Today I am going to go on a little rant. You ready?
So, I mentioned I have been procrastinating about several things. The list is quite long actually. But here are some of the items on my list:
1. Get the mail.
2. Fold the laundry in the dryer.
3. Do more laundry....including the mounting pile of sheets and towels.
4. Make a menu for a whole week and try to go to the grocery store only once or twice that week!
5. Vacuum. Including the stairs.
6. Dust.
7. Break down some big boxes and recycle them.
8. Take old clothes to Goodwill. Take junk to the dump. Get rid of junk.
9. Basically, my house seriously needs a good cleaning...the un-tidiness of it is driving me batty!
11. I have lesson plans and school projects I should be working on.
12. I need to prep notes and questions for an upcoming doctor's appointment.
13. I need to call insurance to discuss an EOB for the ultrasound in December and what, if any, aspects of infertility are covered under my plan.
And the list keeps going...
So, I mentioned I have been procrastinating about several things. The list is quite long actually. But here are some of the items on my list:
1. Get the mail.
2. Fold the laundry in the dryer.
3. Do more laundry....including the mounting pile of sheets and towels.
4. Make a menu for a whole week and try to go to the grocery store only once or twice that week!
5. Vacuum. Including the stairs.
6. Dust.
7. Break down some big boxes and recycle them.
8. Take old clothes to Goodwill. Take junk to the dump. Get rid of junk.
9. Basically, my house seriously needs a good cleaning...the un-tidiness of it is driving me batty!
11. I have lesson plans and school projects I should be working on.
12. I need to prep notes and questions for an upcoming doctor's appointment.
And the list keeps going...
So, the other day I got to cross one thing off! A big thing...that I've been putting off for quite some time. As a teacher, I have pretty good insurance. Rate increases were nuts this year, so I had to switch our plan. And we are still paying more for less coverage. Blech.
Anyway, I figured it didn't matter that the new plan wasn't as good; even on the old plan, insurance wasn't picking up any percentage of anything with "infertility" attached to it...not office visits, not meds, not lab work. Zilch. I assume this is pretty common, but it still stinks. However, I wasn't giving up just yet. I had read carefully through the plan and noticed infertility was listed under the "limited coverage" section of the book rather than the "no coverage" section. So I thought maybe they would do something for people who read the plan and inquired about it. I figured they'd continue doing nothing as long as I said nothing. Insurance companies seem slimy like that.
I called.
For the record, the guy I talked to was nice, helpful, accommodating. Everything he said made sense, but I still got the feeling he was a bit of a slippery fish. That's beside the point. Turns out that as part of the Education Association's group-plan negotiations, infertility was completely NOT covered. To get the rates they did, the group had to take that off the table. So, other people with this plan (who are not part of the Education Associate Group) may or may not receive varying degrees of coverage when it comes to infertility...hence the "limited coverage."
And I get it. From a money stand-point. Even limited coverage of fertility issues for a State-Wide group whose members include a lot of females of child-bearing years (1 in 8 of whom are probably IF), would be seriously costly!! Ultimately it is about the dollar. Do you know what is covered though? "Voluntary termination of a pregnancy." What the what?!?!?
I get why insurance doesn't want to cover IF treatments...I don't want to spend that much money on those odds either.
I CAN fathom going through whatever it takes physically and emotionally for even a slim chance at having our baby. And I'd pay a pretty penny for it! I've already spent something like $1000 in the last few months and we haven't even exhausted the lowest level intervention yet!! Is it bad to talk money like this? I've always heard it is rude and bad and don't do it. Don't ask or tell specifics about $. Oh well.
Anyway, I can wrap my brain around $100 here, $200 there, $85.61 there. Even a couple thousand dollars for the big dog, IVF, if it ever got to that. If insurance backed me up, I would probably do it...any and all of it, provided I could convince my husband that we should (but that's a whole different story).
What I CAN'T wrap my brain around is paying and paying and paying with no end in sight. I can't imagine pouring my life savings into something that can't be guaranteed...too risky for my liking. I can't fathom it. And surely the stress of it not working out would probably make it not work out.
Maybe I am putting the cart before the horse. I hope so. I hope that low level interventions and time do the trick...but one can never be sure...what IF my road is going to be one of the long ones? IF it is going to be a long road, shouldn't I think about it and plan for the possibilities so I don't make the waiting game longer for having not prepared??
Back to my rant...
"Insurance should help me pay for this! This is a medical condition!" she screams as she throws herself to the ground, fists and feet flailing.
This is tantrum worthy stuff, I think. Much more worthy of a tantrum than that stupid biology project in college...
What is insurance if not a system that you pay a bunch of money into, that you may hardly ever need, just to insure that in the event of unforeseen medical circumstances &/or something you cannot help, you will not be left up a creek without a paddle? Apparently I am digging idioms today. But if the shoe fits....work that idiom! So here I am. Up creek. No paddle.
I've wracked my brain for analogies, but have trouble coming up with something comparable. What if modern medicine could help someone who was deaf to gain or restore their hearing? Oh wait! Modern medicine can do that in many cases. Isn't that incredible!! And what if insurance said, "No, hearing is elective. Bummer dude." (Actually, maybe insurance companies do say that. I don't know. I haven't researched it. Wouldn't surprise me.) But, darn it! Anyone who can't hear, who wants to hear, should be afforded the chance!!! Sure you can have a full and wonderful life without being able to hear, but there are bound to be obstacles no matter how great your attitude. No matter how you slice it, living without being able to hear is not the same experience that most people get to have without thinking twice!!
That's how this feels. Not being able (*yet*) to get pregnant and have a baby feels like my body is failing to perform a basic, human function. Like seeing, or hearing, or breathing, or pumping blood, or fighting infection, or getting out of bed in the morning. I am not trying to make light of the plight of anyone else's journey. So please don't be offended. I am just trying to point out that anyone who has ever witnessed someone or had their body fail at a basic function can probably imagine the frustration and sense of bewilderment. It's not fair that that man had a heart attack. She was too young to succumb to cancer. The NICU...look at the NICU! Where's the justice in that?!?
When bodies fail to do things they are supposed to do, insurance is supposed to have your back, right? I mean, at least sort of. A serious medical issue could financially ruin any one of us. (Wah, waah).
I know now why I was putting off that phone call to the insurance company for so long. I was expecting, but afraid of the answer. I know that there are options between here and the completely exhaust-your-savings options. But, darn it anyway! Errr!
Anyway, I figured it didn't matter that the new plan wasn't as good; even on the old plan, insurance wasn't picking up any percentage of anything with "infertility" attached to it...not office visits, not meds, not lab work. Zilch. I assume this is pretty common, but it still stinks. However, I wasn't giving up just yet. I had read carefully through the plan and noticed infertility was listed under the "limited coverage" section of the book rather than the "no coverage" section. So I thought maybe they would do something for people who read the plan and inquired about it. I figured they'd continue doing nothing as long as I said nothing. Insurance companies seem slimy like that.
I called.
For the record, the guy I talked to was nice, helpful, accommodating. Everything he said made sense, but I still got the feeling he was a bit of a slippery fish. That's beside the point. Turns out that as part of the Education Association's group-plan negotiations, infertility was completely NOT covered. To get the rates they did, the group had to take that off the table. So, other people with this plan (who are not part of the Education Associate Group) may or may not receive varying degrees of coverage when it comes to infertility...hence the "limited coverage."
And I get it. From a money stand-point. Even limited coverage of fertility issues for a State-Wide group whose members include a lot of females of child-bearing years (1 in 8 of whom are probably IF), would be seriously costly!! Ultimately it is about the dollar. Do you know what is covered though? "Voluntary termination of a pregnancy." What the what?!?!?
I get why insurance doesn't want to cover IF treatments...I don't want to spend that much money on those odds either.
I CAN fathom going through whatever it takes physically and emotionally for even a slim chance at having our baby. And I'd pay a pretty penny for it! I've already spent something like $1000 in the last few months and we haven't even exhausted the lowest level intervention yet!! Is it bad to talk money like this? I've always heard it is rude and bad and don't do it. Don't ask or tell specifics about $. Oh well.
Anyway, I can wrap my brain around $100 here, $200 there, $85.61 there. Even a couple thousand dollars for the big dog, IVF, if it ever got to that. If insurance backed me up, I would probably do it...any and all of it, provided I could convince my husband that we should (but that's a whole different story).
What I CAN'T wrap my brain around is paying and paying and paying with no end in sight. I can't imagine pouring my life savings into something that can't be guaranteed...too risky for my liking. I can't fathom it. And surely the stress of it not working out would probably make it not work out.
Maybe I am putting the cart before the horse. I hope so. I hope that low level interventions and time do the trick...but one can never be sure...what IF my road is going to be one of the long ones? IF it is going to be a long road, shouldn't I think about it and plan for the possibilities so I don't make the waiting game longer for having not prepared??
Back to my rant...
"Insurance should help me pay for this! This is a medical condition!" she screams as she throws herself to the ground, fists and feet flailing.
This is tantrum worthy stuff, I think. Much more worthy of a tantrum than that stupid biology project in college...
What is insurance if not a system that you pay a bunch of money into, that you may hardly ever need, just to insure that in the event of unforeseen medical circumstances &/or something you cannot help, you will not be left up a creek without a paddle? Apparently I am digging idioms today. But if the shoe fits....work that idiom! So here I am. Up creek. No paddle.
I've wracked my brain for analogies, but have trouble coming up with something comparable. What if modern medicine could help someone who was deaf to gain or restore their hearing? Oh wait! Modern medicine can do that in many cases. Isn't that incredible!! And what if insurance said, "No, hearing is elective. Bummer dude." (Actually, maybe insurance companies do say that. I don't know. I haven't researched it. Wouldn't surprise me.) But, darn it! Anyone who can't hear, who wants to hear, should be afforded the chance!!! Sure you can have a full and wonderful life without being able to hear, but there are bound to be obstacles no matter how great your attitude. No matter how you slice it, living without being able to hear is not the same experience that most people get to have without thinking twice!!
That's how this feels. Not being able (*yet*) to get pregnant and have a baby feels like my body is failing to perform a basic, human function. Like seeing, or hearing, or breathing, or pumping blood, or fighting infection, or getting out of bed in the morning. I am not trying to make light of the plight of anyone else's journey. So please don't be offended. I am just trying to point out that anyone who has ever witnessed someone or had their body fail at a basic function can probably imagine the frustration and sense of bewilderment. It's not fair that that man had a heart attack. She was too young to succumb to cancer. The NICU...look at the NICU! Where's the justice in that?!?
When bodies fail to do things they are supposed to do, insurance is supposed to have your back, right? I mean, at least sort of. A serious medical issue could financially ruin any one of us. (Wah, waah).
I know now why I was putting off that phone call to the insurance company for so long. I was expecting, but afraid of the answer. I know that there are options between here and the completely exhaust-your-savings options. But, darn it anyway! Errr!
We were insanely lucky that my husband's company at the time was based in another state that has mandates on infertility coverage. If we hadn't been so lucky, I think we would have started saving every spare penny in the beginning "just in case"-- I mean you could always use it to buy nursery furniture when you get pregnant via all those helpful suggestions like not trying/using pillows/eating this but not that!
ReplyDeleteUgh. Yes. We have really fantastic insurance, but we pay quite a bit for it. And neither one of us goes to the doctor, except for our annual physical (which is free). So shouldn't we have some grace or karma or something stored up? We've been paying into this coverage for years, not taking anything out except our physicals? I feel like they should help us out a little!
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