A Medicare Story
This seems to be a week for special stories that need to be told and need to be heard. There are many stories about problems with Medicare, just as there have been many successes with Medicare, as well. The fact that Medicare is in trouble in various ways is not news. We have been hearing this for decades, yet, it has taken until now - where Medicare is in a crisis - for lawmakers to sit down and really pull up their sleeves and put in the work to try to stabilize not only Medicare, but Social Security and the entire healthcare system.
It doesn't matter who is to blame or how many presidents back contibuted to the mess rather than fix it. For years it has been known that if a pet project needs funding all congress has to do is tap into Medicare or Social Security funds. Lawmakers know it and the public knows it. Just the charges alone for a pill or a pillow show that there should be more control over the system and more regulations between Medicare and the pharmaceutical companies as well as other vendors. Now we are all dealing with the results.
Below is a story I read that shows the results of a system that has been poorly managed - and, at times, not managed at all. I am leaving the story as written, as it speaks for itself. This is why we have to fix the system. There is no alternative.
My Medicare Experience
by jboettner
05/19/2009 01:02:14 PM EST
My father passed away last July 2008. Even though he is gone, I thought people should know about a couple major issues we encountered with Medicare.
First of all, my father was in rehab recovering first from hip replacement surgery, then from revision surgery. When Dad was a few weeks from discharge, he fell down and broke the same injured leg, and extended his recovery time indefinitely.
The problem is under Medicare patients only have 100 days to utilize rehab facilities, once 100 days were exhausted, my father's care immediately jumped to $200/day.
In addition, I found a source of VA medical supplies from a friend who died; we thought we'd ease the burden on Medicare with the second hand supplies.
I was very impressed with the quality of the VA equipment. But Dad's nurse determined that he needed a special pillow for his wheelchair, and the only way he could get the special pillow was to get a Medicare supplied wheelchair. As we found the Medicare wheelchair was not only inferior to the VA wheelchair, but as far as the "special pillow," about the only thing special was the $500 cost!
As we get ready to launch this major effort to reform healthcare, I just thought you should be aware that private industry seems to have also co-opted Medicare.
Apparently there is a 60 day period between medical events required to qualify for another 100 day rehab period. This would have been nice to know, but even if we did I doubt the outcome would've been different.
When we can approve $500 for a pillow when the patient can get it for free, plus deny a free wheelchair from the VA - in better shape and better quality than the one being provided by the facility through Medicare and forced on the patient - this shows why Medicare is in the mess it is in. This hapens thousands of times over. It is time for it to stop
