Do You Have Authorization?

Authorization.  Your credit card, your debit card, your computer at work, your banking info all require this.  So does obtaining healthcare through your HMO!

Riddle me this:  how is it that when the doc wants to refer us to a specialist, the referral is authorized by the HMO within a day, but when surgery for cancer is required, it takes for-ever?

In my case, it is a combination of HMO stupidity and a "clerical error" from my surgeon's office.  It 
all started with the clerical error.  When Dr. S's office submitted the authorization request, they told me it would be done on an "urgent" basis and there would be an answer within three days. This was Tuesday April 8th.  Friday I dialed up the surgeon's office and they and they said the paperwork was submitted on Wednesday and that they had nothing to report.  I asked if it is ever helpful for me to call the 
insurance myself to light a fire under them and she said it does speed things up.  (Take note, my friends!) I called the HMO and spoke with a very nice woman who called the "authorizations department" and they said they would expedite it and there would be an answer on Monday.  It's Monday so I called the HMO and again they said they had nothing.  I was livid, so I did go off on the HMO rep (sorry, hun!) who discovered that it was not submitted on an emergency basis by Dr. S's office.  She then called his office and they fixed it and then the HMO rep told me to call back to his office to schedule.  The old authorization had an admittance date of May 10th.  What?!  You are going to tell me I basically have cancer than make me wait six weeks for treatment?  Come ON!   Apparently this has been moved up but I don't know what it is.  I called the office this afternoon, but it was after 4:30 and there was no answer so I left a message.

So here I am, having gone two weeks now since this all started and I am just swinging in the wind with no end in sight.  I'd like to express my sincere (sarcastic) gratitude to Dr. S's office for prolonging this.    I've had about three or four emotional meltdowns this afternoon.  I feel so helpless.  I am a "I will just do it myself" type of personality and to have to rely on others to even get the surgery scheduled is excruciating.  My thyroid is poisoning me and I want it OUT!  I feel utterly paralyzed by this. I can't make any plans to do anything because "Oh, I might not be able to drive because of my neck not being healed up enough." or "I might be too radioactive still to be near anyone."  But since I have  no surgery date and no treatment plan beyond having my thyroid removed "someday" than here I am, utterly and completely on hold.  If I at least had a surgery date and didn't have to go balls to the walls to get the damn thing authorized in the first place, maybe I would be able to relax a little bit more.  There would be less uncertainty.  But nothing has really changed since April 1st.