Jett passed her blood test and was released from the hospital. But it wasn’t as easy as it sounds. It was a day of telephone calls, text messages and trips to the reception desk. There was a problem getting the insurance paperwork sent to the hospital, due to a miscommunication of the email address. Ultimately, I had the email containing the forms sent to me and I forwarded it to every possible combination of the email address that I could think of. One of them worked.
The paperwork consisted of 8 pages – 5 for the doctor and 3 for me. I filled out my 3 pages and had the reception desk fax them back to the US. The doctor, however, did not get back to the hospital until the afternoon, so I spent the morning planning our escape route: train to Madrid, overnight in Madrid at the hotel at the train station, taxi to the airport, nonstop fight to Miami. Easy. But I couldn’t book anything until the doctor released her.
The doctor appeared around 3 pm and did, in fact, release her. I was not there at the time (I was out shopping), but saw him in the hallway shortly thereafter. He assured me that the paperwork had been sent to the US, that he had received a phone call confirming that everything was fine and that arrangements were being made to drive us to the airport. The first two pieces of news were comforting but the third was disturbing. Why were they telling the doctor about my travel arrangements when no one had spoken to me?
This left me a little suspicious, so I decided to check with the reception desk that the report in fact had been sent. Besides, I needed a copy of the report. When I got to the desk I found the person who spoke the best English on the phone, exasperated, saying “I don’t understand you.” I checked with the supervisor who said that he was talking with the insurance people and that they had a problem with the report because it was incomplete. It turns out that the “incomplete” was the 3 pages that I had sent earlier. The insurance company seemed to have difficulty collating the two portions that had been sent separately. Rather than argue about it, I added my three pages to the doctor’s 5 and sent them all as a batch.
Then we had to wait for the insurance company. First they had to confirm that the forms had been filled out completely (they had). Then we had to wait for their medical team to review the doctor forms and approve her for travel. That took until about 6 pm. Finally, at 6:30 we got our bags out of the room and down to the reception area and I paid the bill. Just as we were about to get a taxi I got a phone call from the insurance company informing me that their medical team had decided that Jett needed a travel nurse. And that travel arrangements would be forthcoming.
So much for the train/plane plans.
We were pretty deflated. All we could do is get a hotel room. And wait.
The good part of all this, if there is one, is the cost. Somewhat irrelevant as it is all covered by our travel insurance, but the three days in the hospital, with four units of blood, totaled less than $2,000. In the US I am sure it would have been over $5,000.