Sunday, January 31, 2021

The Great Indian Medical Experience

Mood: Relaxed

Listening to: Traffic Outside


I wanted to post a follow up to my last blog as things have changed. After going through a few weeks of antibiotics and other treatments (and one random yeast infection!) the bleeding issue wasn't resolving. The doctor pushed for me to undergo a surgery where they will check out what is going on inside, take samples for a biopsy, and cauterize any areas that were still bleeding to help solve the problem. 

I put it off for a while, as I needed to investigate insurance and wanted to to go Goa before this happened. The doc got a bit pushy with me to get it done, but I thought this was just her personality. 

I'm going to pause a minute here and explain hospitals and how that works in India. There are 2 types - Government and Private. Government hospitals are cost subsidized and meant for the masses. They also are dirty and the health care can be questionable - to be avoided at all costs if possible.  Private hospitals on the other hand are too expensive to be accessible by the General Public. But they are overall clean and well organized with adequate medical equipment. It is mandatory for businesses to have medical insurance for their employees,  and our company has good medical insurance. 

When I was deciding if this was something I wanted to get done I did my due diligence on our insurance. It seemed to cover my procedure and there wasn't much I needed to do.  That's when the nonsense began dear reader, oh the nonsense. 

My doc informed me that I would need to visit the FRRO (basically how the government keeps tabs on foreigners) office and get a permission for surgery. Of course this is no where near my home, but I dutifully went. Upon arrival, I was looked at like I was crazy and informed that permission was not needed - go home. Upon confronting my doc, she said, oh, yes, you can leave then, go home. I was not impressed.

I got an update from the hospital that I had been pre-approved for insurance. I asked what that meant and they told pre-approval was required. Post approval would be given afterwards. Cost was given as Rs. 23,000.  I asked if they could withdraw approval afterwards and was told no.  I scheduled the surgery with my doctor. I was supposed to show up at 6:30 for surgery at 9. 

I arranged for someone to come with me and off I went. Registration went fine, and then the nonsense continued. The facility was deserted and very dirty. I was prepped for surgery in the most unprofessional way. Unnecessary procedures, nurses who didn't know how to start an IV, it was a mess.  The doctor was no where to be found at 9. The anesthesiologist then informed me that the person who came with me couldn't be in the room. This was in direct contrast to what I had asked the doctor previously. Oh well, you didn't ask me. Um what??

I had general anesthesia and woke up afterwards. There wasn't much pain, but a lot of pressure from packing, which I'll come to in a minute. I felt quite out of it, but otherwise fine. I was left alone with my friend to recuperate in a room. I was sitting up and talking, and we watched TV for a while. As the afternoon wore on, both my friend and I got restless. Then they sent a nurse in to remove the packing. This was the most uncomfortable, painful things to happen to me in quite some time. The packing was way up in my body, behind something they had just operated and cauterized, and the nurse had almost her whole hand inside me trying to dig it out. There was a smart ass helper too who asked me if it hurt. Nope, those grimaces, gasps, and squirming were for fun you donkey.  Blood was backing up into my IV, so they also unhooked my IV but left the needle in for some reason.

After she was done, we sat around for a while longer waiting. The nurse said something something to herself about beginning discharge. At 4 pm. We waited around a while before asking when discharge would be complete. We were told we had to wait for insurance approval, which would take 3 - 4 hours. Wait, what the what? I informed the nurse that certainly I would not be sitting around until 9 pm or later and asked for my iv to be removed. She did so and informed me that she would not give any discharge papers or post op instructions until after insurance had been sorted. We then went and had a useless conversation with the billing department and called the insurance company too. They were apathetic at best. I informed billing too that we would not be staying. We went back to find the nurse once more, but were told that she had gone outside. We then left.

When I had almost reached home, the hospital called me shouting about why I had left. The nurse straight up lied and said I hadn't said anything about leaving and that she never said she wouldn't give discharge instructions. They also called the doctor who started harassing me, then later the billing department. They did not give one fuck about my time and making me sit around and wait, but wanted their payment right that minute. I informed that I would not be coming back then and that I would have to reach out to my insurance company to see why there was an amount left to pay. The billing department refused to discuss it with me unless I came back to the hospital. I spoke to a few other people about this, and it seems they don't want you to leave because then they cannot bully you into paying right away. 

The hospital billed my insurance incorrectly for the procedure. In the end, they billed the insurance company for almost 60K. My insurance also has a list of "Consumables" that patients must pay for. Things like syringes, gauze, pads, etc. It's a complete scam as the patient cannot really say no to any of the items needed and the hospital or insurance company didn't even follow this list. As the hospital refused to give an explanation for anything billed - including things I refused - it seems to me like the hospitals and insurance companies are in on this scam. 

They continued to harass me the next two days. I stopped answering my phone. I got in touch with my insurance provider, who did absolutely nothing and didn't answer my question. I also raised a complaint with the policy aggregator and am supposed to hear back from them on Monday.  I have a huge nasty looking bruise where she couldn't get the IV in, and I found bruises inside myself from where she dug the packing out. 

Overall, I'd recommend never ever going near Motherhood Hospital in Kalyan Nagar. They only care about making money and do not operate fairly or give a fuck about a patient's time or well being. I also wouldn't count on ICICI Lombard to do things fairly either.  As I feared, going anywhere near a medical institution is to be avoided at all costs. I just hope that whatever she did solved my problem rather than just raise my blood pressure and put me through unnecessary nonsense. As for the result of the biopsies, we'll see if I ever see those. It depends on if I get a fair answer from the insurance company. 


~Becky~