Afternoon reading...

Okay. So here's a pretty good story from last week.

On Friday, when the doctors started talking about sending Olivia home on Monday, the wheels started turning. The discharge nurse began diligently working on all the little things to get us out of there. We are still "between insurance companies," so a major concern was, who do you bill when we get prescriptions, oxygen, supplies, etc... In order to start Olivia on the All Kids program, she has to meet a "spend down." However, the hospital refuses to bill for a patient until after discharge. So, how do we meet our spend down when we have no medical bills until she's discharged? And she can't get discharged until she has her medical card to be able to buy the necessities for home. To make a really long story a little bit shorter, the discharge nurse explained the situation and said that the hospital had to fax at least a partial bill to Olivia's case worker or she will be in the hospital for eternity. Her response: "I can't fax the bill. It's 445 pages long!"

Here it is. The partial bill. It is important to note that this does not include surgery, anesthesia, anything done by St. Jude, radiology fees, lab fees, physician fees, etc... I went to pick it up from the billing office and it was located in a box on the receptionist's desk. A box! Oh, the memories this girl is making!