When all you can do is laugh...

Ok.  So I decided today was the day I would actually look at all the medical bills I have received for Victoria’s, David’s and my hospital stay. I have so many I was thinking about for Halloween, I could pass out a bill to everyone that comes for candy. J  Let me explain some of the experiences that I had while in the hospital with my health insurance company that will remain nameless at this time.  I was admitted to the hospital on Thursday evening.  They held off the birth of the baby until Sunday morning.   With a C-section I am approved by them to stay in the hospital 4 days and add the complications that I experienced before the birth, I wouldn’t be able to leave early at all.  So Monday morning around 9 am while I was on the phone with them, they informed me that I must leave the hospital immediately, that I had stayed longer than the approved amount.  I advised them that I was hooked up to and iv and it has not even been a whole day since the surgery was completed.  Let me remind you that I had blood pressure issues  during the birthing process, so it was important that I didn’t have any stress or anything that would increase my blood pressure.  She quickly informed me that if I didn’t leave immediately that they wouldn’t cover my stay.  I kindly advised that I am on an iv and I wouldn’t be leaving and disconnected the call.  My 15 minutes had passed between blood pressure checks and the nurse came in and was mortified at my blood pressure reading.  I quickly advised that I just hung up on my insurance company and that they said I had to leave immediately.  She decided that she wasn’t going to record that blood pressure and come back the next 15 minutes and check it again.  I promptly got on the phone with my Brookwood case manager Valerie who was wonderful I might add.  She advised not to worry that she would take care of it and she did.  So a few days later, I got a letter from BCBS that advised that David had to leave the NICU (although he was hooked up to a breathing machine) 2 days before the letter was sent.  Valerie once again came to the rescue.  She called them and asked about the letter, because she was on the phone daily with them to get everything that was done approved.  The person at the insurance company said she didn’t know who sent the letter even thought it was their letterhead and signature, they have no record of the letter.  Then a few days later, I get a voicemail from the insurance company advising congrats on the birth of my two daughters and they wanted to offer condolences that one of the girls died.    Since I was sitting in the NICU at the time spending time with my daughter and son who were both living I decided maybe Valerie needed to hear the message.  She was mortified that they would even leave a voicemail like that.  She called them and they again denied that they knew anything about the call.  I am thinking that this company has many employees with amnesia.  I also got several calls from a nurse at my insurance company wanting to talk to David to discuss his plan for his healthcare that was needed and answer any questions he might have.  I told David to call them back, I can’t believe he didn’t.  I mean after all he was 5 days old by then.   So back to opening my bills today.  I had a letter from my health insurance that advised that they had reevaluated my case and decided that a C-section and NICU stays for my baby weren’t a necessity and that they would have to deny the claim and I would owe the hospital $600,000.  So I was laughing at the letter, what else is there to do.  I mean I won’t make that much in my lifetime, so it made me laugh.  But I quickly got in touch with my case manager and again she called them and they have no record of the letter and they have actually already paid the bills.  My portion that I owe is around $5000.  Thankfully when I got my taxes back I had just found out I was pregnant and had prepaid some of it, so I currently owe around $2500.  So again Valerie to the rescue.  There are situations that we face on a daily basis.  We have a choice on how we are going to deal with it.  So I have decided that I am going to choose to laugh.