Friday, January 25, 2019

MANAGE NURSING CARE AT HOME, "Employer Medical Coverage"


How to Manage Nursing Care at Home

CHAPTER 8 EMPLOYER’S MEDICAL INSURANCE: OUR EXPERIENCE (Cooper, 2011)

I [DWC] worked for IBM for a decade, from 1983-1993, and was covered during that time by their Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy at work and for another decade after taking an early retirement buy-out that included their continuing medical coverage.  What follows is as brief summary of that experience, along with what happened with the successor insurance companies, MVP, and then United Healthcare, which companies IBM contracted with to manage the medical coverage for some of its retirees.

EMPIRE BLUE CROSS / BLUE SHIELD, 1983-2004

While I was working at IBM, most of our medical costs were quite routine and well covered by their health plan policy.

During the 100-days’ war against Tina’s aspiration-caused pneumonia, from February to June 2004, we ran up roughly a half-million dollars in hospital expenses, covered by IBM’s policy with Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield of New York State. When she returned home, round-the-clock skilled nursing was similarly covered, without a problem by Empire BC/BS, whether the billing came from the nursing agency or from me.

INSURANCE BLUES:  MVP, 2005

One must sometimes fight one’s insurers.

At the start of 2005 we were moved by IBM from Empire to MVP. We started round-the-clock skilled nursing care with an agency in June 2004, and I started hiring nurses to fill the gaps in the agency coverage a few months after we began this. By January 2005, I had taken over hiring the nurses, at a higher salary than the agency had been paying, then training and managing them, and billing the insurers for a cost mid-way between what the agency was charging and what the nurses were receiving; I was changing what our actual cost was.

MVP wanted more documentation than Empire had required. We sent them reams.

MVP wanted to stop paying for the skilled nursing at home, labeling Tina’s need as “custodial care” rather than “skilled nursing care.” Custodial care is roughly equivalent to babysitting, which would include giving bottles and making diaper changes. Tina was on a ventilator, fed through a gastric tube, quadriplegic, and in pain if morphine were not given in proper amounts at proper times. There were about a half-dozen prescription medications to be given at various times during the day and night. The gastric tube needed daily care. The tracheostomy needed daily care.

All activities needed to be documented, to assure they were done, to provide continuity of care from shift to shift. We had hospital orders for all this, along with a doctor’s orders as well. Still, MVP carped. They planned to stop paying for daytime skilled nursing care. They refused to pay for overnight care.

From 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m., through all of 2005, I was the overnight nurse, resting beside Tina, getting up for the administration of medicines, answering over-pressure or under-pressure alarms from the ventilator, suctioning secretions from her trachea, changing her disposable diapers by rolling her carefully on the bed while keeping from hurting her tender wrist joints.

I do believe “work is love made real,” and this was a labor of love. The loss of sleep was less a problem than was the fear that I would be alone when we lost electrical power, as we do several times each year here, or when she had an emergency condition requiring my immediate attention and my calling for help simultaneously. Evacuating her from a fire would be terribly difficult alone, too. Walking the dog briefly or checking some questionable condition outside meant abandoning her. Not good, not good.

We appealed the proposed removal of MVP financial support for the daytime nurses, and we pushed for overnight skilled nursing as well. Two levels of MVP reviewers turned us down. Two levels of IBM reviewers turned us down. An independent outside medical review, our last hope, vindicated our position entirely. Yes, one must sometimes fight.

We had started replacing some of the agency nurses as early as August 2004. By January 2005, I believe, we no longer used the agency. We started hiring overnight nurses in January 2006. MVP was slow to pay, getting behind a month or two for much of the year. At $25,000 per month, this created a significant cash-flow problem.

UNITED HEALTHCARE

Next, we were switched by IBM to United Healthcare (UHC), the group we are with now. They were less demanding than MVP, and more helpful; but the transition delayed our reimbursements (we pay the nurses, weekly, ourselves) for two or even three months, amounting to $50,000 to $75,000 in arrears. I fear that few other couples would have had the savings we had that let us cover this shortfall. Eventually, UHC caught up, to our relief.

Thank you, United Healthcare.

THANKS TO IBM

In the decade since 2005, IBM has paid more than five million dollars for Tina’s care. My decisions to work for IBM and, ten years later, to take their early-retirement buy-out, paid off for us. We are greatly appreciative. The ten years I worked for IBM proved to be the best working situation I ever had.






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Contact information:
Diane R. Beggin, RN
40 Sycamore Drive
Montgomery, NY 12549


Our book is available from amazon.com, bn.com, and OutskirtsPress.com: How to Manage Nursing Care at Home






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