A Message from the CEO Glen Cavallo: “Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” F. Scott Fitzgerald I am a “sucker” for people that “go for it” when others around say that it is impossible. You know what I mean, the people that will just not accept “no” for an answer. Here are three individuals that did just that: Jeff Skiba of Skyline High School won the Class 3A state high-jump title in 2001 with a prosthetic left leg. The 2002 Skyline graduate was born without a left fibula and had his lower left leg amputated below the knee before his first birthday. But Skiba, who jumps off his right leg, won the title with a leap of 6 ft, 10 inches. Wilma Rudolph overcame polio and poverty as a child in Alabama to become the first American woman to win three gold medals in the Olympics. She did it as a sprinter in the 1960 Olympics. She had won a bronze medal in the 1956 Olympics at age 16 after spending much of her childhood bedridden. David Bazzi finished 75th in the Metro League junior-varsity cross-country meet as an ODea freshman. He kept running and improving throughout high school and college and went on to win the Pac-10 10,000-meter title in 2001 as a Washington Husky. Closer to home, I was visiting an office recently and the branch director shared this great story with me that practically had me in tears: A young patient of ours recently graduated high school and wanted to attend Rutgers University. Rutgers is 90 minutes from his home and he wanted to live on campus. Our branch director contacted the managed care organization to get approval to help to support this patient at Rutgers, only to be told that private duty nursing is considered respite and is only available to patients if they live at home with parents, a guardian or family. Therefore, if our patient enters college, his private duty nursing will cease. Our branch director was flabbergasted. She explained to the care manager that this young man was being penalized because he wanted to further his education, make/plan a bright future for himself, and become independent regardless of his disability. The care manager understood and said that she would take it “up line” but that she was confident that our plea would be denied. In the meantime, our clinical director worked with the patient’s doctor on a letter of medical necessity and sent it to the same care manager in attempt to justify why she should make an exception to their policy. On July 3, the branch received a call from the care manager stating that “much to my surprise and pleasure, private duty nursing has now been approved for 8 hours a day/seven days a week”. In other words, this hard working, courageous, ambitious young man would now be attending Rutgers University! The Care Manager even thanked our branch leader for not giving up! To make things even better, the patient’s regular nurses want to take care of this young man at Rutgers even though it will be an hour and half commute to get there! The branch director said to me “Words cannot express how happy all of us were for this patient and his family”. I asked our leader if she could help me pass along any words of wisdom from this experience to the rest of the company. She replied, “Be persistent. Always do the right thing. Do not accept “no” as an answer if you truly believe in the cause”. Furthermore, “The feeling that you get from succeeding in helping these children/families is one like no other”. In closing, I hear stories like this all of time about care at LCA. That being said, this branch director reminded me of the importance of “fighting for what’s right” when others cannot fight for themselves. It is this type of care and love that makes LCA special and why I am honored to work alongside all of you. Thanks for all that you do and have a great weekend. -Glen
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 13:16:35 +0000
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