Insomnia is a mental illness.
Or so my HMO says. And since my particular HMO, partially sponsored by New York State, does not cover mental health, in turn it won’t cover medications prescribed for mental health disorders.
This includes anti-depressants and sleep aids, which are commonly prescribed for conditions that have nothing to do with depression, anxiety or any other “mental illness.”
So since, by their classification, insomnia is a mental health disorder, and since insomnia is a side effect of both the perimenopause and fibromyalgia that I’m living with, then these disorders are mental illnesses.
I beg to differ. In fact I beg to differ so strongly I want to strap the person who thought of this into a chair and slap them very, very hard.
That said, I told my HMO that I would like to appeal their decision. I wanted to go off on them like Alec Baldwin, but then they might get the idea that I do have a mental illness, and would blacklist all of my medications.
Unfortunately I only had a limited amount of space in which to record my appeal, but if I had more room I would have told them that with one numerical classification, they’ve set back the Fibromyalgia Awareness movement back thirty years. All the studies that have been done, all the doctors weighing in, all the people living with fibromyalgia – forget the progress they’ve made. Let’s go back to the years when doctors thought you were crazy, that your symptoms were all in your head, that you just needed to get a hobby and get some exercise and a psychiatrist and get a life.
But I’m deluding myself if I believe HMOs are the business of helping people get the proper care they need. They’re in the business of refraining from spending money so they can make more money. They’re in the business of putting people into categories to make life easier for their employees and further help the companies hold onto their profits.
This must change.
But how? Everyone is making money out of this deal: the pharmaceutical companies, the HMOs, the doctors (though doctors aren’t making as much as people think), and the lobbyists and politicians. Whichever candidate or elected official truly gets elbow-deep into this muck will find that it is not the easy five-step plan they claimed it to be.
They might spend some sleepless nights fretting over it. And if the insomnia turns chronic, I hope they have better health insurance than I do.
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5 comments:
Dealing with bureaucracy is probably keeping you up at night as well!
It's shit like this that we need an accredited Assassin's Guild for.
If you could hire someone to 'remove troublesome human stains from the fabric of society', this shit would take care of itself overnight.
Ah garan-fucking-tee it.
And so what if corporations have more money to spend? Joe Q citizen is going to join yet another co-op, this time not an HMO to share costs of medical expenses, but an ARF (Assassin Retainer Fund). When enough members of the fund find it expeditious, assaassins are contracted to remove the offending person or organization.
Who said violence never solved anything? Violence solves EVERYTHING.
I would HAVE to think that insomnia exacerbates a great many medical conditions. Consequently, it would reduce medical costs to treat it. I know, for a fact, that chronic insomnia is detrimental to the treatment of high blood pressure and heart disease. A couple kinda biggies, I'd think.
Of course, that logic has gotten me so far on so many other fronts.
pote: After a few dozen HMO confrontations, I'm not losing sleep over them.
aaa: Does ARF take contributions? ;)
sw: Not only that, but diabetes and strokes as well. And a couple of years ago, I hit a stretch of insomnia so bad that I had to be hospitalized. You'd think they'd want to reduce costs like that, but no...
I'll be interested to see how my appeal goes. And I have to do it again, because another med I take for the fibro is an anti-depressant, which is also used for sleep.
Not sure how gauche it is to quote onesself, but I just wanted to point out that
"If you could hire someone to 'remove troublesome human stains from the fabric of society'"
is pretty damn good writing.
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