So Monday I am checking my email her at work, I work at Stanford so get a lot of emails about seminars and such being put on by this department or that, well I get one of these about women’s health and I am about to hit delete when I glance at the speaker title and it says Director Stanford Headache clinic, I was like what? We never had a headache clinic here. I look this doctor up and since I work at the university I can get his email address so I send him an email asking about the clinic and telling him I have SUNCT and asked if he thought he could help me. We exchanged a few emails and I gave him my readers digest of my symptoms and who I have seen and a few things they have tried on me and he was intrigued and wants to see me. So first I ask will my insurance cover the visit since I already see a out of network pain doctor and it cost me $240 every time I see him and with my fiancée out of work the last thing I need is more expensive doctor’s appointments especially if there is no guarantee of any help with my SUNCT. Well you would think working here that I would be covered to see one of our own doctors but the plan that allows that is the most expensive one we have and is like three times what I pay for my Blue Shield PPO, so had to make a few frustrating calls to find out and surprise surprise he is covered and I will only have to pay a $35 copay. I am stoked that I get to see someone new and that they are covered by my insurance. He also has a pain clinic so if this works out I may be able to drop the out of network doctor all together that is if this doctor will continue to give me the same amount of pain medication my doctor now does and he already made a comment about me being on pain medication so he may be one of those that makes it like pulling teeth to get what you need, guess I will find out I get to go see him Nov 21st and that was the first opening they had.
I got another surprise couple weeks back when I went to fill my pain medication, the pharmacy calls me and says the insurance has denied my prescription, I said it is not to early so why are they denying it, he tells me that as of September first the insurance companies are limiting the number of pills you can have per day to 8 and that is not even close to what I need on a bad day with the tolerance I have built up over the past almost three years I have been on them. So had to have my doctor deal with them to justify my prescription, good news is they oked it no problem after hearing from him but it is a four day proses to get it approved so beware if you are getting close to needing a refill, you may want to go in a couple days early if it is for a large amount of medication.