Pardon my french!

This is the kind of shit we military wives get to deal with!
Giana and Devonny are both sick, and have been since Thursday- of course, you don't notice until Thursday night, and Friday being a holiday... that means you can't be seen til Monday... But wait! NO! You can't be seen on Monday becase the whole god forsaken town is also sick because all of our kids go to school together and we all shop at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is the devil in situations like these. So anywho. Just out of curiosity, I wanted to prove to you how heavily the town I live in is populated.
From CityData: Population in July 2009: 14,130. Population change since 2000: +34.5%
^ That was in 2009, and 2010 saw a 34% increase? I hate to see where we are at now!

So then, the neighboring town ...when you get off the interstate you head towards the Military Base and it's situated snugly between my town, and another town, and that's all that's at this exit, because you run into water. Ok, so here is that towns CityData population stats (why haven't they been updated since 2009?) anyway here they are: Population in July 2009: 16,778. Population change since 2000: +21.9%

OK so, in effect- we are talking about at LEAST 30,000 people, dare I say, half of them work on the military base and ALL of them have to be seen there.  Dare I also reckon that this tiny Base Doc in the Box has only ten doctors on hand on any given day. Even if that is grossly underestimated, and there are 20-25.. (which I highly freaking doubt) When you are talking about some 15,000 employees+families, and if 25% of them are sick, and half of those go to the doctor, then what are we looking at here? Perhaps 1,000? That seems way to high, so lets just imagine that only 400 people are sick at once. There's got to be more than that. But hypothetically, say 400 people need doctor care of the weekend. Ok, let us also go back to my imagined scenario of there being 20 doctors. They would all have to see 20 patients. First of all, like I say- I highly doubt there being 20 doctors seeing patients there a day. in fact- ten seems steep. So 20 diff patients, and they are there from 7 or 8 am to 4 pm. And they are closed from 12-1. Yes that's right, instead of giving half of them off and continuing appointments they all take off.

So nice...

ANYWAY, so 7 hours & 20 patients per doc. They would have to see about 3 people per hour. Which isn't possible, so then half of us get turned away. Fun! The reason I am so steamed about this is they will not let you see and "off-base" doctor. They want to trim the fat and save all the money they can. They are already paying all these doctors, and they don't want to pay more. Besides, f I go to a real doctor, I might get real (expensive) medicine, and god- forbid, I actually get a prescription medicine. 

I have so much Motrin, Mucinex, Dimetapp, and Robitussin in my medicine cabinet, I recently purged and gave Beth like 12 bottles of the stuff. When I take time out of my day to go to a doctor, I don't sit down there so you can tell me it's "viral" and give me a PRESCRIPTION from your pharmacy for over the counter products.. 

"We can't give her antibiotics" 

Ok.. well how about giving her a prescription sinus medicine, or cough medicine, because this crap doesn't even work for us/her anymore. 

In addition, I have to make my appointments so far ahead of time, I forget I have them, and miss them. There are no reminders; "Hey, Devonny, is about to be one years old, how about bringing her in for her shots?". I cannot be expected to know "well-baby" appointments. There are no phone calls; "Hey- you have an appointment on so- and so date for so and so."

Even worse, I have been turned away before for being ONE MINUTE late!

I sh*t you not.

 They make your appointment, and say, OK Miss So & So, your appointment is at 3:00 be there 15 minutes early. WHY? SO I can sit and wait fifteen MORE minutes? There is no paperwork to fill out, so this baffles me. They make Noah be at work fifteen minutes early, but we are not in the military. We have their children, and have our hands full. And if you are NOT 15 minutes early, in three cases, I was 1 minute late, 1 minute early, and ten minutes late, I was turned away and told to reschedule! ARE YOU F***ING SERIOUS! Like say my appointment was at 3:00 and I am supposed to be there at "2:45" and I show up at 2:59.. I would be turned away ! Is that not the dumbest S**T you have ever heard????????

I have my hands full enough.

Then, in addition, one time I tried to get medicine called in to CVS so I wouldn't have to deal with this crap.. OK, well CVS is seriously 1mi from my house. The base is 15 minutes. Do you know they wouldn't call me anything in? Nor would they give me medicine without being seen. I went in, they gave me freaking over the counter Mucinex. Thanks doc!

One time, I had BAD sprained muscle, they gave me Tylenol. 

WOW! Thanks doc!

Also, tried to get the doctor to call me once, when Giana was super sick, and I couldn't get an appointment (because you can never get an appointment) and they told me, "The doctor will call you back in about 48 hours.." WAIT --  48 hours! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Last but not least. Last time I went in, I tried to talk about some concerns I had, about GiGi, with the doctor, and she walked out and said she'd "be right back", little did I know, she went on to another patient, and had her nurses take me back to waiting room a minute later. All I HAD was one more question, she hadn't been in there with me some 30 minutes. I waited for 10 and got mad, got up, found the nurses, and wanted to know I had been pushed from the room and told she'd be right back. They told me that because I didn't tell the appointment call center clerk that I had all these concerns, my appointment was only made for 30 minutes, and I could wait another hour or so, or make another appointment. I was literally breathing fire folks, because this is recent, and I am already so bothered by the way we are treated down there I was literally breathing flames, out my ears and everything. I did the only thing I can do. I filled out an ICE report. But I really don't think those do anything seeing as it's not the first time I have filled one out.  I need some ICE to cool me off, actually.

Seriously, Medicaid patents, please do not complain about your care, as you can see, it could be way worse. I don't know if this is as bad as not having insurance at all.

This really does suck, and I have had it up to here with this crap!

Singularly, all of these issues, would be annoying, together combined they are ludicrous. You cannot be seen off base, without filing a bunch of "red-tape" paper work with TriCare and listing off a letter of WHY you want to be seen off base. It is more of a hassle than anything, and per TriCare such requests are usually 99% of the time denied.

So, I never wrote the letter.

My letter would read much like this blog post. I would go on to the point of Ad Nauseam. And I would have a hard time hiding my contempt for them, and it would be denied. For sure.

So I had my best friend Beth write it, since she is not as b***hy as I. Doors get shut when you get mad, they get opened when you are nice. Catch more bees with honey than you do with vinegar! So I had her write it.

Let's hope and pray it works, because I am so fed up.

Here's the letter:

"I, Casey Colette, would like to have medical care off base. The following are the reasons why:

·        When I call to get an appointment for being sick, I cannot get an appointment the same day. If I am sick, or my child is sick, I need to be seen. There are not enough doctors for all the patients they need to see.
·        I have to get there 15 minutes early. If I am ONE minute late, I will be sent home and have to reschedule my whole appointment. My husband deploys, and I am home with 2 kids by myself. I cannot run back and forth between the doctor’s office and home. If I am late, it is because I have 2 children at home that I must be sole care taker for while my husband is away protecting our country.
·        When I come to the doctor for being sick, all I get is over the counter medication. I have taken hours out of my day to come to the doctor, and I do not get the medications that I need. An off base doctor would not prescribe me over the counter medications. I have a medicine cabinet full of Robitussin, Dimetapp, and Mucinex. These medications do not even work anymore because I have been given them so much.
·        Medications cannot be called in.
·        No care on weekends. My daughter was very sick over a weekend, and I could not even get an authorization to go to an Urgent Care facility. I was told to wait until Monday even though she had been running a high fever for 72 hours. When I call on Monday to get an appointment, I cannot get one until the following day. That is more school that my child has to miss. That is not acceptable.
·        Tri-Care North provides over the counter medications once a month. This would prevent me from having to come to the doctor just to receive the same over the counter medications.
·        We never see the same physician. We cannot develop a patient/physician relationship if we never see the same doctor.
·        I cannot go to the Emergency Room unless it is “life, sight, or limb”. When my child is extremely sick, and I cannot receive urgent care, or come into the office, I still cannot get treatment because I am not allowed to go to the ER.
·        If I was to see a doctor off base, I could get an appointment when I needed one. I would not be made to wait when myself or my children have been sick for days already.
·        There are no appointment reminders. If I saw a doctor off base, I would get a reminder that I had an appointment. That way I would not miss the appointment and have to reschedule.
·        I have to make well child appointments months in advance so that I can make sure I can be seen, and get no reminders that I have an appointment.
·        If there is something else I need to talk to the doctor about, that I forgot to tell the receptionist, I am made to go back into the waiting room because my appointment time was “not long enough”.  "