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April 9, 2005
InActionAIDS
When I left Provincetown, I walked away from the incredibly good Massachusetts State health coverage. If you’re poz there and you have no medical coverage, you’re pretty much guaranteed whatever you need. Doctor visits, hospital stays, prescriptions drugs, the works. One of the main reasons I didn’t stay in New Orleans was that none of that was available to me. In fact, this week I got a pile of medical bills forwarded to me from down there. They are shockingly high. (I’ll never be able to pay them but, luckily, my credit report couldn’t be worse than it already is.)
So, as soon as I signed my lease and knew my permanent address in Philly, I signed up for HIV case management at AACO, a City agency. I chose ActionAIDS as my AIDS Service Organization (ASO). Then. I. Waited. For six weeks. Finally, I called them. Coincidentally. the case manager on duty was mine. She said he had mailed me some material and called. Anyway, we made an appointment for this past Monday.
OK, I will not dwell on the fact that she was really, really fat. In fact, that wouldn’t have mattered to me at all if she had the slightest clue what she was doing. When I asked about Medicaid, she said she’d ask her supervisor about it. I mentioned the nearly debilatating depression that I suffered in New Orleans. She told me she “reached for the chocolate” when she’s depressed! (No kidding!) My mention of high prescription drug costs brought a comparison with the price of gas. Discount prescription programs for people with HIV (called ADAP in most of the country)? She’d never heard of it.
I stopped, stunned in the middle of the intake and said, “I don’t want so seem rude but you’re a case manager; you’re supposed to know this stuff.” She sheepishly confessed that she was “new.” I pretended to understand but I wondered to myself if ActionAIDS provides any training for case management. Maybe I was spoiled by The Provincetown AIDS Support Group. No. This woman is an idiot. She is a fat, white do-gooder who should be driving disabled children around in a van. That, really, is her level of competence.
I make my needs as an informed HIV-care consumer pretty clear. I’m interested in practicalitites, not emotional support. Since I am on disability for COPD, I ask for help applying for Government services. I expect my case manager to not just know the procedures but to know how to navigate them efficiently. This woman had no idea the programs even existed! I want to know how to get affordable prescription drugs for depression. All she can offer is her ear when I am depressed. Gosh. Thanks.
Needless to say, after asking around, I called AACO again and changed my ASO to The Mazzoni Center. (My intake there this morning went very well.) Unfortunately, the news of my decision didn’t reach her before she called me to follow up on a few things and I had to tell her myself. I did it very nicely, of course. Yes, I’m a coward. Yes, I will send off a polite email to her supervisor voicing my concerns. No, I won’t mention that she’s fat.
(Oh, I never got the mail she claimed to have sent me, either.)
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Posted by HighStrungLoner in The High Strung Loner at 12:38 AM
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