Riding a wave

[Fancy_Pants]

Hi @Phoenix_Rising just came on, sorry i dont have any info to clarify the medicare issues but if @Former-Member does then Im sure they will respond as soon as they are back on. till then, sweetdreams 🙂

[CheerBear]

Good morning @Phoenix_Rising

I was sitting at DBT HQ writing this when my brain starting melting last night too. I find it mindblowing that the system is so complicated and confusing that even with the eleventeen billion (I tried to add it up but failed) years of experience in that conversation re psychologist access, there were so many different answers 

So I forgot to actually pin this to the corkboard above the desk. I will do that now 🙂

I have lost track of who is still on holidays etc but I think it's the busiest day of the week for you today. Hope today is ok enough for you.  

[Phoenix_Rising]

@CheerBear ROFL.  I think you should post that sign on the DBT thread so that anyone following knows we haven't abandoned the project. I SHOULD be going to my volunteer gig today but I'm not because my brain is running sooooooooo slow and I need to keep plodding through my marking. (P)'s death has made this gig much more tricky than it would otherwise have been and I am super mindful of not letting my own muddle impact on these students' marks. 

I think there were a few melted brains in Forum Land last night. It is SO absurd isn't it. I mean seriously, what hope does anyone have of accessing services. Assuming therapist-take-thirteen is a good match, this whole issue is moot to me because I will see her through victims services. However, it would make a HUGE difference to SO MANY people (I gather @Former-Member is one of them - waves to bookish) if they really could get 20 rather than 10 sessions per year. I truly don't think it is the case, but it does at least need to be clarified. 

Anyway, back to the DBT adventure, I won't be able to look at it until I finish the marking gig, but then I will take a look. I have such a funny picture in my brain of you bouncing around going "yay we are doing, we are doing, we are doing...er...how do we do Phoenix_Rising?" 

[CheerBear]

Haha that's exactly what has happened with the bouncing around @Phoenix_Rising 😛 Adding also that following my housing hiccup (which has continued but I haven't been able to make sense of it enough yet to write about and I also don't want to think about it all the time anyway), I am also running on less than normal brain functioning (which is less than 'normal' anyway). I'm sure you get this also. 

I think it's a good idea to post a note (haha) on the DBT thread also, and will make that a mini goal of the day 🙂

I really hope there is a way to access more sessions with my psych and momentarily was excited, however I am fairly confident that my understanding which I believe is pretty close to yours, is what is likely to be the case. How 10 sessions is enough is also mind blowing (and a whole different issue!).

I can only imagine how much harder the marking gig is this week.

Fish o'clock now so I better run. Good luck with the marking today 🙂

[Zoe7]

@Phoenix_Rising @CheerBear

I can only go by what I received (and the many, many confusing conversations between my GP and psychologist) in regards to psychology sevices and I did receive the initial 10 sessions (6+4) and then an additional 10 sessions after the 3 month wait. This was rebated through medicare and was definitely still under a MHCP as I was not eligible for any other scheme/program/funding (apart from minimal rebates under private cover).

It did take many calls - from both parties - to medicare to finally have clarification. If the extra sessions were not allowed then medicare would have rejected the processing of payment for the sessions and I would have had to pay the full amount and be given no rebate.

[Former-Member]

Good morning, @Phoenix_Rising. (waves back and nods) 

[Phoenix_Rising]

@Zoe7 It is SO CONFUSING!!!! I am 99.99% certain that you have managed to sneak through the system. From what I know of the centrelink system, government systems are running on quite antiquated technology and I am wondering if you have slipped through medicare in the same way that so many things slip through the CL system. For example, I wonder if the system routinely flags when someone is claiming more than their tenth session in a year, or whether this only comes up if the GP (or the patient) is audited in some way???

Of course it is superly duperly awesome for you that you have found a way to get 20 sessions in a year - keep up the good work Zoe's GP!!!!!! However, in terms of getting clarity for others, I'm not so sure.

Hands up whose brain is melted. ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Phoenix_Rising]

@CheerBear... you know how your brain is completely melted right now trying to figure out the MHCP stuff? You know how super frustrating it is because it just shouldn't be this hard to clarify something? You know how you are sitting there looking at the various pieces of the puzzle going "I don't know how this all fits together, it doesn't make any sense?" That's my world @CheerBear. I actually don't feel any more frustrated by this topic than I generally do in most day-to-day interactions. The way we have now been tossing this muddle around for hours is the way I would happily spend time trying to work out what the heck someone is trying to say to me - but people always get angry/frustrated/defensive before I'm anywhere near figuring out what they are trying to say.

I noticed yesterday evening how @Sans911 (waves at Sans911) felt the need to say at one point that she wasn't trying to argue with me. I am wondering if that is because even via the written word I was putting out a vibe that I was in some way feeling a sense of conflict. I truly wasn't, and am not. To me, I'm just trying to figure out the facts about a situation. And that's what I'm always trying to do...and I know that that's why people experience me as being difficult and argumentative.

I feel sad. I'm sad about my spectacular ability to annoy people in the real world and I'm sad about (P) on this, the one-week anniversary, of his death.

@Former-Member @Former-Member I would say the probability of me calling some time today is somewhere between .99 and 1.0.

[CheerBear]

I imagined this melting to be similar to lots of your world @Phoenix_Rising. I get this to an extent with certain things and it drives me bananas so I can only imagine what it is like to experience this all the time.

I can't speak for anyone aside from myself here, but with the regard to the idea of conflict, I know anything that hints of conflict can seem scary or feel uneasy for me sometimes. What 'conflict' to me looks like and how I approach it varies depending on a million things but I didn't sense a vibe of anything other than wanting to work out the facts, which is what I was hoping to get to too. It seems sometimes as if conflict is seen as a really bad thing, when really it's sort of necessary (which I am sure you know) in order to work things out. I hope in having this discussion, lots can be worked out for many.

I know you've mentioned before that you experience people becoming defensive, frustrated, annoyed, shut down etc when you want to sort through what's happening or make sense of something, and I do too (I'm thinking of a call I have to make today to try to rectify a housing hiccup yesterday because of exactly this). It hurts because in my mind I really truly am not meaning to do anything other than sort things out, and I end up with a reputation as being a "fiesty snowflake".

I know you're sad about things and think it's understandable that you would be.

Is .99 and 1.0 the same as 99% and 100%? Stats *shudder* 😉

[Zoe7]

@Phoenix_Rising