I got candy, magazines and MONEY in the mail. The candy, well it’s from The Wisconsin Candy Dish, soon to be renamed something (hopefully something to do with taffy, mm, taffy!) more appropriate. Learn more about that here. I volunteered to sample, er, to have my family sample some candy and get back to her. It arrived just in time to wire the kids’ jaws shut for graduation of the oldest. Awesome. Well, maybe we’ll wait until after graduation. Sticky hands do not happy parents make.
Magazines, well they finally caught up with us I guess I will have to get the address change to them, and money, well that is the longest story.
After the baby was born, I called my obgyn in Iowa, as they still had my 20% prepay for labor and delivery. My baby was born in MO, therefore, no play, no pay. They told me once the insurance went through that they would forward any money on to me (that was when we were in Iowa). I called again immediately after the baby was born, forseeing huge bills, as our baby did not wait for our insurance to change over, bless her heart, and the lady told me if I was owed anything, which she didn’t think I was, as the appointments would probably eat up the cost, well, then I might get a small refund in the mail. I was confused, beyond, WAY beyond insane with hormones, told my husband and he said they must be right. After I got my final (thank god!) bill from the hospital (that’s another story-they neglect to send me a bill until May for a baby born in October and somehow that’s MY problem? I thought I had paid them, as I got a bill, not so, I got a bill for HER care, not mine, I digress) then I talked to the insurance, figured out that I really did owe the MO hospital money, and asked her about the Iowa one. I was just asking for her personal opinion, as we signed something that said for labor and delivery and should we have paid that much. She said including copays we should only have paid about 99$. Hm. My wallet is considerably fatter today, thanks to the insurance lady (THANK YOU!) that told me to call them back and tell them the insurance company didn’t think so, and if they disagreed to let them know and they’d take care of it. How you like that? So what I got back was about 1/2 of what I had to pay out JUST to the hospital for me only. That doesn’t count baby costs, anethesiologists, etc. etc.
Still, though, a small victory is a victory nonetheless! I worked hard for that money, and saved every penney to pay off the baby bills I anticipated, and even though we definitely went over what I anticipated, what with all the bilirubin heel sticks and extra doctor’s trips, I’m very happy with the insurance company we left behind. Hopefully, I’ll be equally as happy with the one that we have now. We pay a lot less thanks to Matthew’s employer, and I’ve already met my deductible, and Keeley is half the way there. Matthew, well if he’d go get a checkup, it would be free except for co pay. But still, even if we don’t meet it at all, it will be a lot better than the ouch we took on her coming early and the associated costs, both to our wallet and our minds with her ‘preemie’ status, and I use that term lightly now. She is now ‘moose’ instead of ‘mouse’ –lord have mercy on us all, and hot diggity! Mama needs some..well, a little bit of everything.
and it’s PENNY not PENNEY. Argh. I already changed it once to get the WCD blog link in there, you all with feed readers must think I’m crazy by now. outtie!
I went through that with the 2 bills. I didn’t pay the second one because I had already paid one and was very confused. You’d think that with the care of 2 individuals in the same room (and the whole point of going was to HAVE a baby, so I’d think one thing, right?), who were on the same insurance, one bill would be sufficient. And one was all I got with Jacob. But I guess different hospitals and different insurance make for different follow-up. Got it all paid once it was straightened out, but would it hurt them to actually say what the bill is for? Labeling them both “delivery” or something like that was very misleading.
Don’t you hate how nobody really seems to know what was going on? We were overlapping insurance because of what I had to join Mark’s and were under the impression that babies fell under “pre-existing conditions” so we kept my old one to have him under because “pre-existing conditions” weren’t covered under the new insurance. But that all wasn’t true. I spent a whole evening crying because I thought it wouldn’t be covered by insurance. And I had mowed over a bunny. It was the WORST day of my entire pregnancy with Jacob.
After my son was born we went through tons of crap with the insurance for the mid/wife who delivered me – because she wasn’t on my insurance plan (even though she works for a clinic I chose that WAS on my insurance plan)…long story but it was finally resolved when my husband got very very strong and demanding with the insurance company. I’ve decided he will take care of all that crap from now on!!!