A Fun Time with Cigna & PT

It seems like just when things can’t get worse, suddenly they become unknotted and it all falls into place. It’s a good feeling. Too bad I had to go through a lot of wasted time and extra bullshit to get there!

The MyCigna.com site has a feature to find the doctors or medical service closest to the patient. I went looking for the closest physical therapist provider covered through my HMO. One listing came up, for both Parsippany and Springfield. Yikes – and it was at Chilton Hospital, which is the opposite direction from work and about seven miles from home. But it is out of the way. Still, I need to have this done, so I called Chilton. The woman told me that the Outpatient building, just up the road handles that. Sure. I called that number. They told me, no, they don’t take Cigna HMO but they have a subsidiary that does. Okay. I called the subsidiary in Wayne, about 15 miles away, and it is in the YWCA… seriously? Wellll… ok. I left a message as directed and this morning the guy there called me back, apologized and explained that Cigna still has them listed as a PT provider through their HMO but they are not. Which leaves no one.

I had been thinking about it over the weekend and called my broker to find out if there would be any possibility of moving to the PPO or some other option. After that I got the call from the PT place and realized that no options means that the insurance has to cover something locally even if they are not in the network.

I called Eric again and told him the latest thing. He hadn’t called by the time I’d left work for my OB/GYN appointment. I called him when I get home, since I was in agony and really need to get this ball rolling. He had called at work but missed me and left me a message. Apparently, Cigna sort of out-sources their physical therapy coverage, and I needed to call Orthonet to find providers near me.

I did and I finally went tonight - it was both relieving and horrifying. The electricity thing was good as was the heat the therapist put on my back. I fell asleep a couple of times during that. I was okay with that part. When she was starting the massage, I thought that this would feel really good. Wrong. It felt really bad. It was terrible. The left side was far worse - far more senstive than my right - and when she was pressing down I wanted to scream. I didn't but I was almost off of the table.

She had me do some minor exercises and then I was done. I had already made the next four appointments - tomorrow afternoon, Monday, Thursday and Friday of next week. My next ortho appointment is on Thursday, 4 October. (I'm pretty sure it is...) We shall see how that goes.

I just hope the therapy works, not permanently disables me - as if I am not already...

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