As a programmer, I use AI from time to time to help me get unstuck from a problem. I’m wary of “vibe programming,” the term for using AI to write a program wholesale. Unfortunately, healthcare seems to have greater acceptance of giving AI free reign than I do.
The Hoyer lift
When Namine came home from surgery last July, they were in a lot of pain. Under otherwise normal circumstances, they’d have no trouble transferring from a bed to their wheelchair and vice versa. Post-op, however, they were barely able to do so without crying in agony. (And if you know Namine’s pain tolerance, you know that’s saying something.) They were able to transfer into the car, but not without help from Jessica and myself.
We thought it best to get a Hoyer lift to help with transfers at home, so we contacted our local healthcare supply company. The cost of renting one was covered through Namine’s insurance.
In case you aren’t aware, a Hoyer lift is a manual or electric mechanical transfer device, used to lift and move individuals between beds, wheelchairs, and toilets. The lifts at the hospital are electric, but the one delivered to us is manual.
It’s crucial to point out that this was a rental. Its purpose in our house was to assist during Namine’s recovery, with the full intention of returning it to the healthcare supply company once they no longer had need of it. What’s that old saying? “Man plans, and God laughs.”
Ghosts in the machine
It has now been more than six months since Namine’s surgery. I should also mention that Namine has not needed the lift’s assistance once. Not once! But don’t think for a second that I (or we) are upset at that. It’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. And while Namine has had, and continues to have, their share of ongoing pain management, they have been determined to maintain their independence.
So the time had come, the walrus said, to talk of returning the Hoyer lift. I called the supply company to initiate that process, but I was surprised to find that their records indicated that we owned the lift. At some point, the agent told me, the rental was converted to a sale. She couldn’t tell me when, exactly; but somewhere around the six month mark. And she was surprised too, because she said one of two things ought to have happened.
First, a person — yes, a real human person — should have been notified that the Eiche family had had a rental Hoyer lift for six months. This person would then have reached out to us, since they have our phone numbers and email addresses, to inquire if in fact we did want our house to be the lift’s forever home.
Second, failing the first, an automated phone call, email, or text should have been sent out to us. As I mentioned, their system has all our contact information, including our real, physical mailing address for a real, physical letter.
Neither of those things happened.
What did happen was the system converting our rental of the Hoyer lift to a sale. The manual models are not as expensive as the electric ones, but they are still not cheap. The supply company’s system initiated the conversion, which resulted in its contacting Namine’s dual insurances. At no point during this process was a human involved; my insurance approved and paid for the partial cost, after which Medicaid approved and covered the remainder.
We are now the proud owners of a Hoyer lift, courtesy of the AIs.
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