Good Ol' Medical Insurance

Anyone wonder why we bother to pay insurance premiums? I seriously find myself wondering more and more lately. For those of you that don't know, my work just switched plans this summer, for the worse of course, and we had several...bumps during the process. Currently Premera owes us a good chunk of money already. The most recent fiasco involves the fact that I had a kid shortly before the change. After our June, and now also July, well-child visits for Naiyah, we received rather large bills. After the first we thought, ok, we just haven't met our deductible yet. So we sucked it up and paid the $100+ dollars. Then last week we get a bill from the pediatrician's office for over $200 dollars. What?!? This didn't feel right to me since we've never had to pay this much for a routine visit in our entire parenting lives. And then when I actually LOOKED at the bill (yes dumb me for not doing it the first time), Premera is listed but they didn't pay ANYTHING!! I could not believe it! Ever tried to decide whether to call the dr office or insurance company first, knowing that there is a 75% chance that the one you pick will refer you to call the other one? Yeah, it's a fun Russian roulette. Anyhow, luckily I happened to choose correctly this time when I called the pediatrician's office. APPARENTLY Naiyah was only covered for the first 21 days and then dropped. WTH?? I filled out the correct paperwork and sent it in to my work before the deadline. I did everything right on my end. And yet things still got screwed up. It’s so irritating to be continually dealing with fallout from the insurance changes in July/August. Premera has dropped the ball SO many times since then, and I always seem to be under the ball when it drops! Anyhow, our benefits person at work said that she’ll deal with Premera for me and get the claims resubmitted, so hopefully I only have to make one more phone call in a couple of weeks (to request the refund from the pediatric office). We shall see.

Moral of the story: When it comes to medical insurance, always trust your instincts and check check check! Otherwise they will TAKE your money and KEEP it.