Health Insurance Update

I am cool. BCBS finally came to their senses and paid my bills. For those of you who need to know, my insurance company was charged about 26,000$ for the hospital stay (4 days), $2400 for the anesthesia and $6,000 for the actual surgery. There were other numerous incedentals which probably added another $2000 to the total. I know cost is a BIG concern for the partially or uninsured. I am not sure if an uninsured person would be charged the same amounts. BCBS paid significantly less than what they were charged.

Popular posts from this blog

I'm Back from the Hospital

Okay. I am back. I just got home a couple of hours ago and am really tired but I will try to post a scar picture tomorrow. So far, here's the deal: I remember nothing about the operation. I had an epidural and a general but woke up from the anesthesia about 30 minutes after I was wheeled into recovery. When I woke up, I did hurt. But not as much as I thought I would. I just felt cruched over to the side. They gave me a morphine shot and I was fine and chatty a few minutes later. All in all I have been in very little pain. I did have a self administered morphine drip but I only used it occasionally. I was off of the epidural and morphine on Friday and on the oxycontin and oxycodon. The first day was a bit tough, but my pain never really got beyond a 5 and usually stayed b/w 2-4 (on a scale of 1-10). Bad Stuff: The only bad part was after they took out my catheter I got a UTI and peeing was agony. That took about a day to work out. I also got REALLY nausiated on Saturd...
Read more

6 Months Post-Op

Well, it's been 6 months since my RPAO. Here's the update: I can now walk MILES at a time. My right side is still sore and feels kind of bruised. I have partial numbness over the entire front and side of my right hip, but this is way better than immediately post-op when I had total numbness in a large percentage of the area. My left side is still giving me trouble, but only very sporadically. In the last few weeks, my right side has also given me a bit of trouble, but not very often and not for very long. I STILL can't sleep on my right side with making the bruised feeling more intense. BTW, I have 5 screws in the right hip and my surgeon gives me funny looks when I ask about screw removal. I feel fairly certain that I will have to do the left side as well, but hopefully its not for at least a few years. That's about it. There's really nothing else to say. I absolutely advocate the surgery. I have no regrets about it. you can e-mail me with ...
Read more

What is a Hip Arthrogram MRI?

So, you're been diagnosed with hip dysplasia and they send you off to get a "Hip Arthrogram MRI". This recently happened to me. No one told me what to expect. Here's the deal. I was sent to a hospital for this procedure. The arthrogram comes first, the MRI second. If you're claustrophobic, you might want to consider a sedative for the MRI portion of this event. First, the arthrogram. Basically, in a hip arthrogram, they will stick a needle in your hip and inject dye. First, I was stripped and put in a hospital gown. Then I had to lie down on a big table with an x-ray machine lookin' thing above it. Then, my joint was marked with a marker and the whole area was liberally painted with betadine. Your knickers will be destroyed ladies, betadine stains. Then, an anesthetic was injected into my hip area. This just pinches a little. While the anesthetic takes effect, they will mix up a little dye/lidocaine cocktail to inject into the hip joint. This injec...
Read more