Tag: VA Medical Center San Diego

Day 3,968 – Logjam Broken?

On By DanIn imaging, Prostate Cancer3 Comments

The administrative logjam between VA Medical Center San Diego and UCLA may have been broken this morning.

Yesterday, I called UCLA to see if they could access my health record through the Veterans Health Information Exchange, and the short answer was “no.” While I had them on the phone, I asked if they would accept printouts of my medical records from me and, again, the short answer was “no.” They had to come from the doctor’s office. Ugh.

Not being one to always listen to what I’m told, I went ahead and sent my demographics and insurance information to UCLA on my own. I also hopped onto the VA website and submitted my official Request for Authorization to Release Health Information form so they could send my medical records to UCLA.

Within about an hour and a half of submitting the request, I had a call from the woman processing it. She had a couple of questions that I answered. “Great. I’ll fax this to them right now.” That was not the response I was expecting. I thought the VA would take 3-5 business days to pull the records and send them.

When I spoke with UCLA on Monday, they did mention how slammed they are with requests for PSMA PET scans, and that it may take a few days to process the paperwork on their end once it was received. I’ll give a call on Thursday or Friday to follow up and see if they have everything they need. With luck, they will and we’ll be able to get the scan on the calendar.

The scheduler said they were currently scheduling for late November right now.

Fingers crossed that everything will be in order and I’ll be able to get a scan on the calendar.

More to come…

Be well!

Day 3,963 – Let the Referral Battle Begin

On By DanIn imaging, Prostate Cancer5 Comments

One of the first things that I did after returning from my trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons was to call UCLA Department of Nuclear Medicine to check to see if they had all of the necessary paperwork from the San Diego VA Medical Center to schedule the PSMA PET scan.

They did not.

Apparently, they were still missing my demographic information, my insurance information, and at least a 6 month medical history for me. Grrrr. 🤬

I emailed the VA and got some mealy-mouthed response back saying that I should be the one providing the demographics and insurance information and, that if I wanted my medical records released, I had to complete and submit a form giving them permission to do so. They could have told me that weeks ago.

The medical records thing is particularly annoying because, according to the VA website, the Veterans Health Information Exchange is set up to electronically share medical records with certain community providers that are providing care. UCLA Health is one of the approved community providers.

The only quirk that I can see in this is that the community provider has to be providing me care and, technically, UCLA is not yet doing that, so I suspect the VA will claim that, because I’m not under active care there, they can’t share the records. A classic Catch-22. The kicker is that I don’t have to do anything to opt in to the sharing. It should automatically happen.

My plan going forward is to ask the VA about the VHIE and see what they say. But as a back-up plan, I’m going to print my VA health record for the last year, my insurance information, and provide them my demographic information, and send the entire packet to UCLA myself, VA be damned.

More to come, I’m sure. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to not let my vacation wear off too quickly.

Be well!

Day 3,943 – Referral Ping-Pong

On By DanIn imaging1 Comment

Well, that was disappointing.

UCLA did, in fact, receive the referral form from my doctor at San Diego VA Medical Center, but it was incomplete. They sent it back to be filled out correctly this time because they can’t schedule the scan without all the information.

You know me… Of course, I sent an email to my buddy at the VA informing him of the situation and asking him to advise me when the corrected, fully completed of the form is returned to UCLA. We’ll see how that goes.

The saga continues…

Have a great weekend and be well!

Day 3,521 – A Chat with the Doctor

On By DanIn Prostate Cancer3 Comments

My appointment with the doctor is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, but after dinner this evening, my phone rang. It was the doctor calling about my appointment.

In a nutshell, VA Medical Center San Diego is trying to reduce the number of in-person visits during COVID-19, so he was wondering if I would be okay chatting with him about my results over the phone. Of course, I was.

He let me know that my PSA dropped from 0.16 to 0.14 ng/ml and that things were pretty “stable” and having a “low PSA” was a good thing. He mentioned that at some point in the future, we may need to discuss radiation, but that point wasn’t now. “For you, that could be years from now.” I’ll take that.

I shared with him my desire to do imaging before zapping if possible. I also brought up the trial at the VA Los Angeles, and he wasn’t aware of it. So I pulled it up and shared the trial number with him for his education / reference.

Bottom line: We agreed to retest in January and go from there.

Now all I have to do is make it through six months of COVID insanity…

On a related note, the VA healthcare system has gotten a bad rap over the years for a variety of things. It seems to be location-dependent, and some of the criticism is well-deserved.

I’ve been going to the VA Medical Center San Diego and its satellite clinics for about 8 years now, and I’ve had nothing but a positive experience, and tonight’s unsolicited call from the doctor just reinforced that for me.

As we used to say in the Navy: Bravo Zulu! (Well done!)

Stay well everyone!

#WearAMask #SocialDistancing #WashYourHands #StayHome