billing people don't know this - they only know that they sent him forms to help him and he doesn't do it. They don't even know that all he does is watch television. Finally I say, "And by the way, while I was taking 'their side,' I was calling DHS and they're sending you an application for permanent medical assistance. He says, "Wow! Where did you find that? I call all the time and no one helps me." I say, "Well, I got the number from the Billing people at Miriam Hospital, and they gave it to you 2 months ago, and you never called them." He says they never gave him that number. I say, "It was on a piece of paper in your folder. In the front. In your handwriting."
At this point he asked me if I wanted to come upstairs with him. I said no thank you, I left the computer on at grandma's and I was going to get back to my email.
This booklet is going to come from DHS and he's not going to fill it out, and so they won't send a caseworker and he will get these bills forever, and he will call customer service representatives and threaten to sue them. And he will get more irate, and collections will get involved, and he will say, "Why are they doing this to me?"
And somehow it will end up in my lap again, only I'm not getting paid.
/rant off
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no subject
Date: 2002-03-26 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-03-26 01:08 pm (UTC)I realize that the social service delivery system is frustrated and requires a lot of red tape... but I also realize that when you are nice to people, they are more likely to help you out.
Ugh.
no subject
Date: 2002-03-26 09:02 pm (UTC)My sympathies. I can't say it's never like that...but sometimes it isn't.
BTW, I will respond to your email! :-)