The Broken Soldier

You ain’t kidding Eric.

It’s four days since I had open back surgery.  I’m in a tremendous amount of pain.  Long gone are the small amounts of various pain medications the hospital gave me.

For two days my wife and I have tried to fill my scripts.  We’ve been unsuccessful.  “Why?” is a reasonable question.  Because some one or some group did not do what they were supposed to do.  I’ve called around to try to fix the problem, speaking with people from DEERS, several offices in TriCare, Doc Grue at Fort Knox, and the people at my unit.

I’m transferred back and forth between their organizations, and to other offices within each organization.  Some voice sympathy, some outrage, some blame others within their organization, some blame those outside their organization, to include my state for not updating my DEERS status.

The folks at my unit do what they can, but take their cues regarding possible remedies from others - people who often don’t have correct information.  I have tried to make our position understandable, but feel I’ve failed to do so.

Doc Grue is having a word with my case manager as we speak.  As I explained the position my wife and I are in, he seemed angry.

Once again, my wife and I are faced with filling scripts or making our mortgage payment. At first I was comfortable with this decision.  We pay and someday we’re reimbursed.  And I will, given ADME orders, get a paycheck on the 15th.  We’ll be okay.  Then I learned the truth.  ALL of my requests for reimbursement have been denied per discussions with various TriCare reps.  My wife and I have paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $5k-$6k for a LoD injury, and we will likely not see a dime of that money returned.  We can, by law, petition that decision, but there’s a time limit for doing so.  We were not aware our requests were denied until yesterday.  It’s possible the time for petitioning a decision has passed.  With regards to pay on the 15th, who knows for sure?  I would have thought my follow up care, to include prescriptions for post open back surgery care would have been taken care of, but it hasn’t been.  Why should I assume my pay status has been?  We can’t really rely on these promises until after we confirm they were kept.

Why does this happen?  And why aren’t those responsible for fixing these problems actually setting out to fix them rather than pass the buck?