Health Care Issues Hitting Home

First, it's the Pookie's 2 month birthday! Things are finally feeling pretty good from my perspective, I hope he feels the same. I'll write more about how we are doing later, but I don't know how long my internet connection will last right now. So this will probably be short. Instead of complaining about the cable company and/or my lame computer, I will touch on my frustration with my insurance company.

When the Pumpkin was born, I had registered for the hospital online before her birth, even receiving a confirmation email. Of course, after she was born, they didn't have my registration information. And the couple of times they came by my recovery room to get the insurance information, Londo was out of the room getting food or something. Londo had the insurance card, and I was in the new mother overwhelmed stage.

The hospital ended up sending the full bill to a collection company instead of following up with us for the insurance information. Because we weren't busy or feeling crazy with our first brand new baby. When I was finally feeling coherent enough to deal with it, I figured out what had happened by talking with a very nice and helpful guy at the collection company. He was instrumental in helping me figure out why the insurance wasn't charged and how to get it run through the insurance. We had to send in a check for the amount of the birth (crazy expensive!!!), but we got reimbursed by the insurance company. Eventually.

This time, I made sure they had our registration and insurance information ahead of time. I didn't want to go through all that again. But of course it didn't go smoothly. Just this morning I had to call the insurance to find out why they weren't covering all of the anesthesia costs that they should be covering. It turns out that the claims for anesthesia were submitted incorrectly. They were submitted as a hospital visit, not under maternity. Huh? Whatever. They are going to resubmit them and pay more on them.

But that got me wondering about the doctor's charges (separate from the anesthesia charge) that we paid as we left the hospital (again to avoid having to deal with all we went through before). I'm guessing that those claims were submitted wrong, too. I am now going to have to call the insurance company again to check the doctor's claims too.

Is this their job? To submit claims correctly? To double check that the claims are correct? To cover our medical bills with as little hassle as possible? Isn't this why we and my company pay so much each month to them? We don't have the money to keep paying out of pocket things they should be covering!

I'm so frustrated, and I'm a little busy taking care of my newborn. Isn't insurance great? Urg!

Question of the Week - Questions, Questions, Questions

We are having internet problems, which is why I've not been online or posting much lately. It's very frustrating, and the cable guy isn't coming until Saturday. Hopefully this posts.

So let's get right to the question of the week:

What question(s)/phrase/activity is your child asking/saying/doing constantly these days?

The Pumpkin is always asking "Can I help?" and "Can I go?" If we don't answer right away, she asks "Can I? Can I? Can I?" She wants to help with everything from the dishes (she's getting good at washing the soap off dishes) to making coffee (which I don't let her help with). And she wants to go everywhere with me or Londo. It's hard to say no to her, because isn't it nice that she wants to help and sweet that she wants to go with us?

She is also constantly asking if she can hold the baby and saying "Oh, what a cute little baby!" There are many worse things she could be constantly asking for or doing. We are pretty lucky.

The Pookie is constantly nursing and a bit fussy. He is now entertained by some toys and rattles, though not peek-a-boo. And he makes some pretty cute little coo and goo goo noises! He doesn't do much else, so that's pretty much it for his activities.

How about your kid? What are they constantly asking for, saying or doing these days? Share the cute things or the things that drive you crazy.