Text 20206, 53 rader
Skriven 2006-05-18 07:45:02 av Bob Ackley (1:2905/3)
  Kommentar till text 20063 av BOB SAKOWSKI (1:123/140)
Ärende: Denizens of Denial
==========================
Replying to a message of BOB SAKOWSKI to BOB ACKLEY:

 BA>> Not quite dead.  Came about as close to a heart attack 
 BA>> as one can without actually having one the end of February, 2004.  
 BA>> 99% blockage in one coronary artery, fixed with an angioplasty  and
 BA>> stent on March 1, 2004.  

 BS> Glad to see you are still to be counted among the living Bob.

 BA>> $49K and change.

 BS> Yep, a visit the cath lab can run up quite a tab.

The weekend + Monday (the 1st) in a hospital ICU helped with that tab.  My
actual out-of-pocket cost was $33.00.  Tricare (basically Medicare for the
military) wrote
themselves a $40K discount and sent the hospital a check for $9K and change. 
The
hospital ate the balance, I'm not happy with that but I don't have $40K lying
around
to send them.

After a while heparin gives me a really bad headache, and I was on a heparin
drip
for nearly four days.

You may not be aware, but apparently the military is getting out of the health
care
business.  The former AF Regional Medical Center at Offutt is no longer even a
hospital,
it's a clinic; the surgery suites and inpatient wards are closed off and no
longer in use.  The former Emergency Room is now an 'Urgent Care Center,' just
like the 'doc in a box' civilian walk-in clinics; the Urology clinic there no
longer has a urologist on staff (he retired and wasn't replaced).  When I went
in and explained the symptoms, they put me on a gurney, added a cardiac monitor
and heparin drip and shipped me - in a civilian ambulance, $500 charge (two
perfectly functional and usually idle AF ambulances are located within 20 feet
of the 'Urgent Care Center's' doors) - seven miles down the road to a civilian
hospital, direct admission to their ICU through that hospital's emergency room.

A recent newspaper article reported that the University of Nebraska Medical
Center is about
to build a brand new 60 bed hospital about a mile and a half straight north of
the Offutt facility.  It'll be as good as a license to print money.

My bet is that Methodist (the third hospital chain in Omaha) may end up with a
contract
to take over and run the Offutt facility.  If it is put up for bids (and IMO
that's likely),
UNMC, Alegent and Methodist are all going to fight over it.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+
 * Origin: Bob's Boneyard, Emerson, Iowa (1:2905/3)