As you all may know; and in case you didn’t; clearances (not the kind you get at Nordie’s) but the medical kind are as much a part of the surgical process as are the nurses, surgeons and anesthesiologist. So in short you can’t have one without the other, at least for the planned surgical procedures, trauma and emergency situations are another matter entirely. So to deny access to medical clearances is to deny a patient the ability to proceed more safely with surgery.

So with no help or support from Adventist Health (you know that religious, hospital/healthcare corporation); but thanks to my private insurance, patient advocate and doctor, I was able to keep my hematology appointment and ultimately my hematology clearance.

I dutifully submitted a copy of my clearance to my surgeon so he could schedule the internal medicine clearance necessary for my right shoulder surgery. Twelve days after getting the green light from my hematologist my surgeon’s office scheduled my internal medicine clearance. I attended the scheduled February 22, 2016 appointment with the expectation that I would leave with the necessary and mandatory medical “go-ahead” required to schedule my surgery – but that wouldn’t be the case. At that appointment the physician discovered that I had a left branch bundle block, something that would require a cardiology clearance before internal medicine would sign off on the surgery.

Now you’d think that Adventist Health (you know that religious, hospital/healthcare corporation) would take the lead on getting this clearly critical clearance scheduled so their injured worker could get the care they’d need – but again you’d be wrong.

More to follow. . .