Question about dealing with tdoc -- HELP
 

Hi,

:( My checking account is overdrawn and I have an appointment in the afternoon with tdoc on Monday, March 5 at which time I would usually give her a check.
I get paid Friday, March 9. Insurance does not cover therapy with her.


I need to call and leave a message that I need to cancel on Monday. She hates last minute cancelations. On the other hand, I feel uncomfortable asking her to let me send her a check for a week later. I definitely cannot ask if I can give her a check that is post dated Friday, March 9. Asking that makes me uncomfortable.

I have been seeing her about once a month or two since 2005.

Hubby and I keep very separate checking accounts -- it is rather complicated to explain and complicated enough for me to follow. :confused:
There is absolutely no way I can tell hubby that I am overdrawn.

:icon_question: What should I tell tdoc when I call and leave a message with office machine on Sunday? I figure that I have to call her by 1:00 pm Sunday.

Mari

I would call the answering service and ask to leave her a message that you need to cancel the appointment or maybe have a phone appointment and then you could send her a check?
Is that a possibility?
bizi

Yes.
Thank you.
I could say something like this:
"Hi, I need to cancel the appointment because I do not get paid until Friday. I would like to have a phone appointment sometime after Friday when I get paid."

You made me realize that I could ask to change the appointment to Friday. That will make sense to both her and me. On Friday, I will have a good check to hand to her.

M

can you just tell her the truth? maybe she will call back and say you can pay her later and that she understands since you don't use insurance. i am sorry you have to go through this on top of everything else.
bobby

I think you can ask for a later appointment. But its possible the
one on Monday is the only one she has.

And would suggest, that since you have been a good client with
her. That you just mail her a check later.

Donna:grouphug::hug:

Hi Mari
 

I have an idea, if you told the doctor the truth, she would let you pay later. If you have been seeing this person for a few years, I think if it were me, even if it is over voice mail, I would tell the circumstances, let that prefessional have the option of seeing you or not. Some professionals will have mercy on you when you are financially strapped. This is what I have done with one of my doctors, and he saw me anyway. ginnie:hug:

I left a message
 

Hi, Everyone,

Thanks for helping. This is basically what I said when I called:



I expect that she might want me to keep the Monday appointment and send her a check after Friday.
I just did not want to ask for that.

Mari

Hi Mari
 

I know what it is like to be broke, and need help at the same time. I wish you all the best. I think what you did was the best you could do. I am thinking about you. ginnie:hug:

Dear Ginnie, :hug: :hug: :hug:

I am sorry that I gave you the impression that I am broke. I mis-managed my account. My husband has enough money for my appointment tomorrow but I cannot ask him.
He has undiagnosed OCD personality disorder. He will not go to a dr to treat it. He has a great deal of anxiety about money and other things. It is best that I not mention to him that I screwed up my bank account. He'll find out later when he reads the mail.
Mail is different from talking about it.


M

Tdoc said to come on Monday
 

Hi,

Tdoc called and left a message when I was taking a nap. She wants me to come to my appointment on Monday / tomorrow. I can mail her a check when I have the money.



Thank goodness that is over with. I created extra drama in my life by paying one of my bills twice this month. I might consider doing my bills differently. I will see if pdoc can help. Or I could ask my sister. She is super organized about her banking.

M

well other than managing the overdraught lol, you managed the tdoc message very well. it was perfect. left her a perfect opening and she took it. i am glad you get to keep your appointment. :)

~ waves ~

This is great!
bizi

tdoc session
 

Tdoc and I had our session.

I did not want to do hypnosis because I have no one (NO ONE AT ALL) to talk to and I needed to talk.

We talked about upcoming travel that I have with hubby and work buddy, being aware how much
Work Buddy is being affected from the anniversary of colleague's death one year ago, . . .

She is encouraging me to be open about the idea of speech therapy. I guess I sound like carp with I talk to her.

M

therapy session, speech etc
 

Dear Mari

totally understand about needing to talk. pdoc is my sounding board. i can talk to my parents... but the results can be unpredictable. i no longer have accessible friends i can see face to face.

regarding the speech. i am guessing she was being frank and that she was speaking in your best interest.

here is something you can do to investigate for yourself. either your mac or your phone probably have the capability builtin. the phone should be able to let you record a voice memo or vocal command. record yourself. play it back. see how it sounds to you. often when we speak we don't objectively "hear ourselves" ... in a recording it is as though we are hearing someone else. this technique is used in teaching foreign languages, to make students aware of the differences between their own pronunciation, and the correct pronunciation. recording/hearing my own the outgoing message on my voicemail once is what clued me in that at times i still have a British "lilt." LOL. i also know a non-native speaker who balked when she recorded herself speaking English for the first time. She'd been fluent for years and had never realized she had an accent - she asked me, "Do i really sound like that?! :eek:")

being open about speech therapy seems like a good thing, even though i don't know how you sound. tdoc was not saying you have to do it. however, i think after the stroke you went through some really heavy denial about its impact. even to the extent you were aware of difficulties with verbal exchanges, this in itself made it difficult to get through the bureaucracy of making appointments. to top it off the particular the speech therapist that you did attempt to go to didn't seem to work out. i remember the process was very frustrating, and more than you could handle at the time. many things were difficult at the time, and you were in shock.

you were told something about a window for speech recovery. well fine, and i'm sure for optimal results that can be true, but do remember that speech therapy is not that far off from taking a class in speech, enunciation, or learning foreign language sounds. you would be relearning anyway which is easier. i am saying that it isn't an all or nothing deal just because you didn't go within the window they suggested, and that if YOU decide your speech needs improvement, i believe it CAN be done. you'll need a therapist who is kind, patient, and has open views. (i personally think these should be requirements for all therapists, but alas... :rolleyes::cool:)

that said, perhaps right now is not quite a good time to move on this... maybe let the impact of this anniversary go by. but when you are feeling more yourself again, perhaps do the recording yourself experiment, and give it a thought.

~ waves ~

I really like what waves said.
(((((HUGS)))))
bizi

Hi,
It's good that I can talk about this here.

I was not in denial. I was totally aware that my speech and other parts of me were messed up. I had to convince myself to carry on in order to keep my job. Also to keep our jobs, Work Buddy and I spent a year dismantling a huge bureaucratic mess at our work place. (We nearly lost our jobs in the process.) We did succeed in 85% of our goal. Now we are working on other things that feel urgent but not job threatening.
It was hard to do that when I could barely read for the first 6 months.


I have dealt with four speech therapists. None of which was appropriate.
My internist will be willing to write a 'script for me.
We can hope that insurance will pay.
The co-pay will be at least 30 dollars a visit.

My internist is not sure that the big speech center in town will take me as a patient. She anticipates that I will need to push my case a little because I am high functioning (she says) for the general public but in a work place that requires high functioning. I have not been to see internist since last May. I want to renew Gabapentin 'script and get 'script for speech.

I told tdoc I did not have high expectations for finding a good therapist but was hopeful. She did not repeat the word "hopeful." She used the word "open" as in "I was open to getting a good therapist."

I need time in the summer to deal with phone calls, insurance, setting up testing, keeping appointments. This 2012 summer is the first time since the stroke in 2009 that I can do this.

I accidentally recorded myself recently on something --- maybe it was on the iPod. I can try to look for how to do it again.

Yes. Thanks. I thought of that. It could be taught a little like learning a foreign language is taught. . . .That's good . . . .although I stink at foreign language . . .esp pronunciation.

Mari

it sounds like more stress. is anybody complaining? you have been under so much stress just from the stroke forgetting about all the rest of the stress in your life.
bobby

Speech therapy
 

i am sooooo sorry Mari. :hug::hug::hug: That must have been awful for you. it was my impression at the time, that some denial was going on, but what you describe here sounds more like being between the devil and the deep blue sea - i understand now that you chose to soldier on in spite of your medical needs, time being limited, in order to survive your workplace and its horrible climate at that time.

wow. i did not realize that many. that stinks.

makes sense. you need someone who will work with patients whose needs exceed "high-functioning for general public."

yes. the functionality is probably simple to activate (once you find it), if you did it accidentally. good luck - i hope it is useful to you.


here's wishing you all the best whatever you decide and yes, keep talking about this here if it helps. :hug::hug::hug:

~ waves ~