SCORE ONE FOR THE GOOD GUYS

After letting the lying lawyer know that I am aware that it's specifically HIPAA (Federal law) that gives me the right to amend my medical records, she's suddenly backed down on her lie that it's "illegal" to correct the false statements in there.  She's still not willing to have her clients correct-and-initial, to indicate that the mistakes were their doing, but she will let me put in a Statement of Disagreement, which is my legal right under HIPAA. 

Since it will be evidence in the disability case, as well, my disability lawyer is going to go over the statement before I put it in.  That should quickly quash any objections the lying lawyer may try to make about not wanting me to put in certain phrases; if it's "lawyer-approved", she's not going to be able to claim I don't know what I'm allowed to (or not allowed to) put in the statement.

We've decided to do it in the same way as a Motion for Summary Judgment: two columns, one with a statement of what I want changed, and one with the facts/documents supporting why the original isn't accurate.  Then there can be no argument that my version is no better than the original, because there will be exact quotes from doctors who have said that I do have a physical ailment and do not have a psychological ailment, with reference to where those quotes can be found.

HIPAA says they have to write on each page that I have a dispute with "see attached Statement of Disagreement".  That means that every single page of the records from 2000-2003 is going to have that written on it, which makes it real clear that this is not just a one-time mistake, but a clear and definite pattern of writing false things in medical records at every single one of my appointments. 

I'm hoping that by the time I'm done with Health & Human Services, the Inspector General, and the Bar Ethics Committee, the only one of us left with a job will be me.  Maybe when they're the ones with no job and no prospects in their own careers, they'll be a little more understanding of why I sat on their exam tables sorta subdued -- that's not proof of depression, it's proof that when you're wondering where your next meal is coming from, you don't do cartwheels down the hall.

That still doesn't fix the problem that someone -- either the doctors or the insurance company -- owes me for the three years of disability benefits I lost, but it makes it a little more likely that the insurancecompany will re-evaluate my claim on the real facts and not on the false notion that I'm just a hypochondriac too lazy to work.

Well, here it is 2 AM and I'm awake again despite taking the sleeping pills. This gets really annoying; they work for a few days and then I'm back to being awake most of the night. Not sure how they expect me to get back to full-time work when I can't sleep at night. (This is what cost me my job in the first place.)

Finally Proceeding Toward Success

I came across a brochure from the place that does my mammograms, which says I have the legal right to have my medical records corrected.  That's a long way from the statement from the quacks' lawyer that it's illegal to change medical records once they've been written.

The brochure said to call the Compliance Coordinator to find out how to do it.  I explained to her right off that I had no complaints at all about her medical group, I needed the information because the group I do have a problem with refuses to even consider doing it.

She explained that my first step is to write a letter requesting changes to the records.  I said I did that, and they refused to even discuss it.  Told me to take it up with their insurance company.  The insurance company told me if I wanted anything done, I needed to sue them.  When I sued, the lawyer told me it was illegal to make any changes.

According to the Compliance Coordinator, what is really illegal is to refuse to even allow me to place a Statement of Disagreement in the file, which they've refused to do because they don't believe they did anything wrong.

The next step is to complain to the Federal Government www.HHS.gov/OCR/HIPAA

So, we'll see whether having a Federal investigator demanding to see the files scares them into agreeing that changing the lies is preferable to a thorough investigation of their whole procedure and possibly losing their Medicare accreditation for violations.

Once again, I'm awake in the middle of the night -- can't sleep because of the pain when I lie down.

I have some new sleeping pills on order, but the pharmacy didn't have them in stock, so I have to wait to get them.

Litigation Update

For those who are following the saga of my suing the doctors who filled my medical records with false statements: I have just had the chance to respond to one of their lawyer’s motions with a long list of statements the lawyer made under penalty of perjury where the facts are quite different. When I’m done, I may end up with both the doctors and the lawyer losing their license to practice. They all do a real good job of imagining what they would like the facts to be and then swearing that that’s what the facts are, never mind that there’s proof that they are wrong. Because, of course, they’re licensed professionals, and I’m not.

They forgot just one thing – at the time they started lying about me, I had a notary license, and to get one of those, they investigate your background. You’re not going to get one if any of the people they talk to says you’re dishonest.  So, I have the government standing behind my claim that I'm telling the truth.

 

Fighting back

The gang from the FMS/CFS list has decided to inundate TV talk shows with letters asking for a show on FMS/CFS, showing the devastation it can cause -- some of the gang have been bedridden for years. I'm one of the fortunate ones ... most days, I'm able to get out of bed, though I might exhaust myself merely walking as far as the couch, and many days even a small amount of housework is impossible.

On the other hand, while I don't have the severe physical problems that they do, I'm having to deal with a bunch of documented lies in my medical records from someone who doesn't believe there is such a disease, and who set out to make sure that I wouldn't get disability benefits. If that meant lying that positive test results were negative, he was willing to do it. I guess he figured that I'd never read -- or wouldn't understand -- the actual lab reports.

And now he's testified with as many lies as there are in his medical records.

The Medical Board apparently feels that he can lie all he likes; their letters intimate that only if I'd died or lost a limb would the situation be serious enough to investigate.

Thank goodness, I knew to look in Business & Professions Code, and found out that the attorney general has power to investigate B&P violations. The A-G can't tell me anything more than "we're looking into it", so I won't know the status of their investigation unless I suddenly find that the doctor has been defrocked (de-stethoscoped?)

But at least I feel like I'm doing something pro-active, instead of just letting him get away with lying (and causing me to permanently lose any chance at State Disability benefits).  His refusal to give me either pills or referrals (or to tell me I'd be better off with another doctor) may have cost me any chance at returning to full-time work; statistically, if you haven't recovered after five years of relapse, you more than likely won't.  And I was three years in at the time I finally got an effective sleeping pill; at that point, I'd gotten so deep into the hole that I had a long way to go to get back out of it.  If he'd worked on the sleep problem right away, I might not have gone that far downhill.

If you'd like more information on CFS/FMS, visit www.cfids.org. And it would be really great if you could make a donation for research while you're at the site. They have found some organic problems that explain the symptoms, but need more money to find a treatment/cure.

Christopher Reeve, you are still my hero!

Shortly before his untimely death, Chris taped a political commercial in favor of Proposition 71, the initiative to fund stem cell research in California. Thanks to Chris, the proposition won. My hope is that this will find a cure for what I have, as well as the more-accepted things the commercials said they believe they can help.