complaining time

So I had to go to a sleep apnea class the other day.  Kaiser requires it.  I had to take home this monitor that gets strapped to my arm and I have to sleep with it.  Well I knew right away it wasn't going to work for me.  I am a face down arm under the head sleeper.  Have been all my life. My sleep has been great recently, and my wife said that she hasn't heard me snoring for quite some time.  So now that my sleep position was disrupted, and I spent all night worrying about pulling wires off that machine and worrying about having to do one more thing to get my process started, I managed to have the worst nights sleep I have had in months.  To top that off, my wife said I was snoring again last night.  I figure it is probably because I had to sleep on my back. So now I have to go back to another class on sleep apnea where they are supposed to give me a cpap machine.  Well they put me on one of those immediately following my cancer suregy.  As soon as I was awake enough and out of the anesthesia I was pulling that thing off. The tech told me that if we had to come back, we would be leaving the second class with the machine.  I know I couldn't tolerate the machine when I was drugged, and I know I'm certainly not going to be able to tolerate it when I'm awake and alert. I documented about a page of concerns and questions when I completed the questionaire that goes along with the sleep apnea monitoring device, I guess nobody reads those. I'm so frustrated with all the delays and hoops you have to jump through to get Kaiser to do this surgery.  I have a call into the Doctor that supervises the program.  Let's see if I get a call. Scott

Best  of Luck with the supervisor.  Hope this gets easier.   I didn't have Kaiser.  but, just keep jumping.  Sooner or later you will get to the end of all the the test and re-test and clinical evaluations, etc.   Last stop is the operating room.   Some of us bounce right in (VA Hosptial) others bounce around the pre-op waiting room and then Wham!  Your lying on your back.   Hang in there.

At the VA Hospital it took me te*****ally 5 years.   Ever time I was almost finish with the pre-op, my doctor would get transfered or go into private practice.  I started over 3 times.  Finally in January I got a new doctor and by March I was seeing the surgion, and once again jumping hoops getting everything done (4th time).  I had my surgery July 17th.   5-years and 7 months.   Don't get depressed ( I dealt with the Government) your independent with Kaiser.   I'm sure you will get the go ahead pretty soon.

Mike

Scott, "monitor that gets strapped to my arm and I have to sleep with it." That’s a new one for me. Most folks get the "sleep study" that I had- have to sleep at their clinic, under video surveillance, With about 10 wires hooked to your body, And about 20 glued to the scalp. It was like they were turning me into a Cyborg! Over the course of my 9 hour stay there, I tossed for about 3 hours, slept for about 30 minutes, woke up, they changed some wires, After another 3 hours of laying there, I slept for about an hour and half, then I woke up. They spent the next hour removing wires And I spent the next 3 showers extracting glue from my hair. Turns out, it was as I had insisted, I had no sleep apnea. For those who do need the Cpap or Bi-Pap It seems to be a life saver, once they get used to it. Hang in there. The "System" is designed to give better Healthcare Even though it is super-flawed. Hope your doc sees to it that you get what you really need and not just some folks Pushing machines to anyone who’s insurance will cover it. Best Wishes- Dx

Yeah they have what looks like a wrist brace that is about the length of your arm and it is covered with velcro. Then they have a box that has what looks like 2 pulse ox sat monitors, one is a paper disposable type an the other is hard plastic.  You strap both of those onto fingers, and mound the monitoring device to the wrist brace.  It pretty much covers the whole back of the arm. There is a single button on it and a flashing light to indicate it is on.  Once you start it, you can't turn it off.  You deliver it back to the pulmonary department the next morning, they plug it in and download the data from it. So basically because I usually sleep with my arms tucked under my head, it made it pretty impossible to get a solid nights sleep with that thing strapped to me.

It took me about a week to get used to the CPAP machine but once I did, it was great! I had dreams every night when I hadn't had them for years! I had to go to the lab for the sleep study so my time there was a lot like DX. I stopped using the machine about two weeks after my WLS and have never looked back. Now I can't wear the machine because it is set too high for me to use, it blows my mouth open when I sleep, it didn't do that before when I was heavy and it was wonderful to wake up after a night feeling rested, rather than ready to go to bed!

I would go to support meetings.  Half the people were Kaiser patients trying to get approval.  They are truly the industry worst in having to jump through hoops to get approval.  I really think they are opening themselves up for a major class action suit because of their slowness to respond.  Some people are going on 2 years and are dying off.  I think they made a mistake in allowing WLS in their allowed procedures.  Everybody now wants it and they have to do make up tons of stuff to prevent the WLS from going forward.  If people die they will be saying "We tried to help.  They didn't follow our guidelines.  We care deeply about our patients and the reason for these requirements is so they will succeed if the future with their WLS".  My 2 cents...Brian 

I can't tell you how much I HATE our health care system in our fine country. It is our national embarrassment, well, its among a few of our national embarrassments. Millions of children with no coverage. Millions more hard working, honest, poor to middle class families with no coverage. Kaiser, United, Cigna, etc.... There leadership have no souls, they couldn't and still do the things they do everyday. It is a disgrace. Just might be time to make health care a "not for profit" endeavor in this country. Really, could it get any worse? Call me an F'in socialist, and I'm the one that wants the government out of my business in every way possible, but I think I am ready from Socialized Medicine. JP

I have seen Kaiser in action first hand from my time working on the ambulance. I could take 2 identical patients to 2 different Emergency Rooms.  1 Kaiser and one the County hospital.  The patient at the county hospital would be treated and most likely kept over night for observation and continued care.  The Kaiser patient would get an iv of fluids and trip back home with instructions to follow up with their doctor. Seen it over and over with them.  Kaiser is a business first and a care facility second.  They make money when people aren't sick and don't need services. But they cover the proceedure 100% and my other choice of insurance did not.  So here I am. Scott

I'm just ranting. It just drives me nuts. Keep on them. From what I understand it is a battle of persistence. My policy had an exclusion, Cigna, at the time. I didn't even bother fighting them. As a principal in the company, it would have ended up coming out of my own pocket anyway, in the end. We had to weaken our insurance this year, and switched to Gaurdian. It runs us just under $1K/month per employee. We are all paying for this medical nightmare we are in. Our taxes go to support those without coverage and the costs of our goods and services keep going up to cover our employees. It is a vicious circle. Something is going to have to give. JP