Pre-operative Evaluation

Grace had her H&P today which stands for History and Physical. It's her pre-operative checkup to ensure she doesn't have anything wrong that would affect her during surgery like pneumonia. Because of her age she didn't need any blood work. Her pediatric ophthalmologist recommended she have an EKG prior to the surgery, but her pediatrician said he doesn't see why she would need it considering she hasn't had any heart problems and she's only 5.

Speaking of recommendations, we were at the pediatricians today for her 5 year checkup and were needing the H&P for her surgery on Wednesday and they informed me that our insurance company would never pay for doing both things on the same visit. So since we needed the pre-op approval for this Wednesday we had to bypass the 5 year checkup until a later date. I'll need to reschedule that and we'll have to pay our deductible again to go back to the pediatrician again. And they are just going to check all the same things they checked today for her pre-op approval. Thanks insurance companies for making our life easier; sure makes our life less hectic...not.

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Sorry, I had to take a time out because our Hainesville hoodlums were smashing everyone's pumpkins in the street. I really wish these kids would look at it with at least a little empathy as Grace is going to wake up tomorrow all sad that her pumpkins are gone. And I'm mad because I paid a lot of money for those things at the pumpkin farm. I realize that kids will do things that they deem as "fun" but this happens each year in our neighborhood and they never seem to get caught. I was in my kitchen and heard the popping sounds outside and went running out there. They were just down the street so I grabbed my camera and went after them. I was only about 6 houses away from them and I could see them, but then a car came (actually it was the police) and they hid or went home because I haven't seen them since. I was hoping to get their picture and end this thing.
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So anyway, the 5 year checkup is more involved than we thought previously. She'll need to do a urine test and a blood test (just a prick test) for hemoglobin and cholesterol and then she'll get two or three immunizations for chicken pox and something else (can't remember what they all were.) Julie had just asked when making the appointment if Grace would be getting any immunizations and they said not if she'd gotten them at 4, but clearly these are 5 year old immunizations that every 5 year old gets at their 5 year checkup. I guess the nurse didn't want to answer the question. I think a better answer would have been "I'm not sure."

So I called Julie to update her on everything about Grace's doctors appointment. She called the pediatric ophthalmologist's office and asked again about the EKG and they said that if her pediatrician didn't feel she needed it then they were fine with her not having one. That almost brought up another insurance issue. Her pediatrician is associated with a hospital our insurance company won't allow us to go to (where Grace was born) and they had given me an order for the EKG through that hospital. We got the order changed so we could take it to a hospital that our insurance will allow us to go to, but as I just said, it is a moot point since we don't need to have the test done.

I called the insurance company today too because Grace's pediatrician suggested that not only did he not recommend she have an EKG but that the insurance company might not cover it. Turns out they would cover it, but like I just said we don't need to do the test anyway. So we're all set now for the surgery as far as I can tell.