I’m of the age that I get a tube stuck up my butt every few years. Tomorrow is T-Day.

I saw the tube doc last week for the standard pre-procedure visit, got my instructions. They asked how I was going to pay.

“With Blue Cross, of course,” I said.

“Your last colonoscopy was November 3, 2003,” the doc’s insurance clerk said. “You haven’t passed 10 years so I don’t think they’ll cover it.”

<sigh>

“Please call BC/BS right away to get the authorization then. I won’t fill this prescription for Reglan™ unless we’re go for launch.”

Remember Fleet™? The FDA has become aware of reports of acute phosphate nephropathy, a type of acute kidney injury, associated with the use of oral sodium phosphate products for bowel cleansing prior to colonoscopy or other procedures. Not only that, the explosive results were … uncomfortable. Docs use Reglan™ followed by magnesium citrate plus half a gallon of clear liquid now so we patients slosh ever so briefly as we run.

The doc’s office promised they would call back the next day. That was a week ago.

I called them this morning. “What’s the verdict?” I asked.

“She hasn’t had a chance to call your insurer,” the receptionist told me after a brief 10-minute wait, “but it’s OK because you’re just coming in for the checkup.”

Say what? I’m due on the table at noon tomorrow. She did promise then to call me right back and she did. “Blue Cross says you should be covered.”

Should be? SHOULD BE?

I did what I should have done in the first place. I called Blue Cross direct. Their advisor, Matt, thanked me for my call and told me I was covered 100%. Including the Reglan™. He saw that the doc’s office had called not long before and got the same answer.

It’s lunchtime here in North Puffin. I’m on clear liquids for the day, now, and grouchy. And I haven’t even gotten to sign up for Obamacare yet.

Later today, in a small and echoey room, I shall express my real opinion of all this.