I wanted to share the information we received from the Cleveland Clinic‘s exclusive Pain Rehabilitation Program coordinator yesterday.
Lizze got the call yesterday afternoon.
Here is what we learned.
The soonest Lizze will get in to the program is going to be late January. There is a waiting list and they are requiring Lizze to have her sleep study -for apnea- and her follow up appointment with her sleep neurologist before she enters the program.
Her sleep study is this coming week and her follow up appointment is still a couple weeks out.
We also got a breakdown of expenses as well. This is the list of known expenses as of this point in time.
1) Cheapest Hotel is $70/night x 15 nights = $1,050.00.
2) Various textbooks will be about $50.
3) Food (breakfast, lunch and dinner) is out of pocket. Total expense unknown.
4) If commuting, fuel will run about $200+/week x 3 weeks = $600+.
5) Actual cost of the program itself is $10,000/week x 3 weeks = $30,000.
6) Miscellaneous expenses are unknown.
7) Several trips to the Cleveland Clinic for additional evaluations prior to knowing what insurance will agree to cover.
At this point in the game, we still don’t know what, if anything, insurance is going to cover. This has to be submitted first and then we will hear back with an answer.
I’m doing my best not to let this new information deter me from focusing my efforts, on making this happen.
I’m going to remain positive and continue to push forward.
I’m a little late to this one, but… I can obtain a great deal of books easily. DM me the names when you end up needing them, and I’ll scour my sources for PDF or ePub copies. $50 may not be much out the enormous total, but if I can help in any way, I’d like to.
As for insurance, they’d be real bastards (and stupid – in the long run it could save everyone involved lots) to not cover at least some part of this.
Hopefully, you find a way to make this work. Clearly, it’s going to be cheaper to commute than to stay in a hotel. Can you pack food for Lizzie to eat there? If you’re commuting, breakfast at home, and the clinic may have a fridge and microwave she can use. If not, a cooler bag and thermos can be used. It sucks that you have to make decisions about loved ones’ health based on money. I’m hoping your insurance will cover the bulk of this. Hopefully, you can make them see that this is an investment. Finding out how to keep your lovely wife healthier will decrease not only HER health related costs, but the entire family, as the stress of living in crisis mode 24/7 takes its toll on an entire family.
We'll be praying over here Rob! Insurance has caused us troubles in the past I know – but this could be such a huge thing for Lizze – we'll be praying!