![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I was laid off in mid-January and of course applied for unemployment. Since my company also stopped paying for health insurance, I didn't have a COBRA option, so I applied for the RomneyCare plan for unemployed people. Around a month later, I got a form letter to the effect of, "we're backlogged, we'll process your request when we get to it." On the plus side, my insurance would be retroactive. Of course, that would assume that I was approved. And you can't go get a prescription refill and say, "Yeah, I don't have a member number or anything, but don't worry, they'll pay, really." I called them last week and said, yeah, I have two weeks left of one antidepressant, three weeks of the other; it'd be good to be able to get those refilled. The lady said I needed to have my doc fax them a statement that I needed refills of drugs that were "medically necessary," and they would then expedite my request. Never mind that presumably if I have a prescription, it's because it's medically necessary, or at the very least the doc believes it is; I called my psychiatrist's office, he faxed them the info, and today I got the form saying I have insurance.
Neither my primary care doc nor my psychiatrist are on the plan. I've seen the former since 2002, the latter since 1999. Now, until I am employed again, I have to find new ones. Rather than picking someone at random, I've called both docs and left messages to call me back with maybe half a dozen recommendations, with hopefully at least one regular doc and one psychiatrist on the list.
I poked around the list a bit, thinking maybe I'd research a few online to see if they might fit well with me. There are exactly 3 psychiatrists in my town; all with an "N" under "accepting new patients." Not surprising. I checked Brookline; it returned the maximum of 3,000 hits within 5 miles of Coolidge Corner. Of course, it lists pretty much every doc 3-5 times depending on what sub-plans they are with, but still. The first half-dozen I randomly clicked were all marked at not taking new patients. So under the advanced search options, I found I could select only docs accepting new patients. No records found. In the entire state. That's right: if you believe the website, there are no psychiatrists in the entire state of Massachusetts available to unemployed residents.
I'm over at M's place, planning to do some type of yard work. I'm now leaning toward ripping out the saw briars infiltrating her fence row from the neighboring wooded lot; I want to destroy things, and holding their thorny corpses in my double-gloved hands feels pretty inviting right now.
Neither my primary care doc nor my psychiatrist are on the plan. I've seen the former since 2002, the latter since 1999. Now, until I am employed again, I have to find new ones. Rather than picking someone at random, I've called both docs and left messages to call me back with maybe half a dozen recommendations, with hopefully at least one regular doc and one psychiatrist on the list.
I poked around the list a bit, thinking maybe I'd research a few online to see if they might fit well with me. There are exactly 3 psychiatrists in my town; all with an "N" under "accepting new patients." Not surprising. I checked Brookline; it returned the maximum of 3,000 hits within 5 miles of Coolidge Corner. Of course, it lists pretty much every doc 3-5 times depending on what sub-plans they are with, but still. The first half-dozen I randomly clicked were all marked at not taking new patients. So under the advanced search options, I found I could select only docs accepting new patients. No records found. In the entire state. That's right: if you believe the website, there are no psychiatrists in the entire state of Massachusetts available to unemployed residents.
I'm over at M's place, planning to do some type of yard work. I'm now leaning toward ripping out the saw briars infiltrating her fence row from the neighboring wooded lot; I want to destroy things, and holding their thorny corpses in my double-gloved hands feels pretty inviting right now.
