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khatruThis week I've been cold, spacy, sleeping, and feeling like I'm braining at 1/4 speed.
R, after trying and failing to get me to deal with the pharmacy to renew my meds, went to do that, with me giving her money from my stash to pay for them. Unfortunately, I need the actual brand name synthroid, which cost, by itself, more money than I gave her. She put the overage onto the debit card for the bank account, and got some more groceries.
I paid the last bill I was waiting for to come in, and gave C a check for one-time dues for some organization he was told would "look good on his resume". $60 was annoying, but small enough in the long run.
After the sticker shock at the pharmacy, R took the Cobra-Management-Company mail that finally showed up and tried to sign me up. Unfortunately, the second page of the form, instead of listing the dependents of the deceased (as the text of the form said it would), only listed Otter's information. She put in an email to their support desk, and got a reply 2 days later saying that they wouldn't talk to her cause of HIPAA. (Which is bullshit, but w'ever.) So she brought up the envelope, gave me the username/password she'd set up, and I dragged my ass to the computer. Only to find that they'd fixed it, and that page now had my and C's name on it. 2 pages later, I came to a screeching halt from the information that it would cost $1500+ for C and I, or 825+ for just me, per month, and would have to be paid up front to date before anything would be covered. Since that's more money than I currently have in the bank, I didn't go any further.
R found for me, on the healthcare.gov website, a link to "people to help you decide what to do". I called the first name on the list (that I got from putting my zip code in) and after playing phone tag for a day or so, talked to him today. It turns out that there is no single place to find out how much meds would cost on medicaid vs private insurance; this kind of comparison (other than "private insurance is always better than medicaid") needs to be done by going from doctor to doctor, pharmacy to pharmacy about drug by drug to compare prices. "I just go to the costco website cause it's useful, and get an idea of the prices from there." After listening to me rant a bit, he also strongly suggested I call the insurance commission and tell them the runaround I've been getting, cause apparently it *is* as fucked up as it sounds, and he's sure they would love to hear about it.
Today, I didn't take a call that turned out to be the Cobra Management Company calling to talk to me. No information as to why on the message they left. I didn't take a call that turned out to be the life insurance place, which tells me that they're FINALLY through doing their determination, and that the check will be sent out Monday, second day air, and if I have any questions to call. So I called, to find out *which* second day air thing, and did we have to be home for it, and got the 'i'm not in my office right now' message. So I called the generic customer service, and they said second day air is UPS, and they don't send it requiring a signature. They also said that I can call Monday afternoon and get a tracking number.
So I think I'm going to leave all this bullshit alone till Wednesday, when I will theoretically have a check in hand and be able to have a clue if I can afford ANYTHING AT ALL.
fmh.
R, after trying and failing to get me to deal with the pharmacy to renew my meds, went to do that, with me giving her money from my stash to pay for them. Unfortunately, I need the actual brand name synthroid, which cost, by itself, more money than I gave her. She put the overage onto the debit card for the bank account, and got some more groceries.
I paid the last bill I was waiting for to come in, and gave C a check for one-time dues for some organization he was told would "look good on his resume". $60 was annoying, but small enough in the long run.
After the sticker shock at the pharmacy, R took the Cobra-Management-Company mail that finally showed up and tried to sign me up. Unfortunately, the second page of the form, instead of listing the dependents of the deceased (as the text of the form said it would), only listed Otter's information. She put in an email to their support desk, and got a reply 2 days later saying that they wouldn't talk to her cause of HIPAA. (Which is bullshit, but w'ever.) So she brought up the envelope, gave me the username/password she'd set up, and I dragged my ass to the computer. Only to find that they'd fixed it, and that page now had my and C's name on it. 2 pages later, I came to a screeching halt from the information that it would cost $1500+ for C and I, or 825+ for just me, per month, and would have to be paid up front to date before anything would be covered. Since that's more money than I currently have in the bank, I didn't go any further.
R found for me, on the healthcare.gov website, a link to "people to help you decide what to do". I called the first name on the list (that I got from putting my zip code in) and after playing phone tag for a day or so, talked to him today. It turns out that there is no single place to find out how much meds would cost on medicaid vs private insurance; this kind of comparison (other than "private insurance is always better than medicaid") needs to be done by going from doctor to doctor, pharmacy to pharmacy about drug by drug to compare prices. "I just go to the costco website cause it's useful, and get an idea of the prices from there." After listening to me rant a bit, he also strongly suggested I call the insurance commission and tell them the runaround I've been getting, cause apparently it *is* as fucked up as it sounds, and he's sure they would love to hear about it.
Today, I didn't take a call that turned out to be the Cobra Management Company calling to talk to me. No information as to why on the message they left. I didn't take a call that turned out to be the life insurance place, which tells me that they're FINALLY through doing their determination, and that the check will be sent out Monday, second day air, and if I have any questions to call. So I called, to find out *which* second day air thing, and did we have to be home for it, and got the 'i'm not in my office right now' message. So I called the generic customer service, and they said second day air is UPS, and they don't send it requiring a signature. They also said that I can call Monday afternoon and get a tracking number.
So I think I'm going to leave all this bullshit alone till Wednesday, when I will theoretically have a check in hand and be able to have a clue if I can afford ANYTHING AT ALL.
fmh.
