As Promised, Adventures in Medical-Insurance. Or is that Medical-Industrial Complex? Eh.

The following events take place (and were recorded!) between 3:00PM May 11th 2006 and 4:00 PM May 12th 2006.

And now, Adventures in the Medical-Industrial Complex

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For the last two hours, I have been adrift in the American medical system. Fascinating stuff ... for instance, did you know that they won't let people pay for their own medical care with their own money? Apparently, the only way I can pay my own medical bill is to be rejected for eligibility with Free Care (some form of cheapo medical insurance).

Yeah, I can't believe it either (hold your logical explanations, please.)

Digression: Now, I must digress for backgrounding purposes. Throughout the month of May, I was in a Red Cross facility getting my CNA (look it up) licence. I like money very much, you see. Among other things, you are required to get a TB test, largely so you don't become Patient Zero for geriatric deaths in nursing homes.

Which neatly returns us to our tale of insurance-flavoured derring-do ...

In any case, no s**t there I was (to quote Elizabeth Bear :D); stalking through the Boston Medical Center like I owned the place, I staked out Radiology and stated my unwavering desire for answers (specifically the whereabouts of my TB test results and the subsequent arrangement of a chest X-ray). They tell me they won't can't do it for me without an appointment. S**t.

So I demanded -- stop laughing, damn your eyes, yes demanded I said -- to use their phone. It was promptly placed in my possession and verily I snarled into it. It soon became apparent that the Greater Roslindale Health Center (GRHC) was wide-awake and rampant, having bootstrapped itself into an Artificial Imbecility and was determined to bog down my progress in a recursive morass of false starts and uploaded call center operatives falser voices. Not to be deterred, I quickly lifehacked the Imbecility, cutting through its blackICE via a minute vulnerability in the Head Nurse's answering machine. Only one as formidable as I could have spotted and exploited it in such scant seconds.

But I digress. Shortly afterward, I was speaking to a lackey of the bureaucratic machine and, after hearing my dangerous (not to mention hella sexy) tones, she completely surrendered and gave me all the access I desired. I didn't even have to torture or seduce her for it.

Yet my troubles were far from over. I learned that my results had been faxed to the BMC as commanded. Good. But it was in the hands of the Vietnamese lady in charge of the TB Clinic ACC3 (same one who refused to give me a TB test in the first place, necessitating all this) and she was as much a stonewall as before. But this time, I was as a thing of monocrystalline iron; my will as inexorable as the crushing force of stellar gravity. When I got there, she said I'd have to do the X-Ray June 8th. Was she utterly mad, asked I, or did she not know that wasn't an option? I soon squeezed the loophole out of her - as one would blood from steel - that I could get a Referral from GRHC and thus complete my quest.

With a smile - grim, resolute, victorious - I commandeered the use of their phone (the hallway one, of course, not the one at the Reception desk(why would I wish to associate with such quotidian plebes) and once more infiltrated the GRHC AI. Despite its meager new adaptations, I was soon speaking to the Nurse again. Her quick uneven breathing meant she was clearly "hot for me" which might explain her faxing over the Referral without debate. My mighty ears even overheard heard a faint squelching sound against the velour on which she sat, so lustful for me was she. After I hung up, I sat down to wait, enjoying Vietnam's consternation at how one man could possibly have so much juice (again, look it up).

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To Be Continued.