"Insuranced" Again....

June 19 & 20

Wednesday & Thursday

Aleia has taken a turn for the better still and is doing very well. Still no idea as to why she had her two episodes, but no one (medical persons) seems to be concerned about that at all now. So she moves forward. Tami and Wanda went to Houston on Wednesday and Aleia was eating and alert. She was eating quite a bit per feeding. More than she has ever eaten. So she must be doing ok. The hospital told Tami that Aleia would be transferred home to St. Joe’s on Thursday morning. They got the paperwork approvals required from Tami. So Tami was very excited and anxious about that. So Wednesday ended with a large amount of excitement. I , of course, stayed in BCS to work., same as usual these days. I have not seen Aleia in 3 days now and it’s not much for me as a father.

Thursday morning Tami called the Texas Children’s to see when Aleia would be transferred. And then it all began to unravel. So there was a problem with some insurance paperwork. And the hospital staff was trying to work it our but according to them it was not a big deal. Tami asked if she needed to do anything, and they told her now. This was around 8:30 am. They said it should only delay her return a few hours. Then Tami called back around lunch once she had not heard from TCH. So now the trouble with the insurance was not just paperwork, it was responsibility. TCH is not normally covered by our insurance company. Not part of the “family”. So there was some apparent argument over coverage. Our insurance was trying to deny coverage yet again. Well they had to try to find out which doctor transferred her to TCH and not to Scott & White in Temple. Then they had to talk to the doctor in Temple who said that she needed to be sent to TCH instead of Temple because they had no room and she needed immediate attention. So after tracking all of that down and making sure that we did not “force” them to send our child to another out of network hospital, the paperwork was completed. This was around 2:30 or 3pm, I think. Tami calls TCH to see what time Aleia is going to be transferred now. They inform her that there is no doctor at St. Joe’s that can “check” her in on arrival. Tami is not happy about this at all. She calls Aleia’s NICU Doc at St. Joe’s (whom she has spoken with several times already today) and asks about the problem. He says he is there and can be there whenever they want him to be. This is true because the man almost never leaves. So Doc says he will call TCH and determine the issue and call Tami back once it is resolved. Time passes. Much too slowly for Tami. He finally calls her back to say that the real issue is that they transfer team in unavailable because they are transporting another baby who is very sick. Tami is sad. Certainly they should help the other child. By all means that is what we would want. But they could have just told us this initially and saved some headache for a few people. Also today, for the first day in her life, Aleia was not seen by someone in her family. That is the part that hurts the most. It’s the first day that Tami has not seen her daughter. Tami and I were talking about this and to the best of our knowledge, Ashlynn has never even had a day in her life without family. This is not a pleasant thought for either of us. I do not like being unable to see her, but at least Tami has been there for her each day. It’s just so unpleasant and sad for us to think about.……………….

Hopefully she will be back in BCS tomorrow by noon and on her way to being in our house. They informed Tami on Wednesday that Aleia will be transferred via ambulance this time. No jet transfer for the healthy children. So I guess it will be an ambulance ride for her 1 month old present. Tomorrow Aleia will be 4 weeks old. Hard to believe.