Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 31, 1993 TAG: 9301310026
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAROLYN CLICK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
THE COST OF THE CURE PUTS PARENTS IN A BIND
AFTER TWO heart surgeries, doctors predict Amanda Phillips will fully recover. But her parents, in a kind of medical Catch-22, still are reeling from the hospital bills that arrive daily.If all had gone according to plan, Lisa Phillips would be living the life of the average young mother - raising a family, juggling a job, saving for the future.
But "average" and "normal" have only now begun to creep back into the vocabulary of the 25-year-old Bedford woman - and Lisa Phillips isn't certain whether things are changing for the better.
Her life took a dramatic turn more than a year ago when a doctor told her that her 4-month-old baby, Amanda, had a congenital heart defect.
Since then, Lisa and her husband, Timothy, 28, have been on a roller-coaster ride of doctors' visits and hospital stays, patching together a family-and-work life that revolves around care of Amanda.
"We don't leave her a second by herself," she said.
Today, a month after her second heart surgery at the University of Virginia, 17-month-old Amanda is feeling friskier than she has felt for a long time. Acting, said Lisa Phillips with a kind of wonderment, like a normal child.
"I don't know what a normal life is like, and I don't know what a normal child is," she said.
Now, Amanda dashes around the living room of the family's mobile home picking up books and stuffed animals.
Her animated appearance delights her mother, who is discovering a little bit of freedom after months of nearly around-the-clock monitoring of the little girl's heart.
But as Amanda's health improves, the mailbox fills up with dozens of medical bills and insurance documents.
"Every day is incredible," she said. "The mailbox is just full."
About 80 percent of Amanda's health costs will be picked up by one of her parents' insurance companies. But hospital personnel have estimated the total cost of both operations could be as high as $180,000.
Timothy Phillips, who works as an upholstery cutter at Sam Moore Furniture, is covered by a policy from Connecticut General. Lisa Phillips, on a leave of absence from her job at Galileo Electro Optics in Forest, is covered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
But some days, Lisa Phillips feels as if she is employed as a temporary worker for the insurance companies as they spar, using her as the middleman, over just what medical charges each will pay for.
"I think the insurance companies need to relate to each other," she said. Even after the insurance companies stop squabbling, she fears her family will be left with thousands of dollars in bills.
In many ways, Lisa and Timothy Phillips' story represents the health-care crisis that tears at America and threatens to swamp the national economy.
Until Amanda's illness, the Phillipses went about their lives is much the same way their parents had done. Both graduates of Liberty High School, they entered the work force full time shortly after graduation.
In the four years before Amanda was born, they managed to save enough money to buy the trailer they now live in. Someday, they figured, they would move to a house with a big yard for Amanda.
But their normal lives halted during the yearlong health crisis. There have been no vacations, no shopping sprees, few dinners out.
"We haven't done anything since she has been born that pertains to actual fun," she said.
"The stresses and pressure on a marriage are incredible," she said. "We have really had to work together to make things go."
The Phillipses' dream ran into the reality of modern-day health care, and the price tag that accompanies the technology that has become available in the past two decades.
Amanda's first surgery in April 1992 was aimed at healing a ventricular septal defect, known commonly as a hole in the heart.
"It's a very common congenital defect," said Dr. Irving Kron, Amanda's cardiac surgeon. "Hers was a particularly large one."
But doctors did not know at the time that Amanda also had a cleft in her mitral valve, the valve between the left atrium and left ventricle of the heart. That caused more leakage of blood, and doctors decided that a second surgery was warranted.
Twenty years ago, such surgery was virtually nonexistent, but since then it has become fairly routine.
"This is not a hugely expensive procedure, and if you think about what the end result is, you are talking about a lifetime," Kron said.
Kron estimated the cost of both surgeries at less than $100,000 - cheap when compared to high-tech operations such as heart and lung transplants.
But what boosts the total bill are the costs of laboratory work, the anesthesiologist, and the price of a lengthy hospital stay. Amanda spent six weeks in the hospital following her first surgery and a week following the latest operation.
The Phillipses have the comfort of a wide circle of family and friends, including many in Bedford County who have helped defray expenses related to Amanda's hospitalization.
Jars set up in country and convenience stores around the country brought in several hundred dollars, and her church held a recent gospel fund-raiser that netted $700.
Even with financial problems looming, the Phillipses can take comfort in the fact that the surgery worked - and that Amanda now faces the prospect of a normal childhood.
"We will continue to follow her forever," said Kron, although he believes Amanda will not require more surgery.
Her enlarged heart will shrink over the years and, as she grows, become normal in size. Kron predicted she would be able to play sports and other vigorous activities like any other kid.
"She has big-time energy," he said. "She is normal now except for being a little small."
Contributions to defray Amanda Phillips' expenses may be sent to Dominion c/o Lisa D. Phillips for Amanda, P.O. Box 649, Bedford 24523.