Friday, November 20, 2009

and doesn't this just figure

I got a phone call yesterday --- from the anesthesiologist's office for the two surgeries this summer (oh yeah, I didn't even recognize the name as I have seen nothing from them yet as a bill --- six months later!!)

anyway, they wanted to know if my doctor (the primary care one) had completed the form from the insurance company about preexisting conditions

yes folks, after all this, the soon to be ex-insurance company had started looking for a way not to have to pay anything at all (and ask me to reimburse for what little they had paid) for the two surgical procedures I had this summer

excuse me?

when I sent the form to my primary care doctor her office was concerned that the insurance was looking for a way not to pay her for my office visit where we talked about blood pressure and cholesterol medication

but no, they are trying to say that I knew about the other problem before I got their insurance

nope, sorry -- if there is any preexisting condition involved here it is merely that I was born female

that phone call did remind me of one other thing though --- no doubt there will be still more bills (that I don't even know about yet) to add to the $4000 total that we're trying to find a way to pay

{sigh}

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Officially a Statistic

Weird

Usually you don't know the exact moment when you became a statistic --

This morning I sent a fax (via the internet -- did you know there were places you could do that? for FREE?! -- ok, maybe I'm just behind the times) that officially cancelled the little pathetic health insurance policy I had.

That's right folks, effective December 15 at 12:01 a.m., I will be uninsured

Before you go all crazy about how irresponsible this is and all, let me explain the cold, hard, facts about this.

Since I acquired this insurance I have paid to them $2710 in premiums.

Over that time, through various doctor visits, tests and two surgeries they have paid a total of $400 -- WOW, they paid a whole 15% of what I had paid to them.

So now, since they did not pay anything more than that, I have almost $4000 in medical bills that were not covered by the Colorado Indigent Care Program that paid for way more of my surgery than the insurance did.

I would have been better off if I'd just been sticking the premium in a savings account.

So, beginning in January, I will be using part of the amount I was paying in premiums to pay the medical bills and part of it will go in a savings account -- no, not a HSA because those all require you to put in a set amount every month AND pay a premium for a high risk health insurance policy, which defeats the whole purpose here of somehow being able to pay off those medical bills.

Meantime, I'm watching Washington DC very carefully and wondering if they will actually pass a bill that will be of any help and I'm well aware that even if it is, it's three or four years away -- in fact, I'm surer of getting Medicare -- which happens for me in 2016.