medgremlin

I have some previous experience fighting with the ~~mass-murderers~~...I mean...insurance companies from the role of a clinic assistant, but I want to hear perspectives from physicians or other providers about your approaches to dealing with them.

I plan on being very familiar with the ICD-10's and CPT's and how to match those up as advantageously as possible, but I know that won't be enough on it's own. Do you think having someone in the office with medical training whose job it is to deal with insurance companies as their primary/only job is necessary?

"The Adjuster" has definitely captured the collective consciousness and kicked off some serious discussions, but I'm afraid that the mainstream media, corporations, and corporate-owned politicians are going to stamp this out or defy the will of the people so vehemently that it won't matter what we do short of full-on revolution.

This is a great article written by Robert Evans of 'Behind the Bastards' fame that goes into Luigi's background, social media presence, and apparent ideologies.

We all have had patients with chronic pain, we all know someone with chronic pain, and some of us unfortunately have chronic pain. We know how horrible it can make someone's life, and how much worse life can be if your insurance just keeps denying anything that could help.

Edit: Here’s a link to what is most likely the real manifesto: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/luigis-manifesto

Ken Klippenstein is a very reliable journalist and this version of the manifesto contains the snippets that have been released by law enforcement. Also, considering the thing was hand-written, that very long version involving his mom is dubious. (And there’s not any good evidence that his mom is in anything besides decent/good health)

I'm still a medical student, but I'm about to start planning out my 4th year, and I'm hoping to structure my electives to get the best education I can to help as many people as possible. I'm also planning on moonlighting somewhere like Planned Parenthood while I'm in residency to do a bit more in the way of direct assistance. (I'm pretty sure my state is just blue enough that PP will continue to exist in some capacity.)

Having just completed my surgery clerkship, this is surprisingly accurate.

They have really good sales almost all the time, their spices are extremely high quality, and they are politically active as anti-fascist leftists....what's not to love?

Let's hope Cigna catches some real consequences this time. (Not likely, but we can hope.)

I like to go through and take a couple of these tests every now and then to kind of check up on myself to make sure I'm not developing biases that will negatively impact my ability to care for my patients. I think it's probably a good idea to at least get a baseline for yourself so you know when you're most likely going to need to self-monitor what you say and do more closely.

I'm currently a medical student and a licensed EMT with a chunk of professional experience in medicine as well as having multiple chronic illnesses, a couple of which are very stigmatized. I've kind of settled into conducting my appointments like I'm presenting a patient to an attending physician. I still use I/me/my/mine and describe things from my perspective, but it's still a rather....professional(?) discussion. I feel like it helps me approach the conversation in a productive way, and my physicians seem pretty receptive to my suggestions for treatment and testing...but it also feels like I'm dehumanizing myself a bit.

The biggest issue I've had tends to be with nurses/NPs/admin/etc when I call and say "hey, I'm having these weird symptoms and I think this is the diagnosis, can you get me in to see the physician?" and they sort of short-circuit almost because they seem to be in the habit of exerting their own judgement about a situation.

I recently had a nurse try to punt me back to my primary care physician because the specialist was out of the office and she wouldn't escalate to the physician on-call because she didn't understand that I had already talked to my primary care physician and she said she wasn't equipped to deal with it. (This was an issue that has the potential to be life-threatening in a matter of days that, fortunately, I knew how to kinda sorta manage on my own for a little bit.)