Athletico sucks

I've been suffering in tremendous pain the past few days till I was able to get a refill of better pain medication. The problem is that I got sidetracked from therapy before I even got started because of some power-hungry bitch office manager at Athletico who thinks she owns the company and will not even follow their own rules just so she can be right.

After my first visit, which I wrote about in a post below, she was supposed to fax in the evaluation paperwork and then follow up with a phone call the next day, which is what she has told both me and my husband in the past that she does automatically. However, someone dropped the ball again over there and no approval was ready the day of my next appointment so had to be canceled, and I am left hanging without being able to walk!

I called over there to find out and she told me "it is against company policy for me to call the insurance company". I was like WHAT? That is ridiculous. They have to be in communication with the insurance companies if they want to make sure things are going ok, if there is a mistake, an oversight, or other problems. They need to keep in touch with insurance companies if they want to get paid. That is why the insurance companies have phone numbers! AND she has made phone calls before. She is being a bitch now for whatever reason...probably because my husband has gotten involved in making her do her job in a timely manner.

She was quite snotty on the phone and she was like "corporate this and corporate that" as if that is the most divine and impermiable institutions on the planet. She gave me a phone number to call of this Geri person who is probably a friend, and she said that was corporate's number. Jon called and no, it is not corporate's number. It is a number of a person in another office is all. So, he DID call corporate, the real one and they were supposed to get back to him in a little bit last Thursday, and no, they did not.

In the meantime, I made an appointment with another place who says they know how to deal with insurance and said I shouldn't be having all these problems and say I wont with them. (So they say now...we shall see.) I have to start ALL OVER AGAIN on Tuesday with an evaluation and then start my regular therapy on Thursday. I see the doctor on the 6th of April who expects me to have about four weeks of therapy completed. I am going to call on Monday to explain things and to see if I can get some more drugs because this thing hurts so incredibly bad. It's on par with the pain of my back before I had spinal fusion in November...only isolated to the foot, so isn't as bad overall, just more condensed and confined to one area. But the pain had me so sick to my stomach the other night I could not eat or drink anything.

I called Athletico and asked the office manager bitch for my script from the doctor AND for a copy of the evaluation. She says she can give me my script back but not the eval. I told her that I have had enough medical stuff to know that I have legal right to my records and she better have a copy of it. So, when Jon goes there to get my script, guess what? She must have been hiding and she only left the script there, and no copy of the eval they had already done. So tomorrow, I am calling to get copies of ALL my records from there so I can transfer it to this other ortho rehab place and they better not give me any crap. We are already putting together a letter to send to Athletico's corporate offices and will consult an attorney if need be.

This is totally unreasonable and unprofessional and shows they don't give two hoots about their patients. I have been to other therapy places in the past and they know they are going to get paid. They schedule my appointments and I never have to worry about what goes on between them and the insurance company. I only went to Athletico because it's five minutes away from where I live. Easier on Jon, easier on me to get around. However, closer wasn't better, in this case anyway.

All I want is to get going so I can walk again. At this point, I feel like that never will happen, but common sense tells me that I will be walking again and this will all be in the past in a few months. Hopefully.