Surgery can heal your broken bones. But the bureaucracy of filling forms can completely pulverize you. Now that my father-in-law is hobbling around with his stick, I started thinking about what paperwork he might need to carry to see if he can get any of the medical expenses reimbursed in India (he is traveling with medical insurance for foreign trip).

My brother in law promptly sent me a boat load of paperwork. I read a few of them and then looked at some of the information they are asking for. It will be interesting to see how I can even get all those paperwork. Forget convincing the hospital to give me all the detail procedural paperwork – HIPAA be danged – just the forms to be filled up is going to be challenging… if I can suppress my smile at the ridiculousness of some of the fields, that is.

A case in point. Look at the picture below. One of the forms requires the doctor to fill up and sign off on certain information. Even if I manage to explain to him what a Taluka is or why Fax is a mandatory instrument for a patient to have, how do I explain after checking off on “Mr” or “Mrs”, why you have to re-clarify whether you are a male or a female? 🙂

This is going to be a lot of fun!!!