Finally It's Friday

The truth is I have never heard of a Clinical Liasion. The description sounded so fancy I knew it would be away from any situations that might require a disclaimer. The funny thing is I am so careful about my wording; you know I am trained to be GRAPHIC. I think everything I've written about is so sugar coated. There are no descriptions of oder, or blood loss, or wound drainage. Geez ya'll are squeamish. So no up date on my poor little cat but instead some thoughts about our health care situation as a country. You can breathe now, no graphics in this post; however to me these contents are much more disturbing. But please read on, inquiring minds should know.

After a week, I am almost as confused as when I started. Each person there has their has own take on what we should do and when, all tweeked just enough that I could start drooling. I can't figure out why I feel so befuddled. It's like they are speaking an entirely new language, and actually for me it is. Trying to understand insurance, medicare, and medicaid, is a cotton pickin nightmare. What is OK, what will reimburse, and who, how sick, rehab potential, where are they going after us, how many are allowed from this hospital, calling on people by trying to just run into them in the halls, etc... etc...etc... Then understanding which situations we cannot help, but doing all the paperwork anyway just for the "numbers," and which does not credit me with anything. I think I have gone to a government created pit of hell. Talk about confusing!! But I have learned a couple of things. First of all ALWAYS get part B on your medicare, this is not negotiable. In the paperwork from Social Security it is completely unclear in ordinary language ,what "A" is for, and what "B" is for. Would you like to know in plain English? "A" pays the hospital, and "B" pays the doctors. You can have all the insurance in the world and not be able to get care if you can't pay the doctors. The insurance companies have ways out of everything, it is really getting bad when MEDI CARE reimburses better than anybody else! They are so stinkin regulated that some people just fall through the cracks and there is no where for them to go. Seriously it is a major problem! For example; an elderly woman falls at home. She hurts her spine high up in the cervical area, but not an actual broken neck. She requires a ventilator to breathe because of the injury and she cannot get off of it. She is however ALERT and AWARE! She was healthy, she is not really sick, but she cannot breathe on her own. Because she is not SICK, no other facility can accept her. Nursing homes do not take ventilator patients, trach patients, or acute patients so basically this patient is condemned to spend the rest of her life in the ICU. Eventually she will get some kind of super infection and die there. How seriously wrong is that?

Another situation involved an illegal immigrant who claimed he had no place to go and no family. There was no acceptable place to discharge so this patient lived in the hospital, had three meals a day, maid service, personal care, and of course medical care, for NINE months. Finally the social workers made arrangements for discharge to a shelter. the day of discharge the patient had a family member come pick him up and take him to their home. The hospital has no recourse because they were illegal. The hospital and MD's will be out of pocket on that one case, in the millions of dollars. People do you see why this job has my head in a spin? Does anyone know what is going on? I am breathing, I have a heartbeat, so why do I keep thinking I am in some governmental hell? We have regulated and ruled, and set guidelines, until we are absolutely hog tied. It doesn't make any sense.

Government and the law has made this mess so if we go whole hog for social medicine what happens next? Besides the fact that we are going broke, bust, and belly up, we have placed ourselves in the precarious position of not being able to do the right thing for people. It's a maze.
A red tape, regulated maze. A regular rat trap.

So it's Friday and on top of all of this confusion and spin, I have no idea why God wants me there. In fact I am asking him if I got my signals crossed up somehow. This afternoon I so wanted to toss in the towel and go get a regular nursing job. I was looking through some things on the desk where I was working and picked up a little black picture frame. Inside was this verse; "For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans not for calamity, but to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 Was that just there by accident? Did I just happen to get that little reminder for no reason? I don't think so. Next week I'll go back for round two of wading through the mud, and pray for me. I need those prayers.