Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Mary, bring me another drink.

Dr. Heller: "This is Dr. Heller, with Major Illness Insurance."

Dr. Grumpy: "Hi, I'm trying to get a neck MRI authorized on a lady with a Horner's Syndrome."

Dr. Heller: "Why do you need a neck MRI?"

Dr. Grumpy: "Because the nerves in question go from the brain down the spinal cord, then into the top of the chest, then back up through the neck to the eye. So they can be damaged by problems in the neck, and I need to get a look at the area."

Dr. Heller: "It's ridiculous that the nerve travels so far. It seems unnecessarily complex."

Dr. Grumpy: "Look, I didn't design the system."


23 comments:

  1. Chalk this up to morning caffeine rage, but that remark would have led me directly to the state board of medicine with a complaint. His license should be yanked. Is this yahoo boarded in anything other than charcuterie?

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  2. Oh wow, I feel for you american doctors to have to deal with this :P

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  3. Ah. One of the many "I didn't make the world, I just try to live on it" type of situations.

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  4. It's all your fault. Can't you re-wire those nerves so they go straight to the eyes ?

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  5. Maybe Dr Heller has really long auditory nerve, that slows processing of heard information... Did you ask him if there is a monthly bonus pool based on high score for how many testing requests get turned back a month?

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  6. Hey, my cat has Horner's... from running head first into windows, walls, and missing the cat door by about a foot.

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  7. Good God! I will echo Kristin and ask, "Doctor of what?" Doctor of denying insurance claims?

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  8. Dr. Heller... I get it... That's funny!

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  9. Maybe Dr. Heller was trying to be funny?

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  10. You'd almost think it was designed by an insurance company bureaucrat.

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  11. apparently there's a reason he's on the other end of the phone instead of in a clinic/hospital.

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  12. Did this guy get his medical license from a cereal box?

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  13. Perfect example for me to use in my "Intelligent Design Isn't All That Intelligent" lessons. Thanks!

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  14. Its like the "doctor" for my insurer who rejected my PT and OT because, while I was improving my strength range of motion with therapy, I wasn't progressing fast enough, so the therapy was deemed "ineffective." Months later, when I got another script for PT and OT, and was improving well, but still registering a pain level of 4, my PT and OT extension request was rejected because I had shown "dramatic" improvement and there was no further therapy needed. I guess this time things were going too fast?

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  15. "It's ridiculous that the nerve travels so far. It seems unnecessarily complex."

    Take it up with the Creator.

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  16. Perhaps you should contact the manufacturer

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  17. Some nerve. It would make his job easier, wouldn't it, now, if that nerve didn't have to travel so far to impinge on your last nerve?

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  18. I don't know, that nerve always baffled me. Why would it leave the brain, leave the skull, go down all the way to thoracic spine, and then ALL the way back up to the eye??? That's just ridiculous. If anything, this is strong argument against intelligent design. Did this start in worms or something? Does it do the same bizarre thing in rats? Birds? Fish? What's wrong with it?? Evolution generally has a reason, even if it doesn't make sense a million years later.... But seriously?

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  19. recall ROS questioning...

    sir, does it hurt behind your eyes when you pee?....

    this is the test!! cheaper than MRI :)

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  20. I dunno, it sounds like Dr. Heller was cracking a joke.

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  21. The Flying Spaghetti Monster likes long noodles. Reflect on the length of the recurrent laryngeal nerve of a giraffe, if you don't believe me. Ramen!

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So wadda you think?