So there I
was, just barely surviving the first anniversary of Victoria’s death, with an
unexpected lawsuit staring at me, and a marriage that seemed to be hanging by
the proverbial knot on a fragile silk thread. At that point in my life, I wasn’t
even sure I wanted to hang on.
Even though
we were obviously going about it in entirely different ways, all Chris and I
really wanted to do was to heal and return to living.
Yet a lot
of people, most especially doctors and insurance companies—and lawyers—involved
in this gut-wrenching mess wouldn’t let us.
Not long
after the volatile first anniversary, a bill from the attending physician to
Victoria’s delivery arrived in the mail one fine spring day. At first I stared
slack-jawed at it, shoulders slumping south under the weight of yet another
reminder. Then anger churned and shot to the surface as read it.
It bore one
of those big, bold, screaming scarlet stamps stating that if the balance were
not paid in a certain amount of time—amounting to days—they’d ship my name to a
collection agency. It was agony upon agony, insult upon insult.
Several
months after Victoria’s death, the medical group that had misdiagnosed my
placenta previa had blatantly refused to pay any of Dr. Gordon’s charges. In
addition, they hadn’t forwarded any of his bills to my insurance company—which
had already paid the five-figure hospital bill. Their excuse? They kept up
their monotone repetition that “the case was under their review.” Translation: Legal foot-dragging.
Gracious Dr.
Gordon announced that I didn’t need to be responsible for his portion, which
amounted to thousands of dollars, adding that he was prepared for a legal fight
with them. My brittle emotions sagged under the burden, but I promised him that
I would do everything in my power to make sure he was paid. He nodded
compassionately and said, “Thank you. But don’t worry. I’ve seen this kind of
thing before. I’m ready for the fight. You just need to heal.”
But I
wouldn’t let it go like that, so I donned my mental galoshes and waded into the
legal muck. After five months of verbal battling with my former medical group,
calls to my insurance company, and stacks of mailed bills, letters and
explanations, Dr. Gordon’s fee was fully paid—five months after Victoria’s
death. My insurance company lamented that they never received the original
bills and gave me the lengthy explanation that the payment needed to be denied
three times by my contracting medical group before they—the insurance
company—would pay the amount.
On one of
my final conversations with her, the woman at the insurance company divulged an
ugly secret: “This medical group does this kind of thing to us all of the time.” Then she added the
icing-on-the-cake information: The contracting medical group had no right to deny the charges originally
because they were incurred during a
lifesaving emergency.
I think it was the first real
smile I’d cracked in months, and those game-changing tidbits set my mental
wheels to churning at a blistering pace. Armed with this new, insider information,
glee bubbled around the edges of my embittered heart. Then disgust surged to
swirl around glee’s edges. How could people in the business to help others
deliberately set out to cause so much harm, so much emotional pain? How could
they have been so callous?
In that first
question, I found my answer: To so many of them, it was a business, not a calling,
privilege or gift given by God to benefit others. It was a business, with all of
the ugly attributes often associated with that sometimes-dishonorable pursuit.
To them, I had become a liability, a dollar sign bleeding their profit coffers.
They would fight for every precious penny.
What they
hadn’t counted on was this broken mother fighting back. Unfortunately, the
fight would consume strength and arrest healing, but the battle against
injustice had to be waged.
The
consummate insult came to both Dr. Gordon, a highly-skilled and compassionate
physician, and to us—the bereaved parents—when the medical directory of my
former high-volume, cut-rate medical group, (remember from my story the doctor
who wanted me to wait several days for an ultrasound when I was bleeding and
who wouldn’t pay for me to be admitted to a hospital for my severe morning
sickness?), boldly proclaimed that I probably did not have the complete previa
Dr. Gordon said he found on ultrasound and within my uterus when he opened me up.
They also insisted that Dr. Gordon had been “very uncooperative” with them. Subtly, arrogantly, they tried to
accuse Dr. Gordon of malpractice. It was another pathetic, groping tactic to
find a “reason” to avoid cracking open their piggy bank to pay the bill, which
was high by 1993 standards.
This
supercilious woman—a family practice physician—presumed to tell an experienced
specialist in obstetrics and infertility, that he had misdiagnosed the
situation over which he had so closely presided. She hadn’t seen me in months,
and only communicated by phone with Dr. Gordon on a handful of occasions. And
there she was, pointing her culpable, bony finger and shifting blame.
Poor Chris.
He couldn’t regain his balance. Men loathe feeling helpless. They rebel and
flail against it, and often lose good judgment in the midst of it. In the middle of this added misery, helplessness—
brewing in a toxic blend of smoldering anger and fresh hate—took center stage
in Chris’s psyche. He repeatedly insisted that we file a malpractice lawsuit
against her, my former obstetrician, and their medical group. Even Dr. Gordon
confirmed that he would support us in any decision we made. (And he felt
confident in his diagnosis, not only because he was inside me and saw the
previa first-hand, but because he tirelessly traversed the halls of the University
of California—Irvine Medical Center to review my case with his former medical
school professors and respected perinatologists, who all confirmed that he’d
done all that he could have done.)
Yet, I was
reluctant to weather a lengthy battle while lawyers gathered evidence,
interrogated everyone remotely involved, drudged up my past medical history,
and bantered back and forth for legal ground, while any award I’d receive was
being magically siphoned from my bonus sheet and tacked onto the ledger column
for the lawyers doing battle for me. Since
our former medical group informed Chris one day that, “Our lawyers are already
working on the case,” we reasoned they must have been preparing for a fight.
That comment stunned us into the realization that maybe they thought they needed to prepare. We had a difficult decision to make.
Yet, after
exhausting mental gymnastics and prayer, and consultation with my pastor, I
elected to avoid a lawsuit. I was tired; I wanted to move on. So many things
had kept me from doing that, from having what people refer to as “closure,”
which, I really doubt anyone ever truly experiences. But an ugly malpractice
lawsuit wasn’t going to undo the already done; it wasn’t going to bring our
precious daughter back. My decision to forego a legal battle wasn’t based on
financial reasons, or fear.
It was
based on sanity. The outcome of a
lawsuit would alter nothing. I’d still be a grieving mother with a vacant
nursery. With only mildly registered disappointment and resignation, Chris
respected my feelings.
But I had
just enough energy left in me for one thing: I needed to see my promise to Dr.
Gordon fulfilled. So with one last mustering of mental strength and physical
energy, I set out to be as sly as a serpent and as harmless as a dove. What
Chris couldn’t do, his fast-talking, fast-thinking, heartbroken wife could.
I got Dr.
Gordon paid his entire bill, and he responded by sending me a gracious thank
you letter saying he appreciated and recognized what it cost me to see that happen.
That letter sits today in my locked security box.
And the
case was finally closed.
Or so I thought,
until that overdue bill from the assisting physician arrived that glorious
spring day.
I didn’t
even attempt to conceal my anger when speaking with his bookkeeper on the
phone.
“Why
haven’t I received a bill before this
insulting statement?” I demanded.
“Oh, we don’t send the patient the
initial bill as a courtesy,” she countered condescendingly.
“Well, how did you expect me to pay the bill
when I didn’t know it existed?” I hissed at her. Fortunately for her, I
couldn’t slither through the phone.
“We do that
as a courtesy to our patients,” she kept repeating like a broken record. “But
now that I know the situation, I will make sure that you are not reported to a
credit agency.”
“You are not going to get paid unless you send me the bill directly. Send a copy of the bill to my insurance company, not to the provider, and a copy to me. I will then send it on to my
insurance company with a letter, and I will call them to let them know it’s
coming. I have a personal contact person there, with a huge file; they know all
about my situation,” I rattled on. “But you have
to send me the bill, too!”
After more
phone calls, and bills shuttled back and forth, the last financial issue was
resolved. One more problem solved; one more step toward that illusive closure.
I was so
very tired…
________________________________________________________________________
I sometimes
wonder if I should have commenced with a legal battle. If I thought that a
lawsuit would result in curtailing their practice—making it impossible for them
to harm another woman or unborn child the way they harmed my baby and me—I
would not have hesitated.
Doctors are
hard to curtail, but maybe I should have made the effort. Maybe that’s the
higher justice I should have aimed for, particularly since in the fall of 1994,
nearly six months after my loss, my former obstetrician lost both a mother and
her unborn baby to toxemia.
Yet even
Dr. Gordon was quick to point out how rapidly toxemia can begin without
warning, resulting in a tremendously difficult situation to treat. Like I said,
doctors are hard to curtail, particularly since they quickly stick up for and
protect one another.
What I did
do was act as a modern-day town crier, roaming the area, cautioning everyone I
knew against using that medical facility.
And bringing
it up today—nearly twenty-one years later—unlocks loathing in my husband’s
heart. Although Chris refrained from pressing me then, he still believes we should
have taken them to court for malpractice. Maybe, as a father, he feels as
though he didn’t fight hard enough on behalf of his baby girl.
All we can do
now is forget that which can no longer be, and press on.
May God
have mercy upon all of us.
___________________________________________________
Chris and I weren’t the only ones suffering from this loss.
Death affects all ages. NEXT WEEK:
See what an emotional breakdown can look like in a four-year-old.
___________________________________________________
Until next week,
Thanks for joining me!
Blessings,
Andrea
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