I am ranting on behalf of my mother.
She has eye cataracts and needs an operation. She has private medical insurance which my Dad set up for her before he died and is paid for out of trust income.
For the first time she actually wants to use it. They will only pay for her to have the operation on 1 eye as the other isn't bad enough yet and will only pay for the cheaper of the 2 operations the consultant has suggested. What a con.
That's insane. Obviously the insurance company doesn't give a damn that it's disorienting to have one eye operated on and the other not, and a substandard job will only result in more expenses later as her vision deteriorates. I was told that they prefer not to do both eyes at the same time in case it doesn't work (I'd still have some vision rather than no vision).
Actually, I had a double-whammy of diagnoses back in January 2019. Literally one day apart - Wednesday I was told I had cataracts and would need surgery to avoid going blind (vision was already so blurry that I couldn't read the name tag on a customer service person standing 3 feet away from me, and I was navigating by shapes and colors when I went out anywhere).
Thursday's diagnosis was diabetes. That diagnosis actually helped get me a faster set of cataract surgery dates, since I pointed out that if I couldn't read labels and use a glucometer and inject insulin, I wouldn't be able to take care of myself.
Normally the wait for cataract surgery would have been 6 months for the first eye and 2-3 months after that for the second (so about 9 months for both). I would have been blind by then, so the surgeon put me on the short list when I explained about the diabetes. So my first surgery was about a month and a half after diagnosis, and the second was 2 months after that.
Now I have two artificial lenses, and when people ask what it's like, I tell them it gives me bionic vision and I can see their underwear.
Actually, I was given one card per eye to inform anyone who might need to know that I have artificial lenses.
It hasn't given perfect vision, of course. I need glasses to read books and labels, and small things on the computer.
The difference is amazing, though, when you go from everything being blurry to actually being able to read signs in the mall and not having to ask for help all the time to find stuff and people looking at me like I'm nuts when I'd tell them to direct me by color and shape and the number of whatevers since I couldn't read whatever signs they were talking about.
I hope things work out as best as they can for your mother. It's crazy to wait until the other eye is "bad enough" because by the time it is "bad enough" she will have frustrating issues with being able to see significantly better with one eye than the other. This can cause depth perception problems, dizziness, and a great deal of frustration. And it's pointless to get prescription glasses during this time, because it takes time for the eyes to recover and "settle down" after surgery. I had to wait 6 months after my second surgery to be cleared to go for another exam for reading glasses.
I still don't have them, even a year and a half later. My 6-month exam came in November 2019, at a time when winter had already settled in here. It's not easy to get around in the snow with a walker, so I try to avoid going out in winter. I figured I could put it off until spring...
And then the pandemic happened and optometrists were deemed "non-essential services" and it was impossible to get an appointment. Since then it's been a yo-yo situation here of whether or not malls can be open, what services are considered essential (the disabled transit authorities at some point decided that banking and pharmacy weren't essential for their clients even though the banks and pharmacies were open), how long a wait there is...
It's been frustrating, being told to "wait and we'll text you when you can come in". That only works if you have a car to wait in and a phone to receive texts. Some of the customer disservice people can't wrap their heads around the fact that not everyone drives and not everyone has a cell phone. Even the pharmacy where I'm going on Monday for my first covid shot had a hard time understanding that no, they could not text me. No, they could not email me the screening questionnaire for me to print out, since I don't have a printer.
Anyway, best of luck to your mom. I hope it's possible not to take "no" for an answer. I've had to get blunt with people who tried to slough off on my care, and ask them point-blank what the issue actually is, because by this time I no longer take "covid" as an excuse. Some of these issues with elderly and disabled people have already been going on for years. It's discrimination on the basis of age/disability/whatever other reason.
and
and tell her she's a good person who is doing a great job (whatever it is), and some of us totally understand the stress that comes with having a parent with Alzheimers.
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No service all day, no explanation available.
