The Monster Lurking Behind Every Corner
Contrary to popular belief, few people would choose to spend their days in the following manner. My friend who is on Medicaid due to a myriad of chronic health problems was thrown into the briar patch once again, and little did I know it but so was I. I agreed to take her to her latest doctor’s appointment. She has been having some issues and she wanted someone with her when she talked to her doctors. There we were waiting patiently fifteen minutes prior to the pick up time of 8 a.m. But then it was 8:05, followed by 8:10 then I saw a bus bound for 480 drive down the street I knew that somewhere somehow traffic was WAY out of whack and we probably wouldn’t be picked up any time soon. I decided that we should hop on the circulator when it came because we still had a chance to make the doctor’s appointment. Now, if I hadn’t been with her this wouldn’t have been an option because of the confusion and disorientation that she was experiencing. Her doctors no longer want her riding the bus alone, hence the pick-up service option. Then, when she told me she had called Columbus yesterday to schedule the pick up for this morning, I KNEW we were not waiting any longer. How did we even know if the message for a pick up had been relayed? I wasn’t even sure she knew where she had called.
But then the car arrived just in time, and we piled her walker and her into the vehicle and off we went. It turned out that not only had my friend called Columbus, but then Columbus had called Toledo and then Toledo had called the driver to pick up my friend at 7:50 a.m. What!?! Oh yeah this is how the Medicaid HMO relays dispatches for pick up. Efficent, no? The driver then told me that he was sorry he was so late but he had been at West 85th and Detroit and there was a back up into the city that had clogged the city streets. He told the dispatcher but she said that was where he was being sent. He said that the day before he had started his day in Westlake at 6:45 a.m. traveled to Warrensville Heights, turned around and head west to Lakewood and then again headed east to Solon. All within one hour. He appreciated that we were not angry with him for being late. I told him that hardly seemed his fault, but he said most people just fuss at the person closest to them. He told me that he works twelve hour days and that the whole day is essentially based on the “just in time” theory that essentially makes everyone he picks up angry before they get in the car. Imagine all of the negative energy that poor man and others like him deal with day in and day out. He got us to the door with minutes to spare.
And then, the saga of the ride back began. I called the number on the card that my friend had to request pick up. The option no longer worked and I was switched to customer service who then quite haughtily told me that i was calling the wrong number. She then rattled it off so fast I had no chance of writing it down or even committing it to memory. I called back and told the next customer service rep I had no way to write anything down could she just transfer me. No, they had been transferring to many people and people needed to get it “right”. If the card I held in my hand, wasn’t “right” just how did she expect that? She transferred me. After waiting another half hour, a vehicle pulled in. My friend says here they are and toddled off to get in the car. Turns out it wasn’t our ride. The lady was just dropping someone off. I asked her if maybe she could be our ride. She said she would have to call in to see–maybe she was supposed to pick us up but they had sent her the dispatch yet. No, she wasn’t but they were going to see if the driver that was sent could be stopped en route and she could take us home. It took another ten minutes but this was accomplished and we finally were dropped off at my friend’s door. Five hours later. Yes, at 1 p.m. we arrived home. The total time spent with two doctors was 45 minutes but the wait for a ride to and from consisted of almost 4 hours.
Now, in the days of GPS does it seem logical that drivers would be on both sides of the county in one hour? Does it seem logical that someone dropping off a patient would not be picking up a patient? One of the drivers suggested that zones would probably work better. Do you think that anyone is listening? And then, remember this is all brought to you by the state run Medicaid system funded by federal dollars. Yes, they have instituted an HMO system which my friend was told she had no choice but to join and now she no longer schedules her own transportation but calls Columbus who calls Toledo who calls Cleveland. Just who has this helped-Medicaid who can now foist complaints and problems with perscriptions, transportation and denial of services onto HMOS, HMOS who have lucrative contracts with the state or my friend who now spends five hours of a day getting to and from her doctors appointments when it used to take her at the most when she called the pick up service directly an hour and a half to two hours and she knew that they would arrive because SHE had made the contact.
And then, when you put universal health care into the mix modeled after the federal Medicaid Plan how can we say that we are improving things? Shouldn’t there be more accountability? Shouldn’t we know where and how these dollars are spent? Transportation is only the tip of the iceberg of this behometh that could truly become the monster who eats our country.