I met with my department’s financial administrator today. A year or so ago, my division suddenly had a shortage in our budget, which has meant a year of trying to figure out why. So, in response, I took over in understanding our numbers and working as a liaison with the financial administrator. I’ve spent hours trying to figure out why, met with the billing department, changed our documentation, etc. etc. And found out today that it hasn’t made much of a difference.

Working in the health care business (and not just as a health care provider), has been filled with these frustrations. I work in a academic hospital and there is still so much pressure for better billing and collections. I spend so much time writing notes, putting in accurate diagnoses, making sure that the wording is clear and detailed and it still doesn’t feel like enough.

And it’s only going to get worse with the likely repeal of the ACA, in so many ways. Patients losing insurance again and not getting the care that they need, not being able to go to the rehab centers that they need afterwards, not getting their medications – being a resident in Milwaukee when so many of my patients didn’t have insurance was a nightmare, and I can’t believe we’re going back to that. Our hospital, as pretty much every hospital in the country, has been dependent on funds from medicaid for funding, which impacts the care we can deliver and so on.

The health care debate and debacle has been so stressful that I haven’t been sleeping well again. Having absolute ignorant, greedy politicians refusing to listen to how this impact their constituents, refusing to take their time and make improvements to the system. I hate them. I utterly loath them. I am having a very heard time thinking charitable thoughts about them – and I don’t like that. Even though I’m a fairly hard left leaning person in my politics, I’m also someone who believes pretty firmly in compromise and that there could be value in some conservative values, but this is truly trying.

It’s been months since the election and I’ve had this constant pit of anxiety that never really goes away. I started seeing my therapist again because I wasn’t sleeping and was cycling into a really dark place – that’s improved, with a couple of relaxation apps. My grandfather died when my mom was 15, from a bleeding ulcer and complications related to that, but my mom will say that he worried himself to death. While I know that the two are unrelated, I wonder how much of that worrying nature I’ve inherited.