With their permission, I’ve previously blogged about my friends the Gates. Curtis is a once powerful athlete who broke his neck falling out of a tree he was trimming. His spinal cord injury is high level so he remains mostly ventilator dependent, although he is entirely alert and mentally competent – and living at home.

His wife, Bynthia, is a PhD who does research in peripheral cardiovascular disease and thus is part of our wound care community. Curt has private insurance as his primary with Medicare as a secondary and between, several hours of skilled home health care should be covered each week. However, so far, he has been turned down by every home health agency in the Saint Paul, Minnesota area that’s been contacted because, “his needs are too great.” That leaves his wife at home alone caring for him.

For 3 months, two friends (thank you Bernadette and Cristal) have worked tirelessly – calling local home Health agencies to no avail.

Now I’m pissed. I’m done being professional about it. I want to know how to fix this. I want to know what it will take to get a man with a spinal cord injury the care that’s supposed to be covered by his insurance.

If you know – then email me at [email protected]. I’ll see that Curt and Bynthia get the information.

If you are a home health agency in the St. Paul area who handles complicated patients – email me. If you are a concierge doctor in the area who’s willing to handle a complicated case – email me. If you are a lawyer who specializes in ADA issues, email me.

And if I hit another dead end – I’m going to post the info about his private insurance company and see where that gets us, since he’s not getting help from the care coordinator.

I’m done with nice.

Caroline Fife

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Caroline Fife, M.D.

Dr. Fife is a world renowned wound care physician dedicated to improving patient outcomes through quality driven care. Please visit my blog at CarolineFifeMD.com and my Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/carolinefifemd/videos