mobile The bills and the insurance statements have started to roll in. Well, the ones on me have been rolling in for some time now and I think they’re starting to come to a stop. The ones for K are just getting started.

All I can say is: thank God we have good insurance!

The total base costs for me? This would include anything related to the pregnancy, so we’re talking the first doctor, the second set of doctors (4 of them), many ultrasounds, lab work, emergency room visit, first hospital stay (1 night), second hospital stay (20 nights), medications, all the various things they charge you for, and anesthetic that I didn’t get that took 30 minutes to prepare for.

Wait, I forgot, the insurance hasn’t yet sent us papers on the hospital stay of 20 nights or anything related to it. So the working total of everything but that so far is $21,219.30. And if one night’s stay at the hospital was $3069.21, we can expect 20 nights to be at least another $61,384.20 when you consider I had more medications, including the steroid shots, saw more doctors, etc.

It’s absolutely unreal and, yes, because “we have no bonanza,” I’m very glad we have awesome insurance through S’s union. They pay 90% of everything and we pay 10% until we hit $500 then we’re done! That’s on me. The same thing on K, too. And not only will $1,000 do good for both of us, but E could go out and bust himself up with his antics and he’d be free, too. This just doesn’t include any out-patient prescriptions (so still have to pay our part for my allergy medication) or someone out of network (no one has been so far). Not that I want E to go bust himself up, but knowing that kid he’s likely to do it at any point in time. Not to mention, if enough stuff has gone through the insurance by this time for K, then E’s tests will be free (we’re going to have him tested for the Vesicoureteral Reflux, too, just to be sure since it runs in families). Not that S doesn’t pay for it, of course, it’s part of his wage package.

So, anyway, stuff for me has started to roll in saying “patient responsibility: $0.00″ which is totally awesome. I’ve also learned some interesting things about insurance and hospital charges and what not.

For example, they charge you for every little thing. It’s ridiculous, really. Ok, K’s still got the feeding tube, right? Well, there’s two parts to it. The first goes down in her stomach and at the end outside of her body it has a little cap that you can close. It’s rather short in length and it’s changed once a week. Then there’s another tube that she gets that connects to that one then to the large syringe that goes onto the machine that squeezes the milk out at the rate the nurses specify. That second, longer tube is changed on either a single or bi-feeding basis. It depends on how much she is getting because sometimes they can fit two feedings into one syringe. Of course, she just went up on her feedings so I don’t think they can get more than one in there anymore. But anyway, that second tube? They charge you for each one individually. There’s a little yellow sticker that the nurses pull off of the package and they stick it on a piece of paper that has places for these stickers. It’s a daily charge sheet. And each sticker has a bar code on it. Each day she gets a new paper. You see where this is going? I’d love to see an itemized charge for her stay, there will be anywhere from 6 to 12 of those little tubes on there each day. I can’t figure they cost very much but think about all the things they use on her!

The hospital bill from my one night in February was itemized. They tested me for crud I didn’t know they were testing me for, such as gonorrhea (which I don’t have, big surprise). Looking at the symptoms online, I can see why they tested for it, but funny no one said anything about it. That test cost $138. They charged $1.60 for a single prenatal vitamin. Funny, considering I can get 100 of the same thing for about $8 or 8 cents a piece. They charged $12 for these stupid maxi pads they made me wear and $11 for a 2 pack of those really annoying mesh underwear things. Yeah, ladies, you know what I’m talking about! Those pads aren’t even comfortable or good quality and most got thrown away unused, yet they always make you use them.

Give me a break, it’s amusing to me. Though I know I wouldn’t be finding these charges funny if I was actually having to write out a check to pay for them!

Also interesting is something the financial lady in the doctor’s office said to me. She was showing me the charge from the day K was born and said something to the effect that the insurance company tells them what they can charge and then pays it. So that’s why I’m seeing a charge for, say, $637 total for doctor B to consult with me one day in the hospital and then it says discount $399.28 and net payment $213.95 and coinsurance applied $23.77. Coinsurance was what we had to pay for that particular day since we hadn’t reached our cap yet, net payment was what the insurance paid, and then discount was what the doctors’ office wrote off because they found out they weren’t going to get it anyway. At least that’s how I understood it.

However, when that same lady asked me who did my delivery, she was NOT amused when I laughed and said, “no one, but Dr. B was running down the hall.” She probably thought I was going to ask for a discount or something. That one totally bombed. Nope, they wanted $2,285 for that but only got $1,015.45 from the insurance (and nothing from us).

The insurance also had to pay $430 to the anesthesiologists for that stupid epidural. If I had to pay anything on that I think I’d dispute the charges after what they put me through. Three tries and then no medication while the second anesthesiologist is trying to get out of the door in a hurry is NOT acceptable. But, whatever!

And, finally, some people are just idiots!
We got a bill some time ago from a pathology company and, this one really confused me at first, because it stated I’d seen a Dr. M in the hospital in February (when my water first broke) and the first day of my 3 week stay and I know for a fact I hadn’t seen him. They were actually billing us for 2-12, 2-13, and 3-23. It was the first bill we’d gotten from them at all and I knew I hadn’t gotten an insurance statement telling me we were going to owe this $367. And to make it all the more interesting, they were saying that we were 30 days overdue on $146 of it. The $146 was applied to only part of 2-12 but then the rest of it, $221, from 2-12, 2-13, and 3-23 was “current.” So, of course, I’m going “what the heck?” I called our insurance company and, sure enough, they had received nothing from this company. So they told me to call them and tell them not to bill me, but to send it through to the insurance company. I called them around 11:30am on a Friday but they were closed so I left a very detailed message. To date, 7 weeks later, no one has called me back and they still haven’t billed the insurance. Yet, they’ve sent through other new charges from 4-10! I guess they don’t want their $367! Because heck if I’m paying it.

They’re not the only ones to do that, either, it seems. Sort of, anyway. K has, as of today, received her first bill, from 3 visits with the eye doctor. They also billed us directly but put in the description that our insurance reported back that K is not covered with them. I would have had another “what the heck?” moment if it hadn’t been for the fact that over the last several weeks, the pediatrician’s office has been calling and saying they’re having problems with our insurance company, too. The insurance company was reporting back to us, however, that K is indeed covered, and have them call them. So I gave the pediatrician’s office the number and emailed them a copy of the insurance card. It’s been a week now since I heard from them, I hope it’s ok. But so I had to call these people today and leave them a message that she IS covered, you need to call the insurance company. Of course, now that I think about this, since he’s an eye doctor, it might be another ball game. We do have eye insurance but it might not be included with the rest. Oh, well.

So there you have it. If you wondered why I’m so scatterbrained lately, there is one reason!

And, blah, blah, blah. It was either waste some time writing about something incredibly boring or go clean out my closet. What would you have picked? :P