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A year after graduating from college in 1962 came two years of military service. Upon separation from active duty I assumed a supervisory function in the insurance industry. The next 32 years in three different companies (24 1/2 years in the last one) provided me with a number of different management & staff positions. As a claim consultant for 19 years, I dealt with the problem, unusual or different issues and advised claim personnel how to proceed with further investigation or resolution of the claim. Investigating and medical issues were of particular interest to me.
About two weeks after researching organ transplant information, a doctor called advising that a 20 year old young woman, just days away from death, needed both a liver and kidney transplant and couldn't wait for the treating facility to start their liver transplant program in 10 days. The doctor gave me the medical details of her condition and asked if we would provide benefits for the proposed surgery. If not, she would be made comfortable and allowed to die. If we preapproved the procedure the patient would be transferred to the nearest facility providing liver transplants maintaining her life medically until the organs became available or she died. After thinking for a brief moment I certified that we would consider the procedures eligible.
The patient was transferred, had the surgery, endured a very difficult recovery and was discharged. Initial costs through discharge from the hospital were $350,000. While I was not in the operating room with the surgical teams I like to think that I helped to save her life.
A short time later, a responsible spokesperson for the transplant facility advised me that this was the first patient in recorded medical history in the free world to have this dual organ transplant. Taking pride in a job well done has always been the way I've worked but I will remember this claim for the rest of my life and if I never again make a life and death decision I take pride in the fact that I was in the right place at the right time and am forever convinced that I made the right decision at a time when many insurance companies were refusing to cover liver transplants.
For my last five years of employment, medical claim fraud investigation became my primary responsibility. If my investigation of a claim indicated fraud, I was authorized to liaise with local, state or federal law enforcement. And I did so with zest!!
Kathy went to college as an adult and became a licensed chemical dependency counselor. She received praise and thanks from a number of grateful clients. She now works as a site manager for a charitable food program providing a free meal for those in need. In the last 20 years seven sites in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis & St Paul Minnesota and surrounding metro areas)served six million meals.
We have been married for 29 years and have one son, Kevin.
Diversions are reading modern military history including WWII to the present, walking in a forested state park, observing nature and wild life, walking in the Mall of America, psychology of human behavior, and a generalized interest in science and medical issues.
Bloomington has 88,000 residents while Minneapolis has 600,000+, St Paul 200,000+, and the surrounding suburbs vary. Minnesota is known as the land of 10,000 lakes. But there are actually more than 15,000. The Twin City area is very green even in the downtown areas. Someone had the foresight to plant trees lining the streets and in yards. The state geography ranges from prairie in the southwest corner of the state to farm land to Northern Minnesota's granite rock and forests of birch and pine.
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