blue cross, you suck.

so i'm having a michael moore moment. my first glitch in the healthcare environment has ocurred and it's making me mad.

here's my story:

there once was a girl who kept bleeding and bleeding and bleeding.
one day, her doctor said, 'hm. did you know you have a fibroid?"
so they looked at the fibroid, clinging stubbornly to the side of the girl's uterus and the doctor said, 'hm. that really should come out.'

the girl said, 'ok.'
so they talked about removing the fibroid and set a date to do it.

but then they discovered that the girl had a blood level of 6.8. the doctor was alarmed.
'that's too low! you're dangerously anemic! we can't do this until your iron levels are higher!'
the girl said, 'huh. so that's why i'm short of breath all the time.'

so the doctor gave the girl birth control (to stop the bleeding) and iron (to get rid of the anemia.) and another date was set for surgery.

but it didn't work. the girl kept bleeding and the bleeding got heavier. she ate double the birth control. still she bled, even heavier than before.

alarmed even further, the doctor had a final solution. 'we have to shut everything down. we'll give you one shot of Lupron for free. but you need two. we'll see if your insurance will cover the second shot.'

weeks passed. the lupron seemed to work and the bleeding eventually stopped. (today it stopped.) the girl was happy! but the insurance company said, 'NO! thou shalt not have Lupron because it doesn't meet the medical criteria policy of blue cross blue shielf of illinois!'

panicked, the girl contacts her doctor.
the doctor says, 'that means they think you're not on birth control.'
'but i am! it's all in my medical history!'
'yes it is. they're idiots. don't worry. we'll think of something.'

to be continued...

what a bunch of assholes. even an idiot can trace the line of causality:
heavy bleeding/cramping leads to diagnosis of fibroid
fibroid diagnosis leads to planned surgical procedure to remove it
surgical procedure pre-op testing leads to diagnosis of anemia
anemia diagnosis leads to prescription of birth control/iron pills to stop bleeding and boost iron
birth control fails to stop bleeding
failure of birth control leads to prespription of Lupron.

assholes.