Unwritten: Chapter 9
Personal Bankruptcy
October 9,2009
To Whom It May Concern:
I have known Ms. Durant for six years. I am fully aware other neuropsychiatric history. In my professional opinion, as. her primary medical doctor, she is capable of managing tier own finances and personal affairs.
After treating Ms, Durant on a regular basis, I feet that it is in her best interest to have control over her own finances and personal information.
Her representative payee is causing complications with her benefits and her ability to access care and treatment.
Sincerely,
[Redacted] MD
*Note: I had to see four doctors before I found one who was willing to write a letter stating I was unable to manage my personal finances. He worked in prisons and thinks I'm narcissistic when I corrected his DSM-IV code. My response, "of course I'm narcissistic. Don't you know who I am?" He didn't laugh. Maybe he didn't get the joke but I'm pretty sure everyone else did.
Same five cent doctor also changed my diagnosis after meeting with me for under ten minutes in CMHA (Community Mental Health Agency) that made profit by taking a percentage of my disability payments and consistently over billed for services not rendered.
It is standard practice for such agencies to give their "clients" severe diagnoses and the lowest GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning) generally around a 36 or so and place them in category requiring most "comprehensive" services COVERED by state plan.
NOTE: Despite the services being paid, reported and billed to various payers and billed (sometimes to multiple payers and PAID by State and Federal Government incompetent fuckwits; or payment billed and paid through privatized MCOs (Managed Care Organizations) or their BHO (Behavioral Health Organizations) Carve Out Plans that are dreadfully inadequate and often subsidiaries of larger for profit corporations that have an uncanny way of managing to get Government contracts with... Politicians who have family businesses (ie, Senator Bill Frist, Heir to HCA Columbia, the largest for profit hospital chain in the United States, or Governor Rick Scott (former executive at HCA who left after the healthcare giant was investigated for hundreds of millions in Medicare Fraud in the mid 90's. Scott left Nashville after a widely publicized scandal, moved to Florida and became Governor*)
Trust me. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. Just for shits and giggles, let me tell you actually RUNS these programs.
PRISONERS.
That's right. You heard me correctly. The program that covers these unfortunate individuals is called TennCare. Despite cutting 460,000 recipients through Federal Waiver, the State still does provide coverage for the most vulnerable residents IF they meet the criteria (excluding the Daniels Class) and this was WHIlE I was employed by the Department under a DEMOCRATIC Governor.
So who gets this special care?
Well, the program has been closed for almost a decade or so unless you have Cervical Cancer or an SPMI (Severe and Persistent Mental Illness) and has them in a "special" group called "State Only," SSI Recipients (Income $700/month) are in prison or juvenile justice. Lucky folks!
It's a nightmare. Trust me. I would know. I worked not only as a provider in the system, but due to being uninsurable while I was doing my PhD at an exclusive University I applied and received TennCare since USHealthScare would not provide coverage for a severe spinal condition diagnosed at 22 years old.
At one point, I had FOUR health insurance policies. You don't purchase (out of pocket) an Individual Plan with a private HMO ($212/month premium despite their crappy coverage and exclusions) a Graduate Student Policy at an elite Ivy League University, had terminal liability coverage through an ERISA employer plan (that refused COBRA) and then, TennCare.
I had a full scholarship to cover my tuition and fees and even a fluffy stipend of $700/month (more than SSI or disability pays adjusted annually for COLA) back in 1995-1999.
I still racked up over $179,000 in student loans because healthcare is expensive. Especially when you can't afford it and become immobilized by pain and eventually life. I can honestly say that fighting with medical bill collectors and trying to coordinate benefits, filing appeals and dealing with subrogation claims at 22 is what led to my "permanent disability" after years of mental torture. I hit the jackpot. I lost my mind and checked myself in to the ER at NYU when I lost my health insurance and they thought I was absolutely insane since I edited the legal documents and payment forms since they were in violation of NY State Public Law.
I explained to them that they need to transfer me to an in network hospital so I could appeal for coverage when this horrific SNAFU was settled. It never got settled.
They then decided I was suffering delusions of Grandeur because I "thought" I was a Graduate Student at Columbia University. Which I was that morning before they froze my account after an audit, dropped my classes, my student insurance plan, and my student housing was no longer an option.
I lost my shit. BUT, I was legally correct and to add insult to injury, they violated HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) by calling the Registrar and telling them they had a delusional patient claiming to be a student.
My mentor, my hero, my Department Head immediately confirmed that I was in fact a "brilliant health policy analyst" and came down to get me out of there.
They transferred me to the worst possible city hospital and confiscated my journals and threw out my favorite book, "Prozac Nation" by Elizabeth Wurtzel.
The Department Head came down to the hospital and went through the dumpsters to collect my journal because he liked my writing that much. I still have them. One day, I may publish them. Or burn them. Which ever comes first.
So, since we took the detour, we may as well tell you how that played out.
On that ridiculous document they gave me they asked for my parents names and telephone. Having been estranged from my entire family since I started college at 16 I was unwilling to give out that information. I did not want to see my parents.
They called them anyway.
NOTE: The other reason they thought I was delusional is because I told them not to bother my dad- a Fed and don't waste their time with my mother who had kicked me out at 15 without telling me first.
Just came home from my full time job (paid more than my stipend, or any other job I have had in the last 20 years. Except for the five days I danced in my underwear so I could buy a car when I missed my flight back to school my Junior Year. True Story. Five days? Five grand. New car.)
Anyhoo, came home from work as a (fully clothed) waitress on a Barge at the Marina a few miles from home and my keys didn't work. So I looked in the window and all my shit was gone. Even the furniture was rearranged in my bedroom. I had no idea what my mother did with my things until a friend found out a few weeks later that she sent all my crap to my father's home in Philadelphia.
Okay, then. Hadn't seen him since she picked me up from there just before my 13th birthday and drove me to Vermont with her 2nd ex husband and had me call my dad from a pay phone to tell him I wasn't coming back. She bribed me with two pairs of Guess Jeans and that was all it took for a Cheerleader who had worn already worn everything in her closet once.
My dad obviously wasn't thrilled. But I was young and he was strict. As the youngest in my class, I spent the last year and a half attending all my friends Bar and Bat Mitzvahs.
I was disappointed that I could have LaMasquerade and a Black Tie affair at the Warwick like my best friend and I was also disappointed that I wouldn't be going to Lawrenceville, Princeton Day School or Hunn with the rest of my friends for High School but most of all, I was terribly embarrassed that my father cancelled my upcoming Bat Mitzvah after the invitations went out. He was strict. He didn't care about losing the money he spent on the Venue, the invitations, the elegant pink roses we picked out or the years I spent going to Hebrew School three times a week. I was grounded and I was devastated.
To this day, I'm not sure exactly what I did to warrant such a severe punishment. But in the 6th grade he grounded me for a year and he meant it. He is a man of his word so when he said, "No Bat Mitzvah" all I could do was run away so I didn't have to face my friends and explain that my Bat Mitzvah was cancelled because I was being punished for doing something that made my dad furious. So two pairs of Guess Jeans and a new school sounded pretty good to a spoiled twelve year old.
I packed a duffle bag and put it outside on the wet autumn lawn and when my mom came "to visit" from New York, she or one of her ex husbands carried the duffle bag to the car and we drove straight to a fancy Bed and Breakfast since Long Island was taking a beating by Hurricane Gloria. The only hurricane other than Sandy to hit New York in my lifetime.
BREAK:: just got a text from my mother. 6:48 am. She is on her way over.
I will continue with this chapter and tell you how GAF assessments and false diagnoses run the health insurance market place another day.
Holy crap on a cracker. I had a point to this story.
I have to text her back or I will lose this entire chapter of my book when she calls.
To be addressed:
Duplication of Benefits
Billing and Diagnostic Codes
The system is designed to keep you sick and poor. I may include some of my own horrifying assessments I read when I sought treatment from a CMHA that said I had no goals and NO strengths and played "computer games" instead of discussing my work as a therapist and policy advisor to the Governor who handled appeals for Special Populations.
It is HORRIFIC.
They took my money AND they took yours because they billed for services never received. I order the EOBs (Explanation of Benefits) after being assaulted by two mental health "workers" at one of their facilities and my "high priority" investigation got "LOST" in my own fucking office?
No. Files like that don't get lost. I have a copy. I also have a bill for $34,000 that was billed to the wrong fucking hospital.
The doctor who told me I was delusional and couldn't possibly have OCD is the very same doctor who first diagnosed me in 1999. He just didn't remember or thought it was easier to inject me full of drugs than to find out why I climbed out the window. I wasn't trying to kill myself as the report says (and I would LOVE to know where that information came from because I was at the airport when homeland security took me in a suspicious person who was just waiting for my flight to Vegas typing on my cell in a fire lane since I couldn't go back to my place since I was an informant (apparently not confidential) in an undercover sting operation for TennCare fraud aka Neighbors selling Oxy to teenagers in the parking lot. They had TennCare so selling their medication was fraud. I climbed out the fucking window because there were sirens and a cop came to my door with a god damn assault rifle. The Seargant was supposed to tell me before they raided the place. But I didn't get an email from either Sergeant or the Crime Suppression Unit to let me know to get the fuck out of dodge since my "cover" had been blown.
I went to a friends and spent the night and when you climb out the window to escape a crime scene sometimes you forget your purse so I got stuck in the parking garage after the Liberal Democrat meeting was over and had to call a local politician who graciously sent over a colleague with $50 so I could get out of the garage and fly to Vegas for my mom's 4th wedding and didn't really want to go home.
I love airports. Had no problem sitting there playing on my BlackBerry 8120 until it was time to leave. Homeland security didn't think so.
Oh yeah, and the second reason offered as evidence for my delusions of grandeur at NYU (other than my claim to be a graduate student at Columbia) was my off the cuff comment that my dad was a Fed and too busy to be bothered with my little breakdown in NYC.
A DECENT therapist who treated for several years after that incident pointed out that delusional people don't say, "My daddy is a Fed" they say "I'm a Fed" excellent point, Dr. T. He now teaches and specializes in Autism AND refused to sign any papers stating that I was incapable of managing my own finances despite my repeated requests.
Note: I was not declared incompetent or incapable of making medical or any other decisions. I just paid some fat dude at a CMHA a fee to handle my whopping $515- per month and somehow manage to pay my bills which obviously was impossible since the interest alone on my student loans was more than my monthly income.
NO ONE can manage their finances under those circumstances. But the bastard could have at least told me he wasn't going to pay the electric or water or rent on time since I was working for the State in the appeals office and would have paid out of my salary rather than accrue late charges, insufficient fund fees, disconnect-reconnect charges ($70 per screw up) for electric and face eventual eviction over $4.50 cent balance that was never paid.
That was the end of my sanity. Right fucking there. When I got back after the shooting, assault and very long trip to the airport, the Sheriff was parked outside with an eviction letter.
I called legal aid and explained that the $4.50 charge (late fee) was not my responsibility since I paid a fee and went through legal channels to have my finances managed by a "representative payee" and they refused to represent me since my father and sister and step mother were all attorneys.
I was 36 years old. They told me to call my mommy and daddy to pay for a lawyer. Her name was Liz.
I am (unfortunately) a person with a disability and as such, I am afforded certain legal protections under the law.
I knew the Judge since I planned his award ceremony the year prior and testified in his court for clients while I was working with Juvenile Justice as a Therapist and Case Manager.
I also advised him regarding changes to the law (and I was the one who, yes, who told the press since I had the court decision in my hand before my boss, The Commissioner knew and she then told the Governor)
I may be bat shit crazy, but I know my shit.
The Judge didn't remember me that day. I was given ten days to move out and the judge allowed their lawyer to take money directly out of my bank (illegal for someone on disability) and took my last paycheck from Metro.
Over four dollars and fifty fucking cents.
I lost EVERYTHING.
And the decent into madness began...
And when I say madness, I don't mean crazy. That is irrelevant to the facts of the case and the situation.
When I say madness, I mean ANGER.
Everyone wanted me to work on their campaigns, support their charities and run their events like I had done for the Obama inauguration and other special events but not a single person offered me a place to stay for my kitty or free storage so I didn't have to sleep on the floor of a meth stained carpet for a year with no phone, TV or radio in the ghetto when I finally found an apartment 5 months later.
My life will never be the same. Surely one of these arrogant fucks could have taken in my cat while I slept in my car in dead heat of summer and applied for emergency grants on my "TwackBerry" so I could pay the deposits and application fees to establish a new residence.
I had no food on Thanksgiving and nobody called to see if I was alive or dead after reading about the highly publicized assault and the vicious rumors about what really happened. They had no problem posting my name in press releases or listing me as a member of the board for their 501c3 they just didn't give a fuck about me or my "Save Spotty" campaign that went viral world wide.
Fuck you, Nashville.
I'm glad I am gone.
And I have some secrets to spill. So don't fuck with me. Just transferred those texts to a USB.
God damn Lieutenant couldn't even spell my name correctly on the police report.
How dare you.
Happy Anniversary.
I'm alive despite your shady ass threats. And you know who you are.
I finally got over my fear of cops and scum who cover their badge numbers when they are doing something shady.
The song of the day... "Play With Fire" by the Stones.
This bitch has stones. Deal with it.
And that's the DailyDDoSe™
Rocktober 20, 2013
Just me,
e
And the rest is still unwritten...
To be continued...
Whenevs...
^ed
^ed
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