Negotiations

The process of getting the surgery and the after-care lined up has turned out to be rather tricky. I’ve gotten multiple telephone calls from the claims adjuster I’m dealing with as she’s needed information that she didn’t have, and one of the things she told me that I wasn’t aware of is that the surgeon is considering IV anti-biotics while I’m convalescing. After taking a minute to think about it, this makes sense. As I said, however, I didn’t know he was going down this road.

Today I had a conversation with the nurse case manager at the hospital where the surgery will be performed. She told me that anti-biotics isn’t written in stone; it depends on how the surgery goes and where I’m at afterward. If anti-biotics are called for and if I need them for longer than 3 days, I’ll have to have a PICC line inserted into me. I’m hopeful that this is not the case; not that I have a problem with it, but it’s one more thing that I would have to deal with.  Between the wound vac and the immobility. adding this wrinkle to it would make things interesting indeed.

Apparently, the surgeon wrote orders to send me to a skilled nursing facility, or SNF – basically a nursing home with the resources to provide the additional care that I’m going to need. There are a number of nursing homes around here, some with skilled beds, none of them worth going to. I am familiar with all of them, and there are only 2 that I would trust enough to consider staying in. Any of the others are a step above hovels, in my opinion.

Martha had a conversation with the UR agent, and from what they told her the only thing we can do to attempt to get into a rehab facility is to appeal this in writing. Honestly, I don’t know that it will make a difference. On top of that, from what I’ve been finding, there aren’t available beds, at least as of today. In two weeks that may be a different story, but it’s not as of right now.

So, as of this writing, I’m kind of screwed. Things can change over time, and they often do. However, I’m not convinced that this will go my way.