WHEN

Will I start feeling better??? I’m seriously considering that magnet thing for depression. I’m going to ask about it. Anybody out there have stories?

Yesterday I was sitting around at home because we had a snowstorm and my boss said to work at home. And as we’ve discussed, I don’t work when I work from home. I don’t feel guilty about this because obviously I don’t have enough work to do if I can do very little on a work from home day. I’m making up shit to do as it is when I’m here in person. Anyway, I knew I needed to write an appeal to Medicare for two ambulance charges for my dad and I was ignoring the tickle in my brain because I was busy looking at TikTok and I pretty much PHYSICALLY made myself do it. I had to talk to myself to get it going, but it worked.

I get so mad at ambulance companies because they just DO NOT want to bill Medicare and Medicare doesn’t particularly like to pay them and these bills are a lot. Take an elderly person to the ER and it is $800 each way if you don’t do everything right on the billing. And they never do. These days, Medicare denies the charges because my dad is listed as Hospice care and hospice patients aren’t supposed to go to hospitals because they’re going to die anyway, right? But my dad falls all the goddamn time, like literally once or twice a month (why he is falling that much is a whole other matter, like why is he in this place if he isn’t safe from falling) and the director of the facility, who is a liar and a real asshole, told me it was POLICY to take every single resident to the ER if they complained of headache after a fall. This may be true for regular residents, but not hospice patients. They should be calling hospice, not sending him in an ambulance. Hospice makes the determination and they won’t send him to the ER, unless he literally is knocked unconscious or breaks a bone. And that is unlikely to happen. Usually he slips out of a chair or they are understaffed and have only one person to move him from chair to bed and they lose their grip. Which shouldn’t happen, but then again, shit happens. I do get irritated that he’s spending $3500 a month (it would be $8000 if it weren’t for Long-Term Health Insurance that he had the sense to buy back in the day) to fall twice a month but what am I supposed to do? The only solution would be to physically or medically restrain him and I’m not down for that.

And yes, you read that right. The facility he is in, which is nice, but not luxurious, charges $8000 a month for the round-the-clock care of a person with Alzheimer’s and various other ailments (diabetes, can’t walk, incontinent). Do your parents have $96,000 a year for when they need care? I hope they do because my dad would be at a Medicaid shithole if they didn’t. And he (I) would have had to sell everything of theirs so they could be certified poor enough to get Medicaid. I don’t like a lot of things about my parents, but they did plan ahead financially and I am grateful to them for that.

So I sent Medicare two identical letters for two $800-ish bills for ambulance to and from the ER for a fall. And I told the facility that they are never to send him to the ER without my or hospice’s say so. If they do, they’re paying the bill. Fuckers.

So see, I accomplished something, but it also upset me so it’s a wash.

6 comments

  1. I’m sorry you’re not feeling better but don’t know anything about the magnet thing. I had clinical depression a couple times but it was short lived, thank goodness. I know it sucks and I know it’s chemical, not a “do something fun and cheer up” kind of thing. When I worked from home I was in the same boat as you. I told them I didn’t have full time work to do at home. I asked if playing solitaire at home counted the same as playing solitaire at work. I was available 8 hrs every day and watched a movie or a couple episodes of a tv show almost every day.

  2. Tried working from home, but I’m way too easily distracted. Bad times.

    I’ve been taking Effexor for years. No doubt it helps. All I have to do is miss a dose to figure that out. Which I absolutely hate knowing how much I rely on a drug to function. But I’m still depressed. More bad times.

  3. I was just wondering if you were into TikTok and then you mentioned it so I assume you have seen the Chelsea/Lance drama of the last few weeks. The world needs your take.

  4. There’s a magnet for depression? I assume it’s not a picture of Cher from Moonstruck saying SNAP OUT OF IT that you stick on your fridge. Must investigate the magnet concept.

    I don’t like working from home. I feel less organized and less productive, although I can get a lot of household chores done simultaneously (laundry for example) so there’s that.

    Our Healthcare and Eldercare options are abominations.

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