[franksolich]

DUMMIE ALERT!

DUMMIE ALERT!

THE GRAND DUMMIE "SKINNER" ISSUES STATEMENT!


Skinner ADMIN (1000+ posts) Wed May-11-05 12:31 PM Original message Update on the Andy Stephenson Situation (12:30PM Wednesday, May 11)

Thank you, everyone, for your understanding as we sort through this. Thank you especially to Andy, who has been extremely helpful. At Andy's behest, I have been in contact with the Johns Hopkins Medicine office of corporate communications.

Here is the bottom line: Federal law forbids Johns Hopkins Medicine from commenting at this time. If and when Andy becomes an inpatient, and if he signs a waiver, they will be able to acknowledge that he is an inpatient at Johns Hopkins.

So, it looks like this is going to work out. There are not going to be any more updates from me until Andy becomes an inpatient at Johns Hopkins. At that point, if Andy signs the waiver, I will call Johns Hopkins back and they will be able to to verify to me that he is an inpatient. I promise I will call Johns Hopkins as soon as it comes to my attention that Andy has been admitted, and I will start a new thread as soon as I have that information.

On a related note, the people at Johns Hopkins are concerned that people are getting incorrect information about their willingness or ability to provide care to certain patients. They emailed me this formal comment to set the record straight.

"Johns Hopkins has a responsibility to provide the best possible care and resources to its patients. In order to do this, Hopkins must manage its expenses and costs carefully. We provide millions of dollars a year in uncompensated care and as a good citizen of Maryland, give preference to Maryland citizens for such assistance.

"The public, our donors and regulators expect us to be careful conservators of our resources and if we fail to recoup our costs and charge appropriately, we would be unable to meet our responsibilities to the community and our patients.

"We recognize that many patients from out of state want to come here for care and we make every effort to assist many patients and their families in making arrangements for payment of medical expenses. In some cases we offers assistance through our social services programs and philanthropy. In some cases, unfortunately, this is not possible.

"Because of issues related to patient privacy and confidentiality, we cannot comment on specific patients or their cases."

[beandog]

I thought yesterday they said the surgery had been rescheduled for this Thursday. What happened with that?

[KJC1]

If and when Andy becomes an inpatient, and if he signs a waiver, they will be able to acknowledge that he is an inpatient at Johns Hopkins.

A whole lotta "ifs" in his post. It doesn't sound like a resounding vote of confidence to me, but we shall see.

[BTHOtu]

Is Skinner issuing a challenge to Andy by repeating "if Andy signs the waiver?" I am sure that for "privacy" reasons somehow Andy will not release his information.

[codercpc]

OK, this seems like maybe Skinner did talk to someone, but obviously got NO answers.

I happen to be trained in HIPAA regulations, and unless Marylands regulations are stricter than the Federal laws (which is possible, I know in some cases Wisconsins law is stricter), this explanation sounds like BS.

Federal law DOES NOT prohibit them from commenting, if they have explicit permission from the patient. Andy claims he was there today to pay, and to have some tests, so if he really was trying to sort this out, he would have gone to the office and signed a release to let Skinner have any "protected" info. It sounds like Skinner only wants to know if Andy has any treatments scheduled at this hospital. He is not even asking for diagnosis info, only scheduling info.

In other words, if Andy wanted Skinner to know that he was on the up and up, Skinner would know!

[volvox]

Since I am reading numerous DUmmie FUnnies today to get caught up, I accidently posted the following message on the 5-6 DUmmie FUnnies.

You guys may already have this info (I'm not done reading everything), but I looked up info on the whipple procedure and its cost at John Hopkins because people were speculating here. It costs about $26,204 according to the John Hopkins newspaper. See this link for more details.

http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/janmar95/jan0995/brief.html

[steve-b]

If and when Andy becomes an inpatient, and if he signs a waiver, they will be able to acknowledge that he is an inpatient at Johns Hopkins.

Andy was going to sign the waiver, but John Kerry borrowed it to sign his Form 180.

[steve-b]

At that point, if Andy signs the waiver, I will call Johns Hopkins back and they will be able to to verify to me that he is an inpatient.

Hmmmm... it occurs to me that Andy might be able to extract more money from the DUpes by checking in for a hemorrhoid removal or something, signing a waiver for that, and letting Grand High Supreme DUmmie Skinner post a verification of his inpatient status.

[Choose Ye This Day]

If and when Andy becomes an inpatient, and if he signs a waiver, they will be able to acknowledge that he is an inpatient at Johns Hopkins.

...If and when all this happens, monkeys may fly out of Andy's butt.

So, it looks like this is going to work out. There are not going to be any more updates from me until Andy becomes an inpatient at Johns Hopkins. At that point, if Andy signs the waiver, I will call Johns Hopkins back and they will be able to to verify to me that he is an inpatient. I promise I will call Johns Hopkins as soon as it comes to my attention that Andy has been admitted, and I will start a new thread as soon as I have that information.

"And when Andy calls me from the beach in Brazil, I'll make sure NOT to start a new thread that proclaims my incompetence and stupidity across the internet."

[Purrcival]

"If and when Andy becomes an inpatient, and if he signs a waiver, they will be able to acknowledge that he is an inpatient at Johns Hopkins."

Undie was supposedly at JH today, paying the bill and going through that scan. If so, he had PLENTY of time to request, and sign, a waiver. It would be SOOOOOO easy to clear this up! He should have been able to tell Skinner today that Skinner could call and verify the info.