Big day here at the Kablooey house — I finally sort of have health insurance. I’m still not able to get my prescription medication and don’t really know why, but I’m self-medicating with carbs and Diet Dr Pepper. So that’s a solution, right?
I even got a call tonight from some NY State of Health minion who wanted to know if my issues had been resolved. I asked him to be more specific, because “issues” is kind of a broad category and I didn’t want him thinking I was across-the-board wonderful. (Can’t have people thinking that. Note to self: you really should use that new mental health coverage.)
I asked how he knew I was having insurance problems. Was it the Department of Health complaint, the multiple incomplete applications clogging my file, the myriad supervisors who said they were looking into the problem, the Facebook comments I left? What?
He had no idea. I was on some “follow up with these people who keep calling” list, so he called. I said I had moved from limbo into the realm of the theoretically insured. He seemed pleased and excused himself to get back to his list.
Mind you, I still don’t have authorization for the MRIs I’m supposed to have next week, but since I now had a temporary ID card for my theoretical insurance, I called Sloane Kettering up and tried to get the go-ahead. It didn’t go well.
They didn’t think my fancy new Platinum insurance was one they accepted. I mentioned that I’d chosen the plan because it was listed on their website AND I’d made a call to them to double-check before picking it, but they said they’d have to get back to me.
Patience and Dr Pepper are my only weapons at this point, but I’m not giving up. I just hope I don’t get hit by a bus in the forseeable future. Or anytime, really, but especially not before my insurance kicks in.
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I need this resolved. I’ve had the insurer’s rep speaking on a phone in my left hand while the marketplace rep was on the phone in my right hand. Left hand says they have no record of me and right says I have coverage as of the 1st. Well, no, I don’t. This is insane and I need help NOW.
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Since December 7th, I’ve spent more than 24 hours on hold and speaking to customer service people, supervisors, attending a consultation center, filing a DOH complaint on 1/7 about which I’ve heard nothing, been disconnected a few times after being on hold for over an hour, etc. I’ve been told conflicting information. I have also spoken to many seemingly well-informed, helpful individuals who have promised to get me a resolution in 24-48 hours, but I still have no insurance despite having been repeatedly assured that I was covered as of 1/1/14. My chosen insurer has no record of me because I do not have a member ID# because I either missed hitting a button or the field which allowed me to do so had a message I could not see. (I’ve heard a few different theories.)
The Marketplace
people say there is no record kept of that number, yet it is the one thing the insurance company says they need. Apparently, the ONLY time this ID number is available is after submitting the completed form.
My go arounds with the insurance company are a whole other story. Bottom line is I have no insurance and need medicine. And an MRI.
Recap: At last report, I was slowly dying (aren’t we all?) while waiting for a marketplace minion to sell me some health insurance. Or not sell me some, exactly, but unfreeze my application so I could pick an insurance plan. I use my cell phone for work, so I’d made the call on the wireless house phone. I put it on speaker, then walked around with the phone sticking out of my pocket for hours, because I couldn’t chance them picking up while I was doing something unimportant like getting on with my life.
You know how in old melodramas, they cut to clock with its hands whipping around the dial, to indicate the passage of time? That was me on hold. And to picture how much time I wasted this month trying and failing to get health insurance, substitute that other stock image of pages flying off a day at a glance calendar. Or maybe visualize me, frozen, holding a phone, while family members zipped around me, having fun, occasionally checking to make sure I was still breathing.
How did the story end? On my third application, I figured out a way to answer the questions that pleased the minions, and the completed form got through. I got to pick an insurance plan. The company I chose has no record of my existence, so unless they get the information from the state soon, I’ll still be in insurance limbo for 2014. But I did manage to finish an application, so that’s something, I guess.
But there are two uninsured unhappy versions of myself floating around in computer limbo, and if this were a horror film, they’d somehow come to life as zombie miscreants bent on taking down the government and eating the brains of the insured.
That would suck.
