Wait, there's a monkey...

...I stand corrected.  In the "About Me" section of this blog I used to say "Uninsured" but no more, as evidenced by my insurance card pictured above.  We are still waiting for Marcy's insurance card but she does have her monthly Medicaid card with no spend-down.  I actually had to schedule a state hearing against Hamilton County Job & Family Services (well, their call center agent practically dared me to do it) to get the answers we wanted.  After I had the state hearing scheduled, Mr. K of HCJ&FS (but based at University Hospital, how about that?) called and said "Why'd you have to go and do that?  You got your approval and I did you a favor by backdating coverage to Marcy's hospital stay last October."  I said "I received the first approval letter back in April and after I selected her insurance carrier, somebody cancelled it and nobody will explain why, including the Section Chief Ms. C.G.  who was supposed to call within 48 hours but failed to do so.  Maybe I'll get my answers in the state hearing.  If I get Marcy's insurance card, I'll cancel the hearing."  Besides, Marcy and I have both been paying taxes since we were teenagers and neither of us expects our social services to be based on "favors", but upon need and following the rules.  Well, I got a follow-up call from Mrs. Cottrell of HCJ&FS (also based at University Hospital).  Mr. K must have asked her to talk me down to get him off the hook for the hearing.  At first it seemed that she wanted to brush me off with a short call but I was calmly insistent ("you DO want to listen to me and sort this out and give me some answers, RIGHT?") so she spent about 45 minutes on the phone with me, about half of that time spent by her retracing the story in the computer system.

Yeah, what a tangled web we weave.  Mrs. C told me a lot of technical details and rules about income levels and time periods and stays in hospital vs. nursing home vs. home that a case worker would use to make coverage decisions and I have to take her word for that.  But here is my viewpoint:  After we closed our business at the end of July 2009 I had to watch Marcy's health spiral downward because she refused to seek medical care that we could not pay for.  I applied to HCJ&FS for assistance.  Shortly after that she collapsed and had to be taken to University Hospital for a week in intensive care.  I visited the financial assistance office there and they insisted on filing an additional application for assistance with HCJ&FS, knowing that I had already done so, claiming thay had some kind of inside track on getting us help.  Marcy was then transferred to Veranda Gardens nursing home to build her strength and continue treatment for an infection she got in the hospital.  Veranda Gardens financial office also insisted that the had some kind of inside track on getting us help and filed a THIRD application to HCJ&FS, knowing that I had already done so, as well as the hospital's action.  Mrs. C commented that ideally these 3 cases all should have been assigned to just one case worker, but they were not.  Apparently, the applications filed by University Hospital and Veranda Gardens were both approved and those two institutions were taken care of, and to my limited understanding we were never informed until now.  I thought the case workers and the system were working on OUR behalf, silly me.  We filed bankruptcy thinking we owed over $100,000 in medical bills.  It may not have been necessary.  Mrs. C said "These decisions do take some time.  Maybe you can go back to your lawyer and have the bankruptcy court do it over."  I guess I could run it by him but I have zero expectation of success.  I did thank Mrs. C profusely for listening to me and for digging into the case history as she did.  She has a few loose ends she said she is going to look into and follow up with me, and she suggested that I contact the Medicaid-related insurance carrier to verify Marcy's enrollment.  I did that very thing and expect delivery of her insurance card this week.  I called and cancelled the state hearing but I expect to speak with Mrs. C again.  I still don't understand why we got a letter back in April telling us to pick an insurance carrier and then after we di it, coverage was denied.  But our schedule is now filling up with doctor visits, mammograms, colonoscopies, dental exams, eye exams, dermatologist referrals, all the things that us over-50 people have to take care of.