…And now I know why. Let’s be real, shall we? It is not because we were told we were fixed. It is not because we do not care. It is because of the Affordable Care Act. Our choice of providers has been taken from us by hospitals who can gobble up doctors whos own practice can not compete with the hospital providers and the insurance companies any more. Insurance companies won’t cover certain adult cardiologists if they also treat children. This is what happens when administrators and insurance companies and bureaucrats dictate care.

After years of advocating that adults be seen by adult congenital heart specialists, I have now become one who no longer has access to my doctor unless I want to pay 600.00 just for a resting EKG. Come on. Really? That does not even include the interpretation fee. Even if I had that kind of money, its the principle of the matter. I literally train college kids in 5 minutes to do a resting EKG. But hospitals can charge that, and we are all ok with that? Must be. In my Facebook group of other adult CHDers, they all have the exact same experience fighting with the insurance company. I have two friends being bounced around by doctors and insurers right now to try to schedule a surgery for a heart valve.

The CHD fight is hard enough on some days and now we are adding the stress of insurance to just trying to be seen. I’m out. I am one who will no longer give my money to Florida Blue or Baptist just so they can tell me where I can and cannot go for care. I’ll pay the penalty tax and die. That’s what the authors of the affordable care wanted anyway.