Health Care Ordeal

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You guys will NOT believe this SHIT!

So I am all pumped about my new health insurance policy with maternity option being issued effective March 1st, so that we can start trying in May (03.01 + 30 days before conception= April, which would put me at due date over New Year’s Eve, so May was the plan)….

I spend hours thinking about receiving policy documents in the mail so that I can review all the benefits and marvel at how good it is ( yeah I am weird that way)…

Today, I wake up early to get in some last minutes studying for my exam, drive to the exam site, take 25 minutes out of the allowed 1 hour 30 minutes to pass it, drive home singing The All American Rejects, and check the mail to see the package from Blue Cross and Blue Shield with my new policy documents…

I skip back to the house, tear the envelope open and dig in….

After about 10 minutes of looking through it, I am starting to get worried because I do not see the MATERNITY benefit ANYWHERE on there. I start to panic. I call BCBS membership services, who cheerfully inform me that I am IN FACT CORRECT and there IS NOT a maternity benefit on the policy.

I AM FURIOUS!!!!!! I am so angry the words can’t describe it!

I spent 6(!!!) MONTHS , literally 6 months working on this policy, following up, making corrections, dealing with my somewhat incompetent agent, signing, mailing, faxing, etc.

And now I am informed that it’s not freaking there!

I’ve spent the last 5 hours of what should have been a good day on the phone with BCBS trying to figure this out.
I get different answers from different people within different departments.

I am too tired at this point to be able to recap what I am being told by all these people and I doubt you’d care.

Tomorrow a supervisor is supposed to look into it even further, but for now I am bummed. Majorly Utterly Bummed.

I am tired of pushing this whole baby making business month by month…not because I can’t wait to have babies. To be honest  I just simply want to get it over with. Get pregnant and THEN deal with whether I think babies is a good idea. Because if I am forced to think about it too much longer, I might decide against it 🙂 LOL {ok, for those really dumb ones on thebump.com- THAT WAS SARCASM)

And I simply don’t believe in unplanned pregnancies.  Turning off your brain and logic and just getting pregnant is not my cup of tea. There’s too many things that can be done better if they’re planned properly when it comes to pregnancy and babies. To simply ignore that is silly.

To read more about my extensive preparation for pregnancy, click here

Sadness

Wordish Wednesday

15 COMMENTS

  1. I am so so so sorry. I can only imagine your frustration. I had spent a lot of time (after Chloe was born) looking for a health care policy. I left my job and no longer had insurance through my employer (neither did my husband who works contract jobs). I was looking for a maternity package…you know ‘just in case.’ Nothing. Still haven’t found one. I refuse to believe that of all the things covered by health insurance companies…having a baby is just not one of them. I was told they used to offer maternity coverage. They recently stopped due to health care reform talk…not sure how that relates but that’s what they said. Hope you get more answers than I did. Curious to know what they tell you.

    • Thank you, Kim!

      It’s difficult when you’re self employed, because buying group health means paying more money because the “employer” who pays 50% is you lol
      Buying individual health policies is even harder because they’re so poorly regulated. THe health reform actually did A LOT of good for most people, especially mothers and families. It forced insurance companies to offer no cost wellness visits, baby visits, etc. I like Blue Cross and Blue Shield and up until the reform they had horrible maternity coverage and now that the reform went through (thank God), they added a new policy that covers everything. So that’s why I was switching to a new plan so that I could add maternity endorsement. I am really thankful to Obama for pushing this through because otherwise I’d have to pretty much pay most of the costs out of pocket.

      So you might want to look into it again, now that the reform is through. I know for a fact BCBS has it. For me it costs $216 to add it, which is really good considering the only out of pocket costs when I do get pregnant is the first visit ($35) and then $150 per day at the hospital. Totally acceptable!

      The pain for me is that I’ve been waiting since November for them to issue it and they issued it without maternity benefit due to an agent’s mistake. So frustrating!
      Worse comes to worse, I will now add it but that means I have to wait another 60 days. So I’m trying to get them to correct it and backdate it to March 1.

      • That’s a good deal for maternity coverage. I’ll be checking into it again for sure. Hope you get it straightened out soon and I hope they do backdate it for you.

  2. I am so so sorry – the comment section completely wiped out my previous comment but I know this is really discouraging. I hope the whole situation gets turned around quickly!

  3. Elena, I am so sorry to hear that!! I know that is so frustrating. While you know you will be able to work it out it does not make it any less frustrating to have to deal with incompetent assholes on the phone all day when you have better things to be doing – like singing All American Rejects songs! 🙂

  4. Oh honey!! I am so sorry! Dealing with insurance is the worst, I hate it so bad! I hope things get fixed quickly so you can relax again and enjoy the process! *big hugs* Don’t give up, have hope!

  5. Ugh, that really sucks. I really hope they can fix it tomorrow and back date it for you. Nothing is more frustrating than these types of stupid mistakes! I feel for you hon! Keep us posted. xo

  6. OMG!!!! How the heck it’s even possible that after all those e-mails, talks and discussions they did NOT include EXACTLY what you wanted them to include to the policy???

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