Vampire Weekend's Surprising Jewish Stories
5 min read
In a sea of looming bills and chemo shortages, my CT scan showed that my cancer was largely gone.
“I want to play hooky,” I said only half-jokingly to my partner before chemo #4 as we packed up lunch, laptops, a blanket, phone charger, chest of ice, and ice packs for my hands and feet. My wish came true a little while later in the oncologist’s office, when she reported that my CT scan from two days earlier showed the cancer was largely gone.
She sent me downstairs to meet with the gynecologic oncologist and schedule surgery, because the chemo had worked well and shrunken the tumors. Thank God. I merited a “get out of jail free card” on chemo #4 until after the surgery.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful for chemo. There’s a shortage of it, which you may not know if you don’t have a loved one experiencing cancer. My oncologist explained that there’s not enough profit motive for its manufacture in the United States, so we’ve been relying on factories overseas, some with quality control issues.
The U.S. is facing shortages of more than a dozen cancer drugs, as well as hundreds of other medications, including antibiotics. The shortfall has affected hundreds of thousands of patients, according to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Where are our priorities? It’s shocking that drugs aren’t readily available to people with a serious disease.
Specialists have had to adjust the way they give treatment as the mainstays of chemotherapy have become scarce. My oncologist is rationing doses of chemo by 10 percent or more among patients to preserve supplies. I’m happy to be able to receive the drugs and thrilled they are working.
So are all the prayers around the world. I have awoken to a profound sense that God is with me and cares about me.
I also have awoken to the importance of accepting human aid. My medical bills were flying in as fast as the flurry of Harry Potter’s letters of acceptance to Hogwarts.
Along came a new part-time job: managing my bills and insurance estimates of benefits.
This is the first time I’ve had a major medical issue and I was fearful and unprepared all the way around. The medical side of cancer is daunting enough, but the financial side packs an additional punch.
I’d started to get into a rhythm with doctors’ appointments and treatments, then along came a new part-time job: managing my bills and insurance estimates of benefits.
I was in over my head and knew I needed help. I also knew not to make payments on surprise bills until I had done my homework.
For weeks I spent hours on the phone, holding for or actually speaking to customer service and billing folks, trying to untangle the paperwork. As a journalist, I’m used to asking questions and looking for the right sources to provide information. How do regular people do this?
I had a concept of a type of advocate who could help. My query went something like this: “I’m looking for someone to review estimates of benefits and bills to make sure everything matches up, and there are no errors and I’m not overpaying.”
A kind and empathetic oncology nurse solved the puzzle for me. She told me about “claims assistance professionals.” The services they offer include organizing health insurance paperwork, reviewing bills and determining proper payment, and negotiating with providers on patient balances.
I found a website for an association of independent claims assistance professionals and called a few around the United States. These medical billing advocates typically charge a fee, which I learned can be as high as $225 per hour, and a percentage of any saving.
Meanwhile, I also contacted the nonprofit Patient Advocate Foundation, which provides free case management and financial aid to Americans with chronic, life-threatening and debilitating illnesses.
In the end, a relative kindly put me in touch with her former billing coordinator, Sara, who has years of experience working in medical offices and came highly recommended.
Sara cheerily said she’d be happy to help. “I do this all the time. It doesn’t take long because I’m so familiar with what I’m looking at,” she reassured me, adding that she helps relatives and friends at no charge. “People need help, and I am able to do it.”
Wow! Such gifts of generosity and decency are the gold in my cancer experience, and they are far from rare.
For instance, anonymous people at work have donated enough sick leave hours to me to cover my upcoming time off for medical procedures and healing.
And true to her word, Sara has organized and correlated all my financial paperwork. She e-mailed me a tidy Google spreadsheet, with categories like “provider,” “total amount billed,” “allowable,” “paid by insurance,” “deductible,” “coinsurance” and “member responsibility.”
We walked through the spreadsheet together, as she told me which bills were ready to be paid. I thanked her profusely: “No way could I have done this myself!”
With bills paid, now I can sleep at night and focus all my energy on healing.
I pray to use my experiences to inspire others with ideas and hope. Yes, medical problems and bills can quickly become overwhelming, but we often have more ways than we might think to navigate them. Sometimes it’s just a matter of finding the right advocate that works for you. The peace of mind is worth the time and energy it takes.
Al
May you and others in your situation be blessed by Hashem with excellent health and may our gov't and insurance and drug industry focus on our citizens and patients so they don't have to navigate such an insanely complicated system in general, but especially when they are suffering from challenging medical issues.