On Wednesday, Dad had an appointment at the local VA clinic to meet with a psychiatrist. Apparently, this is necessary in order to get some of Dad’s prescriptions through the VA system. His primary care VA doc can’t prescribe neuro or psych related drugs- they must go through a specialist.
Unfortunately, Dad has maxed out his prescription care coverage through his insurance so everything is fully out of our pockets right now. Some of his medications are unbelievably expensive for just 30 pills- it’s ridiculous. Going through the VA will be a significant savings especially since we still have the rest of the year to go. At this point, we’re thanking our lucky stars Dad is in the VA system.
Anyway, so Mom & Dad first met with a psychologist and then with the psychiatrist. The were both very nice, sympathetic and genuinely concerned. It was actually quite refreshing considering the bad rap the VA has- these doctors were surprisingly good. So, after the meetings, the necessary medications were ordered and they will be delivered to our doorstep. Hopefully it’s as easy as they say it is- we’ll see when the medications actually arrive (or not).
Both doctors were surprised to learn Dad has had no follow up tests, scans, full work up, etc. since his brain tumor and pulmonary embolism. They suggested Dad get some testing done to make sure there is no re-growth of the tumor and that the clot is hopefully shrinking, as well as making sure everything else is okay. Mom explained that she’s been asking his regular doctors about more testing for quite some time but they all seem to think everything is fine. So, we’re actually grateful these VA docs are more proactive and they’ve gone ahead and put in a referral for Dad to go to the main clinic for full work up. He’ll meet with a geriatric psych and a geriatric primary care physician. We all think this is a good idea although Dad isn’t too keen on going to the main clinic. He thinks we’re going to lock him away because his first primary care physician threatened to do just that when she didn’t have a clue on how to treat Dad. She threatened to take away our rights and have him placed in a lock down facility, which is right near the main VA clinic. So, whenever Dad hears the city name of the clinics, he automatically thinks he’s going to be locked away. The doctors tried to explain this isn’t the case and that wouldn’t happen so they put in the request but Dad left the office swearing he won’t go. Obviously we’ll have to come up with a game plan when the day comes for him to go to the main clinic… he won’t be too happy. However, we’re happy to have the tests run to make sure everything is okay.
