While organizing why not add up the cost of your medical treatment

My favorite jobs have been ones where I was able to create a system.  I love to plan, organize, and be creative. Creating a new system allows me to do all three. But the fun doesn't end there!  The beauty of a new system is that you are constantly evaluating and making changes.  You pitch an idea and see if it works.  If it does - great! If it doesn't - make changes.

As the bills, prescriptions  notes, symptom charts began to pile up it was time for a system.  I settled on a giant binder with several tabs.  This blue binder has been my truest companion through this.  Each time I see a new doctor they all have the same questions and want the same information.  As someone whose short term memory has become problematic and inability to focus with out pounding headaches - this task has proven difficult.  Each day I work a bit on the binder.

I now have calendars documenting each day I have been sick and my symptoms on those days.  I have a list of my initial symptoms and my current symptoms.  Countless prescriptions documenting what meds I have been on and the dosage.  My tab of lab results is bursting at the seem.  Each doctor wants to run the exact same tests.  My hope is that they will stop shoving needles into my deflating veins if I can show them the blood work from 2 weeks ago.

Despite this organization keeping up with the medical bills, and making sense of them is overwhelming.  For example: insurance provides a date and code (i.e. doctor visit), but doesn't say which doctor or which services.  Seeing as I have seen 5 doctors more information is necessary.  I called insurance, since they have been so helpful, to ask what a few of the bills were for.  Shockingly they couldn't tell me.  She said she would call me right back.  It is now 2 days later.  

My short-term disability and time of being 'employed' ends tomorrow.  Over the past 2 weeks I have tasked myself with wrapping up that chapter and the bills associated with it.  As I sat on my bed organizing the bills by date I decided to have some fun.  Wild and crazy fun.  I added up my bills.  To date my medical tests and approved doctor visits have cost insurance $20,913.50. Baller. That does not include the cost of Lyme doctor visits, supplements, or prescription co-pay. But those are things I have had to pay out of pocket for so adding them up would be much less fun.