Fine after surgery
So! First information is that Fernanda's surgery went fine, she's recovering fine and will be back home tomorrow.
Getting to it was a nightmare, so I decided to write some stuff here that may help other foreign researchers that are coming or will come to Germany. I hope that can help them on health insurance. BTW, some keywords so it shows up when someone google it.
Health insurance for foreigns in Germany, health insurance for researchers in Germany.
So, the story so far. We needed a health insurance for transition, between Fernanda's insurance in the Max Planck in Goettingen and the new one in the TUM in Munich, first one was private and the second one was "public" (gesetzliche). So we've got one called Mawista-Science.
It has worked well while we were in Goettingen, since Mawista hires insurance from someone else and for northern Germany is hired on Wurzburger and it worked fine (no big requests). In the south is hired on Mondial Assistance and those guys failed us twice.
First failure was the lack of respect for the human being that pays for it. They tried to find technicalities not to pay for the surgery and took them 4 work days to decide to pay for it. That means they called the doctor with the authorization less than half an hour before the scheduled time for the surgery. That's a huge lack of respect in my opinion. We were ready (doesn't mean we could do it, but someone that has good friends doesn't die alone) to pay privately for the surgery.
Second failure is related to a market "war" between two parts of this "industry" (namely physicians and insurance). Here in Germany, I don't really understand how that goes, but it seems that medical services and material have a fixed price that can be multiplied by a factor.
First time I saw this as a problem was on a dental treatment, where my dentist was charging a 3.5 factor and the insurance top was a 2.7 factor (or something like that).
Turns out Mondial/Mawista approved surgery but with a 1.8 top factor and the doctor would charge 3.5, i.e. they would pay for about half the prince. According to the doctor, 1.8 is about the price this surgery costed in the 1970's ... and even though they put in their webpage, on the coverage part "SURGERY - 100%" ... not really true ...
The main problem in this war is that it's not a fair market. If you're not happy with the price of milk, or beer, you just don't buy it. When a doctor tells you, "we need to operate you or you'll die", you're not really in a position to discuss prices ...
At the end we were very lucky because the card from AOK, Fernanda's public insurance, arrived the day before and they quickly agreed to pay for the surgery without restrictions.
In a nutshell, we were betrayed by our private health insurance.
Summarizing insurances in Germany:
- Public health insurance (gesetzliche krankenversicherung)
+ Pay the things they have to pay without complaining
+ Charge a "handling fee" (10 Euro each time in go to a doctor in a trimester, unless you're being transfered from another doctor - like, you go to a general doctor because your leg hurts and he sends you to an orthopedist, you just pay the first one)
+ If your work gives you that, the law obliges you to have it
+ They don't pay several things or limit kinds of treatments (like dental, fillings must be made with amalgam, abandoned in most of the occidental world many years ago)
+ They don't cover medicines
- Private health insurance
+ Pay medicine
+ No handling fee
+ Pay several treatments (like resin fillings)
+ Sometimes come out with a disagreement in "price factors"
Hints:
- Specifically ask about payment factors for doctors and get it written, before contracting the insurance.
- Ask about the timescale for authorizations for large procedures.
- Get clear the procedure, if you're reimbursed or if they pay the medical bill directly and what are the limits. You don't want to have to pay a 1K Euro bill and then be reimbursed.
Basically that. If something else occurs to me I'll complement this text.
Science the last few days ... not much. A lot of reading on the subway on the way to the hospital and back.
My neck and my back are much better also!
Labels: health insurance, life
Is this a joke?
So!
Several jokes lately.
Health insurance looking for technicalities not to pay Fernanda's surgery, which will be on wednesday. Their part is to get our money and not to pay us when it's needed. My part is to make them pay, even if that means taking them to a court. Let's see.
Not enough having a back problem, Fernanda needing surgery like this, since the weekend I also have a terrible pain in the neck, what made the pain in the back "disappear" ... not even the physiotherapist could make it better ...
Gathering on the weekend was just great! Too bad it lasted only a couple of days. It's great to spend good hours with old and good friends.
Finished checking and redoing the failed models. This part is over. Now finish the analysis and write the paper (that easy).
Labels: hi-z morph, life
Solving problems ... that's what I do :-)
So!
the worsening of my pain in the back is probably nothing major as a hernia or so. The doctor looked and said something in german, too fast to be understood. Anyway. An injection of something for the pain and I should be improving soon. Dammed snow delaying the usually delayed bus + delayed subway + doctor appointment + physiotherapy took me the whole morning.
Fernanda, at the same time had her appointment at the other side of town and she will really need a surgery. Next week. The rest of the day was spent arranging stuff like authorization from the health insurance for the surgery and other issues. Not done yet, but on the way.
Only reading some papers while waiting.
Labels: life
About pain and models :-)
So! About pain. My lumbar pain is gone worse. I have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow. It can be some sort of "inverted placebo", like I get worse because I know the symptoms of disk hernia ... or I did something wrong on the home part of my physiotherapy ... or as I have been taking more care of Matheus (specially the lifting part). Anyway.
Fernanda had her appointment and it all points to surgery. The doctor was safe to say that it was too bad for therapy but not as bad as to assure a surgery. He sent Fernanda to a neurosurgeon, tomorrow at 10.
On science I finished "healing" the failed models and ran it. Now gotta check them all, but a first look only showed a hand full of problems.
Also read more of Lucas Schubert's dissertation. Still lots of pages to go :-)
Labels: hi-z morph, life
a day to ...
So! What a day, good that it's over.
As I comment last post, Matheus provided me with night entertainment :-)
In the morning it was all white, again! I don't mind, as long as I can walk, what was not the case. Streets around here were full of snow (not that there was THAT much snow) and sidewalks too. I don't understand that city ... in Goettingen it was always everything clean early in the morning, here the problem starts with my janitor service, that sux. And we woke up later, given the "night" party :-)
Don't need to comment that the bus that is usually late just collapsed, something that other people in other parts of the town also know, so it's not just "my bus". And there's winter every year ... will they learn?
Yes, I complain about this city! People in "suburbs" like Garching have a better service!
Most of the day was spent with Fernanda around doctors. Yep, her back pain didn't improve, actually got worse since our last visit to the doctor, now an orthopedist.
First doctor said it was a muscular distention ... after 2 months of pain. Well I have distended most of the muscles in my body and I can tell none lasted 2 months ... Second doctor said it was a nerve clamp, but the solution offered was some physiotherapy, didn't work. In Brazil she visited a physiotherapist and an acupuncturist, also no solution. Then we visited an orthopedist how said it was muscle clamping a nerve ... ok
So, today she went to the doctor again and he asked for an
MRI (if you watch House M.D. you're familiar with the term :-) ), which took most of the afternoon. Result of it ...
lumbar disc hernia. Tomorrow we're gonna see the doctor again, to hear that. Solutions are, surgery and when possible a conservative treatment involving medicines, physiotherapy and massage. Surgery solves the problem quicker and with less pain, at least through time ... on the other hand is a surgery and it has risks. Let's see what the doctor will tell us tomorrow.
So! Pretty tuff day!
Science: I kept saving failed models in the waiting rooms.
Labels: hi-z morph, life
Cold
So! Seems that the cold really got me. Whole morning between taking Matheus to the Tagesmutter and physiotherapy. Then after a couple of failed models checking I gave up to the sore body of who has a cold ...
A long and good night of sleep should do the trick (P.S. Your kid can provide you enough entertainment during the night to destroy your plans ... :-) ). Let's see what the next day will bring.
Also received some chapters of my good friend Lucas Schubert's (Computer Science Uni-Goe) dissertation to check on.
Labels: hi-z morph, life
Gathering! :-)
So, two friends that worked with me at INPE are coming to Munich next weekend (30-31/01)! Alex Wuenchen (INPE) and Rodrigo Leonardi (ESA) will be coming for the weekend, so tourism and music! We used to play together.
Thursday back up day. Finished to copy my back up and started to see how could I expand my Time Machine partition. Turns out I'd need the iPartition and I'm not in the mood for paying about 40 USD for it. So I'll have to copy data to another disc, then change the partitions and re-copy. Tried it last night and it didn't work fine with a "cp". Turns out there're too many cyclic references and it copies everything (I could tweak the parameters, I know).
So you search and talk to people and got this info:
http://www.macyourself.com/2008/12/10/how-to-copy-your-time-machine-backups-to-a-new-larger-drive/
It works.
(actually done in the weekend and worked fine)
Science. Identifying and correcting the GALFIT failures (not running them yet). This will go on monday and reading the draft of the UCDs paper. It's getting good!
Labels: hcg_ucd, hi-z morph, life, Mac_hints
