United Health Care capitulates!

I got a call a little while ago from Howie--all the United Health Care correspondence goes to him since he is the policy holder. He had a letter from United, which he hadn't yet opened, so I told him to open it and read it to me. After a lot of boiler-plate and blah, blah, blah, the key sentence read as follows: "Based on the information reviewed, I am pleased to inform you that these charges have been reprocessed for payment." Then there's "sincere apologies for your frustration and inconvenience while trying to resolve issues with your claims." It's a total victory!

He faxed a copy of the letter to me, and I sent an e-mail to the Globe reporter about it--I'm sure she'll want me to fax a copy to her. Tomorrow I'll call the first hospice program to let them know that they can now successfully bill for all the hours they provided services. I'm still glad that I switched programs, though, since I think I'm getting a higher level of care from the new program.

I'm still in quite a bit of pain from the coughing, and have been taking a lot of morphine. I spoke with Lauren on the phone earlier and she'll be here tomorrow morning for her regular appointment. I received a drug delivery on Friday from the new pharmacy; for some reason they sent only about a third of a bottle of morphine rather than the full bottle I'd been getting from the previous pharmacy. Lauren made sure that I had enough to get through till tomorrow, and said she would get it straightened out. Because I'm taking a lot more morphine than I usually do, I'm feeling quite high and keep drifting off to sleep. At one point I even had a very dramatic, although fleeting hallucination--Marty and I were doing the crossword puzzle and I turned my eyes away, and when I turned back for a split-second the letters were brilliant magenta!

Tim, my volunteer, is coming tomorrow morning, and during the day, when Marty will be out, Julie has arranged for a back-up PCA, Diana (pronounced Dee-Anna), since none of the regulars are available.

It's been quite grey all day (although no rain), and combined with feeling fairly lousy because of the pain in my side, we have decided not to go out. Right now I think it's time for another nap.