Cali or Bust!

Hi guys! I'm sitting in Glendora, California right now. Our flight was on-time and we had no problems at all in the air. Corlissa had never been on a plane, but she didn't even seem that nervous. About 10 minutes into the flight, we were both out. I slept for the first three hours and then worked on my laptop. Corlissa slept virtually the entire flight.

Jeremy and Kristin picked us up at LAX and now we're back at their place. When we touched down, I had a voicemail waiting from Stephanie, the Anthem enigma. She basically ssid that "since I've chosen to switch facilities" (those were her words and I don't think I was imagining the tone...maybe she's tired of having 5 different people call her about my case. Well... maybe I'm tired of paying $85/month in premiums + $250/month for office copays for health insurance that is supposed to be there for me when I need it. After all, I am paying for this. It's not like I'm asking you're getting approval to throw me a surprise bon voyage party for my trip to Californai) and it so happens that this new facility I've "chosen" codes the treatment differently, Anthem will not transfer the treatment to a new facility. In essence, they must start the pre-determination paperwork over from scratch and she needed me to be aware that they are still experiencing the same 4-6 week delay that we were dealing with the first time. Well... brace yourself for even more phone calls, Miss Stephanie. Maybe when the dang paper gets signed, you can get back to your other cases.

Anyhow...I called Mary Ellen and asked her to arrange for me to meet with financial services. I've just made up my mind that I'm not leaving without this appointment. It just doesn't make sense. I've had this procedure done at Goshen. They sent me a statement and asked me to verify that I've received all of the servies listed. They were: CT Scan, Mask, MRI, PET Scan, etc. The total cost of services rendered was a little over $5,400. That's not a second mortgage or anything. Maybe they'll let me pay them in two installments and I will hope and pray Anthem can reiumburse me directly after this is approved if we document that the visit has been paid in full. Maybe financial services at LLUMC has done this before.

Right now I'm using Jeremy's laptop to update you all. I know everyone wants to know what's going on. I brought my laptop and wireless card along for the trip. I'm hoping to find a way to connect both here tonight (after I've met with the doctor) and also in Hawaii. I seriously doubt you will hear from me tomorrow, though. We are pushing the time limits as it is. We are leaving in about 5 minutes to head toward Loma Linda. Jeremy thinks we've got plenty of time to spare. After my appointment, we're going to check into a hotel about 1 mile from the hospital and then go site-seeing in Rancho Cucamonga and possible a couple other places. Corlissa gets to sleep in during my appointment tomrrow and then we'll head straight to LAX to catch our flight to Honolulu (we arrive about 8:00 pm HI time).

Keep checking in!