“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Because I was impatient after breakfast this morning I called Pete Harpending’s office at 8:30. He wasn’t in. I left a message, and he called fifteen minutes later. I explained the insurance situation to him. Pete said that few such cases go to litigation—which surprised me a bit. In his own experience, he’s handled only one such case. I gave him the names and phone number of Kathy Hagen, the Blue Cross supervisor who had seemingly turned down our major medical claim, and read to him the statement as to why that Andrew Fife had given me yesterday afternoon. Then I gave Pete Mary Krebs’s phone number, in Utilization Review at the hospital; she determines the level of patient care, reviews medical records, etc. Pete said he’d call back.

(I went to work on Dreams. Pete called at 10:30. He’s already talked to Andrew Fife and Mary Krebs, and visited the head of the local Blue Cross office, on the floor beneath his own office. He tried to contact Kathy Hagen in Syracuse, but she’s out for the day. Next he’s going to call Fred Kardon. All the activity made me feel good.

(I also told Pete that Andy Fife had told me that Jane had been rejected by the other facilities in the area, because in their opinion she required too much personal care. This was news to Jane and me; I’d forgotten that Jean Sweeney-Dun had taken me around to those places months ago. Jane broke her leg after that. I’d thought A. Fife mistaken yesterday, but he’d repeated the same thing to Pete, and gave him file and form numbers.

(“Anyhow,” Pete told me, “I know it may not be easy, but I want you and Jane to not worry. We’ve got to fight this thing, though. Their position is ridiculous.” He said this after A. Fife had outlined the situation, that Jane didn’t require hospitalization. Pete wants Fred K. to write a letter, or something like that.

(“Maybe you can light a fire under Fred about the letter,” I’d told Pete. So far, then, events have fallen into line with Seth’s material yesterday—about the probable lack of a lawsuit, an early resolving of the insurance question, and with Jane’s own feelings about same, at the end of yesterday’s session. Pete hadn’t asked me for any files or records, as I’d expected him to.

(I also think Pete found out that Kathy Hagen is not the ultimate supervisor at Syracuse, as I’d thought from what Andy Fife said, but that she too has supervisors.

(The session had run late. At 4:45, before I turned Jane on her side, Lynne came in to tell me I had a phone call at the nurse’s station. It was Catherine Murdock from social services. She said that next Tuesday at 1:00 PM one of the heads of placement at the Chemung County Infirmary a block away would be at 330 to interview Jane, with an assistant, and could I please be there too? I said sure. It seems that as a result of the call she’d received from Pete this morning, Mary Krebs had contacted the Infirmary. It seemed further that there might be a chance that a bed there was opening up. The thought was broached that Jane could be moved—nothing definite. This was the last thing I wanted to hear. Catherine said names could be moved up and down the Infirmary’s list—evidently Jane’s had been shifted several times when it was determined she was too ill to be moved. There was something about having a private nurse for 16 hours a day, if the staff there couldn’t take care of my wife. I said that was pointless and that we couldn’t afford it.

(I was already thinking that we didn’t want to move in any direction until the insurance matter was cleared up, lest it appear that we were running scared. If we moved now, I thought, we might end up stuck with a bill for $50,000, if the insurance refused to cover it under our old setup. I knew I’d be calling Pete first thing Monday to tell him about this. I also knew there were few private rooms in the Infirmary, and that if we lost our privacy it would interfere greatly with our work together—and that the creative work is as much a part of therapy as anything else. Why did this have to happen now? I wondered as I hung up, just when it seems we might get somewhere. But actually, this latest twist was a result of our trying to get somewhere, and might actually work to our benefit with the insurance company, once they were told that my wife couldn’t be moved. That was the message I want to get across to them, with Pete’s help.