The Health Care System

My experience with the health care system has been poor.

One and a half years ago I had a right total knee replacement. I had difficulty with the anesthesia; I then had a new social worker who did not know the various rehabilitation facilities. She asked me where I wanted to go and gave me a few names of facilities, one of which I had worked at prior to my surgery and I wasn’t impressed. I declined; however, I was not totally alert due to the anesthesia. So my husband located a rehabilitation facility. I was at the rehab center for about three weeks. Once I was home I had home physical therapy until I was able to have out patient therapy, however there was a long delay for the out patient therapy because I wasn’t able to use The Ride.  I then developed severe pain on both of my upper arms and shoulders, and ended   up going to a Chronic Pain Facility on an out patient basis. After which I had  used up all of my allotted allowance of physical therapy, occupational therapy and Doctors visits. However, I was not improving and needed more therapy.  Today, I have improved, but I am not 100%.

I do not think insurance companies should be able to control the amount of sessions for individuals. Everyone is different; some may need more therapy than others. It has taken me about one year and a half to get to where I am today. I am still not one hundred percent.

H.B.H.
Crittenton Women’s Union
Woman to Woman Program Participant

Comments

[Show Me and I'll Remember]

I truly hope we see some change in our health care system with the new President (I am afraid that with the credit crisis not much will change, at least in the first two years). When I had my first child I had a c-section and a surgical wound that didn't close. At that time, the hospitals could make you leave after two days (which they did) and my insurance wouldn't pay for a visiting nurse to help pack my wound. Result: I was rehospitalized at six weeks, which presumably cost more than what the visiting nurse would have cost. I saw the movie "Sicko" and it was interesting to learn how England put in its national health care system after the war. I think that voices that continue to tell our state and federal lawmakers why this matters are important (although it seems like they might be kind of like water on rock - it may take the steady drip of personal stories for years to change the shape of our health care rock). Hope you are close to "your old self" now. If you have exercises you can do at home, the more of a routine you can make of that, I suspect the better it will be. Good luck.