Boy, when it rains it really pours!
On top of all of the illness and doctor visits we’ve had in the last couple of weeks, we found out that the kids lost their insurance (Medicaid) because our income was too high! It was absolutely ridiculous. They gave us no warning (the benefits ended March 31 and they didn’t even send a letter to inform us until April 6!) and Kelvin is supposed to have insurance until he’s a year old, no matter how much money we make. But they decided to cut us off anyway, leaving us to pay all those doctor/lab/prescription bills out of pocket!
I was irate. I talked to people at Medicaid first and they said there was nothing they could do and that there weren’t any other programs that could help us. So I called Health and Human Services and told them exactly what the Medicaid people had done. The HHS person I talked to said she was going to call Medicaid, see what was going on and then call me back. She called back about 15 minutes later and said that Kelvin was supposed to keep getting insurance until he was a year old no matter what, so she had given the Medicaid people my name and number and they would be in contact with me.
About an hour later, I got a call from a Medicaid higher-up guy (I don’t know what his position was, but he wasn’t one of the foreign people I usually have to talk to who have no clue what they’re talking about). He said that he had re-instated Kelvin’s insurance and backdated it to April 1, so we wouldn’t have to pay any of his bills out of pocket. He said now he was going to review our tax return and see what he could do for Ava.
I honestly didn’t expect to hear back from him for a few weeks, if at all. But I must have gotten them in some hot water with Health and Human Services because he dropped everything to get to it that day (he called me several times throughout the day to clarify things on our return). He also gave me his direct line in case I had any problems so I wouldn’t have to deal with the foreign people who don’t know what they’re talking about.
At the end of the day, he called me again and told me that Ava was getting her insurance back, too! I was thrilled! I don’t know what he did that other people didn’t when they cut off our insurance, but I wasn’t going to question it!
Now both kids have their insurance at least until next March when we have to renew it again. Just goes to show that it pays to question things like this and not just sit back and take it!
Posted: April 9th, 2009 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 1
