boob smushing

My phone rang the other day and, as usual, I looked to see who was calling. No one from my contact list and so I didn't answer. It is rare indeed for an anonymous call to actually be one I want to take. I figure if it's important, they'll leave a message and so this call did. It was from my supplemental health insurance provider and they wanted a call back so I obliged. The lady wanted to know if I had had a mammogram this year.

Me: no

Her: it is completely free, no cost to you.

Me: yes I'm aware of that.

Her: has your primary care physician recommended one to you?

Me: yes but I declined.

Her: how long has it been since you had a mammogram?

Me: two, two and a half years.

Her: where did you have it done?

Me: Bay City

Her: would you like me to call and make an appointment for you?

Me: no, I don't see that doctor anymore and I'd rather not drive all the way to Bay City.

Her: would you like me to find a facility near you?

Me: if you insist.

This woman WILL NOT give up!

So she tells me to hold on while she checks and comes back on the line that she found a facility there in Wharton, it's the medical center where I went to get my annual earlier this year from my new primary care physician.

Her: would you like me to call and make an appointment for you?

Me: I guess.

So she puts me on hold again, calls the med center, gets the x-ray department on the phone and then gets back to me. Now we are on a three way phone call and I'm talking with the tech, giving her my information, telling her that I had been to see one of their doctors earlier this year.

Tech: did your doctor request a mammogram?

Me: yes, but I declined.

Tech: are you having any problems?

Me: no, it's just that my health care provider is being a little more insistent.

Which produced chuckles from both women.

So yesterday I went in for my mammogram and had to fill out the form they give you and where it asks for the reason for this visit I wrote 'my health care provided insisted'. The tech is looking over my form and when she gets to the reason for my visit she exclaims, “oh, that was you!”. Never, she says, in all her years has she ever had someone's insurance company call to make an appointment for one of their clients. She was amazed. (They also call me once or twice a year to try and set up a home visit for a general health screening and scrutiny of the home environment to check for lurking dangers which I always decline. I'm not feeble yet, I tell them.)

I would probably been a little more insistent in my refusal of the mammogram if my sister hadn't told me just a few days before that she found our maternal great-grandmother's death certificate and the cause of death was 'breast cancer'.