apsfa
Medical Alert Discount in Honor of DVT Awareness Month
March 6, 2010 | 
Author 
In honor of DVT Awareness Month, for the month of March MedicAlert Foundation is pleased to announce a special $10 discount for individuals diagnosed with Deep-Vein Thrombosis. (Note: offer is not strictly limited to persons with DVT.)
If an individual with a history of DVT requires emergency medical attention, emergency responders need to be made aware of current medical conditions and medications so that the individual can be rapidly transported to a proper facility for DVT or PE treatment.
MedicAlert® IDs can save lives in emergencies. We offer free engraving of your medical information i.e. taking Coumadin, Warfarin, etc. – on a genuine MedicAlert bracelet or necklace along with our 24-hour Emergency Response phone number. MedicAlert s medically trained staff is always ready to answer the call and provide your critical information to medical staff during your time of need. In addition, we also notify your family contacts if there is an emergency.
To become a MedicAlert member, call 1-800-432-5378 and mention code 5804 or visit http://www.medicalert.org/dvt to save $10. The $10 discount applies to new Advantage membership enrollment (reg. $39.95) and is valid through March 31, 2010. Choose from over 100 styles of IDs, starting as low as $9.95. IDs not included in the enrollment fee.
The APS Foundation of America, Inc does not make commissions or profits from the Medic Alert. This is being posted purely as a courtesy to you, as an APS patient.
Posted in 
Husband’s INR Draws & Kudos to APSFA!
This is one of the blog topics I’ve been wanting to blog about but haven’t gotten to due to the week from hell and other weddingly things that have been going on.
My husband is on Coumadin and needs to have his blood drawn to see what his INR is. Because of his diseases, he should be getting this drawn weekly and then get his result right away and have his medication (Coumadin) dosed accordingly.
He recently switched doctors and hospitals due to a lot of issues with his PCP and the distance he had to drive…just lots of random issues with things at the other hospital. He was on Lovenox (which is a Low Molecular Weight Heparin type drug and is injected twice a day) but he wanted to be back on Coumadin. So his hematologist set him up with INR draws at his office and put him back on the Coumadin.
Everything was going fine.
I wasn’t thrilled with the way his doctor was scheduling his INR draws…2 weeks apart, or a month apart…and he was getting his results at the next visit. I knew this was going on, and I wasn’t happy about it, but my husband didn’t seem to mind too much and I have been trying to let him handle his own medical stuff.
So this went on for a few months…
Then, we get a bill for 110 for office visits for his blood draws. Wait, what? A blood draw is an OFFICE visit? Since when? Seems, since he’s actually seeing the doctor IN his OFFICE, they’ve been billing it as an office visit – resulting in us having to pay a co-pay for said office visits.
Ridiculous. Purely ridiculous.
Ok, so being that I work at our health insurance company, I emailed them and asked if there is something they can do about these blood draws being billed as office visits. They got back with me right away and said that they couldn’t do anything because they were billed AS office visits and not lab draws.
UGH!!!
So i txt the hubbs and tell him there’s nothing the insurance can do, they’re billing wrong and he needs to call the office.
This is where I don’t know exactly how it happened…but I have a feeling that my husband couldn’t get anywhere speaking with the office, or didn’t know how to explain it, or was getting too frustrated to speak (he begins to stutter really bad when he gets too frustrated or worked up)…and I know he was in contact with Tina, President of the APSFA, my partner in crime and our friend…because he calls her when he has to deal with his medical and health stuff…
So not only are his INR draws being done incorrectly (with too much time in between), and he’s not getting his results soon enough…getting his INR a week after it was drawn does NOT help with dosing him!…and they’re also billing us incorrectly? Yeah, not gonna fly. I would have called and bitched, but I was at work…so Tina stepped in as an advocate for the patient from the APSFA.
Tina called and spoke to someone at the desk (a secretary I believe) and gets further than the husband was getting. The secretary didn’t know exactly what was going on, but she did explain and they discussed a few other things. I honestly need to see if HIPAA was breached because Tina said she got further than she should have.
Anyway, I was fuming about it all…so was Tina…so was my husband.
I wish I could have called the doctor while I was mad because I knew if I talked to them after the fact I’d either lose my nerve or be over the entire thing and be out…
And that’s exactly what happened.
When I talked to the office, the woman was very nice and said she’s just a secretary after all. When I talked to the doctor a couple days later, he basically dismissed me and was like…blah blah blah and that’s why.
Ugh. Stupid.
But, what IS going to happen…my husband will be going somewhere else to get his INR draws. Somewhere that can process the WHOLE blood draw and get the INR ON site and not have to “send it out” – which was what was happening at the office. So stupid. So, Monday he’ll go in to his doctor office EARLY, get a script from the doctor and go elsewhere. Hopefully, then he’ll be able to call the office in the afternoon and they will have his INR and dosage for him. If he does this every Monday, then there shouldn’t be an issue…right?
We’ll see.
I am just glad that we have someone like Tina, who is not only a great friend of mine and my husband’s, but also President and co-founder of the APSFA…in our corner. She is always there when we need her for questions or to discuss a doctor’s appointment, or in cases like this where I cannot speak for my husband and he cannot speak for himself.
Manic Monday
Ugh…Mondays suck, plain and simple. And this will be random…but that’s my style LOL
My husband has been having major issues with his depression lately and with the newest developments, that’s probably not going to get better for a while. Good thing he goes to see his pdoc this week.
My husband has a disease called Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome along with a handful of other autoimmune diseases. He’s on disability, although we have yet to see a check…grrr…but he’s still working. He’s had a number of TIA’s (mini strokes), has daily migraines, and omg I could go on and on. If you want to read his story it’s located at this link: http://www.apsfa.org/docs/APSFAVol9SprSum2008.pdf on page 9. It’s a mess and it’s been a long few years since his diagnosis.
We’ve been through a lot and will continue to get through things. So it’s ok. I don’t want to wallow or dwell on him and his disease…
Tonight was the season premiere of Paranormal State. I love this show, along with Ghosthunters. They both freak the heck out of me, but I really enjoy them. A friend of mine who also enjoys GH got a letter from someone telling her how she can “save” her and it had all this religion, like bible beating religion, crap in it and also things about the occult. Now why in the heck do people automatically assume that someone who finds paranormal things interesting worships the devil or is wiccan? Both my friend and I were raised Catholic. We both believe in God and Jesus and all of that. I am not sure if she calls herself “Catholic” or not, but I do. And FGS neither of us worship the devil or need “saving”…geez people, get a fricking grip already!!
Ok on to scrappy things. I still have that big ranty blog to write…I’ll get to it, I’m still mad about it!!
This layout took me FOREVER! omg I worked on it for a long long time. I may have to do the credits tomorrow because after a while I was just trying to find things that matched the color sceme. I found a BUNCH of new templates tonight that I cannot wait to use.
Ok here is…
Template from Sweet Shop Designs
Most elements from various kits by Krista
Crown by Kirsty Wiseman
Papers from Sable Brule freebie kit…various artists
Lazy Sunday
This weekend I was supposed to work on website things for the APSFA. I am so behind in everything, but for whatever reason Frontpage wasn’t cooperating and I cannot connect to upload. I don’t understand. I tried to turn the firewall off and everything. I messed with it for a few hours yesterday and then again for a couple hours today. I’m just get frustrating and I keep getting that dreaded “default beep”…a noise I hate. So I guess I’ll look at it again tomorrow.
I was also supposed to do the dishes this weekend. I HATE doing the dishes. I will let them completely stack up until we don’t have any dishes clean before I do them. I know that’s nasty, and we even have a dishwasher, but I despise doing dishes. I’ll have to bite the bullet and do them one day this week. Maybe tomorrow.
What I did do today was organize my scrapbook stuff on my external hard drive and downloaded some more freebies. The organizing took a long time, but it’s worth it because everything is nice and neat now. I even downloaded a new little program to extract zip and rar files. It’s much better than Winzip. It’s called “ExtractNow” and it works really quickly and can do multiple files at once!!! Which is something that really annoyed my about Winzip. So now I can just download and extract scrappy things much much quicker. lol Lord, help me!
I made this page today:
I need to find the link where I got the template, but all of the papers are from Michi and they are a freebie mega kit called “Endless”. The ribbon on the side is also from there and the crown is from somewhere else that I’m not sure of.
Like I’ve said before I was just downloading and never saving where things came from, so most of my kits and everything, I have NO clue where they came from. Most are freebies. I didn’t change the filenames so some I can figure out. If I’m posting pages here I’ll try to figure it out so I can give credit where I can. Just assume I made NONE of the papers or embellishments because I have no clue how to even color something!!! LOL I’m learning though!
The picture is of Jellybean, aka Beans or “Missy Beans” as she’s more recently been called. I guess I should have put her name on there somewhere. She’s our only girl kitty and she’s a rescue. We adopted her from a shelter that we volunteered at for a while. Actually all but one of our cats came from that shelter. Good thing we’re not still there or we’d have many more cats!! Beans is 2 yrs old I think now and she’s just a little bitty thing. She’s been more social lately and comes out more…she used to just hide mostly.
It’s not a great thing to have so many cats in the same age range. Especially boys!!! I totally prefer boy cats to girl cats for many reasons, but they are so bad…it’s like a house full of toddlers here. They’re just into EVERYTHING and I swear, they get together at night and conspire against us!! lol
Tomorrow I’m going to make a scrapbook page using a photo of my two nephews together. It’s a silly and cute picture of them sticking their tongues out. I don’t know if I am going to put it up or not. I’m not sure if I should put their pictures out there for all to see. Maybe it doesn’t matter, so many people do it. I’ll have to think about it. I’ll probably put it on here. I’m really going to try to make a page a day…or a couple a week anyways.
Well I need to put the food I made for my breakfast tomorrow away in the fridge and my bed is calling me. I hate having no food and no money. 
Hopefully that stimulus check comes tomorrow!!!
