My-Yesterday, I called my insurance company, Molina, to ask about doctors that the treat seroma that is at or near my tailbone. I was sent an email about plastic surgeons related to the ears, nose, and throat. When I asked if this rep was sure, the phone went silent, I hung up, called back, and was told that the musculoskeletal doctor should sort this out. Fortunately, they did. The referral should be in the system.

I’m in my MyChart charting system and it seems to be sorted out.

What I was told by the rep today was that the referral process on Molina’s side takes three or four hours to begin once they’ve received it. Currently, the referral over to the neurosurgeon that handles seromas is in the “New Request” phase, whereas the hernia surgeon is listed as “Authorized,” but, this is good enough of news for me to where I don’t wish exactly to have the time-traveling capabilities to have called Molina to confirm that everything went through.

Things seem to be moving along.

There’s another referral in the system here that is set to “New Request” from the neurologist I was most recently seeing – I won’t be going back to that neurologist because they don’t have enough insight into FND to be helpful for my patient care. That one is for Orthopedic surgery, but, of what, I’m not sure, and to what degree they’d help with anything is beyond me at this point because that referral went through in early June and we never talked about what that might be – maybe it was the neurologist’s last-ditch-effort to try to do something for me outside of telling me it wasn’t their problem?

Either way, it’s good knowing that referrals don’t take months to go to Molina.

When the referral coordinators over at Healthpoint and Overlake Issaquah failed, it was their failure, and not a failure of the system on Molina’s side. This is where I advocate, as a patient, for the rights of patients to move on from a doctor that provides inadequate care. I sent a message to the Overlake Issaquah office manager stating my concerns, asking the question “what exactly were your doctors planning to do for my patient care?” after giving sentences of evidence about how their doctors were doing nothing of that sort. It would be one thing if the doctors had a clear plan on what was going on, but, from my perspective, the most they were doing was telling me to trust them.

I don’t trust doctors at their words anymore; only their actions.

I can trust this musculoskeletal doctor because of the actions they’re doing for my patient care. They got these referrals sent along so I can meet with a hernia specialist the day after seeing them in-person to see whether or not a ganglion impar can be helpful for my health problems. They didn’t cancel my appointment for that like they could have done, and like many other doctors would – because, what if that was the wrong diagnosis? Well, we can cancel the appointment if it’s unnecessary, but, the more we can get sorted out for me, the better. It’s nice finally being heard, but I think that’s a combination of my patient advocacy, my educating myself over all aspects of my patient care, and, my willingness to call my insurance company and have those lengthy phone calls about what I need to do to speed up my healthcare.

I’ve been feeling really sick this week, so, I’ll stop here.