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

I guess what is amusing is the break down. They are charged $325 for two of my teeth as “partial bony impaction” (I guess the lower ones) then $195 for the other two as “surgical extraction,” $325 for 30 minutes of anesthetic, $95 for the x-rays, and $45 for the exam. Yeah, $45 for him to look in there and go, “yup, let’s take the teeth out!”

Well, I don’t know why it’s amusing… but it sure is great to only have to pay $124, especially when I was expecting $1200!

So this morning, as Steve was leaving for work, I was going through it a bit and I picked up one of those pieces of mail that’s got the perforations on three sides. You know what I’m talking about? You’re supposed to remove the sides and then the bottom. It was partially open, the bottom was removed, but the sides still there. That right there isn’t typical of me, as I always take off the sides first, so I can only assume someone else opened it then left it on the table.

Removing the sides I was surprised to open it up and find a check for $439.98!!

It was from someone called Carpenter Disbursement Administrator and it’s addressed to only Steve. That would have been one reason I wouldn’t have opened it, I would have probably assumed it had something to do with his union, since they’re always at odds with the Carpenter’s union! But apparently it has nothing to do with carpentry. There is an attached note that says this payment is part of a class action lawsuit entitled Carpenter v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. as ordered by the Circuit Court of the State of Missouri.

Not only do neither Steve nor I remember getting this in the mail or looking at it, but what’s funny (to me) is that we’ve not had a loan with Countrywide since something like early 2002 when we refinanced and went with another company with better rates. We only had a loan with them for about 2 years when we first bought the house. The only thing I remember is recently getting an ad from the old mortgage company that we haven’t dealt with in so long, trying to get us to go back with them. So when this new thing says we previously received notice of this… I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.

Well, $439.98 is $439.98 and it will be a great addition to our savings account, right at about how I took out to spend on my dress and Elijah’s tux and everything for my sister’s wedding last month! So that is pretty dang cool. It’s amazing how He works it all out.

So, yesterday I was blabbering on about how we got the home equity loan, right? Well, it reminded me of something that I found to be funny.

It actually took us about a month to officially get the loan. I started out shopping for somewhere to go and talking to people in October. I applied with several places online including lendingtree.com and got three offers from that. Well, I think we actually got four but one of the responses was, “uh, we have had technical difficulties and your info never made it into our computers, because we’re completely inept, please call our offices…” Yeah, like that’s going to happen. Denied!

I also applied at ditech.com and was told, get this, that the amount we wanted to borrow was too small. Apparently you have to borrow at least $25k from them. (And there you have it, our debt is, indeed, lower than $25k!) The guy called when I didn’t respond to that (I was laughing too hard) and tried to talk me into combining our house and the loan. Of course, we’d already decided we weren’t going to do that. I also laughed at one company that told us the interest rate was higher for a 10 year loan, didn’t we want a 20 year loan?

So there were two other companies that I looked at very closely at until I applied with our own bank. I was VERY surprised to find out they had the lowest interest rate and they’re the one we ended up going with.

So, my point. There’s a company called The Mortgage Store based in St. Louis that I hear on the radio ALL. THE. TIME. The DJs on my favorite station swear by this place, that they have the best rates, service, etc. So I applied online with them. Then I forgot about them until a few days after we signed with our bank when I got something in the mail from them.

They were denying us a loan a month after I applied on the basis that our credit scores were too low!

I sat there and laughed and laughed and laughed. Granted, our credit did drop a bit while we were on the debt management program, but our scores are still by no means low. I’d take a guess and say that our scores are still on the above average side. Not to mention, everyone else we applied with accepted us right away. So, what’s the deal?

I guess they’re just that disorganized. It took them a month, a month! to even acknowledge our application.

So I thought that was funny, very unprofessional. If you remember me complaining in July about another loan company not being confidential with my email address and sending me forwards, I apparently forgave them and even applied there again and even they handled things way better this time. They were our third choice, and for the record, that was Vinson Mortgage Group. Either way, I won’t be looking at The Mortgage Store for anything now, if nothing else, they’re too slow! :P

We were on the CareOne program for a year and five months. During that time, our minimum payments were less than what they would have been if we’d just kept paying the cards on our own. I don’t want to be specific about a lot of the numbers, so I hope this is still understandable. We had two cards, one was very large and the other was around $1000 when we started with the program. If you kept up with the comments at the older post, you’ll know that we had a somewhat rocky start getting going with CareOne. But once that was through, they were deducting a monthly payment on the 15th and sending some to each creditor, putting $5 into some “discount” program, and keeping something like $30-35 a month for their doing the service.

In the beginning I didn’t know what the $5 thing was for but when I figured it out, I canceled it as it’s not mandatory, and then put that $5 towards the big card, so we were paying the same but it was slightly more effective. During these 17 months, the smaller card only went down to the $700-range and the other one went down a couple of thousand. The interest on the smaller card would be assigned each month, something like $13 and then they’d credit us back half of that. I have no idea why they were doing it that way. The other card was charging us something like 8.00% interest instead of the 14.99% before getting on the program. Not the best, but better, but the interest was still adding to the debt all the time.

Despite our payments being lower than what they would have been, the automatic payments were always killing us. It just came at the wrong time of the month, for one and it didn’t matter if it was the middle of the week and I’d already paid bills the previous weekend or whatever. If there wasn’t enough money in our account the bank would deposit $200-400 into our account from a reserve line. Only… this reserve line didn’t come from existing money, it was just like another credit card. So by the end of those 17 months, we had built up almost $5000 on that! This would also happen – and still can happen – because the way banks handle deposits and “business hours” and all that jazz. He deposits his check after the end of the business day after he gets off work but it will take it all weekend and sometimes until the end of Tuesday to “clear.” It’s ridiculous. So they hold that money in there and even though we have the money, they say we don’t have it! It’s “pending.” So then we hit a pretend $0 and they deposit money in there. However, NOW, we have had our first-ever savings account for a year that we deposit to weekly so if that happens, I have money to immediately pay it back and keep that reserve line from building back up. But at this time, all the payments that we had were killing us.

So we finally did what I’d wanted to do in the first place: got a home equity loan. Actually, I’d wanted to just refinance the house and include that debt (for one payment for everything) or do a loan but he never would go for it. In my mind, it’s the logical step but he wasn’t able to wrap his head around it.

I know it sounds unreal, paying off debt with a loan, but, for one, the interest is lower, the payments are lower, that all helps right there, not to mention that we are no longer paying $30-35 a month directly to CareOne for keeping us in the program. We can afford these payments and we pay extra on the principle. Granted, the CareOne program claimed we could pay all that stuff in 5 years but we kept hitting that reserve so we were pretty much going no place fast. Now, in ten years, the house will be paid off (if we stay here that long) and that’s the maximum this loan would carry out if we pay minimum.

So in November, we finally signed with our bank for a loan to cover all three of those aspects: the two cards and that reserve account. We signed on the day after our CareOne payment went but the bank didn’t have us pay for 30 days, so it worked out and we ended up with small credits on both of the cards which I had to get them to cut back to me. That was actually sort of interesting. Apparently, even if the account is closed (which they have been since we were on the program if not before) and you have a credit, those nasty credit card companies will not automatically refund you what is yours without you actively calling in and telling them to do it. So I had to call them both and say, “hey, I want my money, you jerks!” Also, one of the cards, the big one, continues to send us statements for $0 and 0 activity and I still have an online login despite my telling them to cut it out. They can’t seem to understand that the account is closed and I want nothing more to do with them.

So, our loan. The payment for that is automatic, but it’s only about 54% of what we were paying before. So we can handle it, and then, like I mentioned before, we pay more on the principle each month. We’ve only paid three months now, December, January, and February. We did really good in January and paid a good amount more on principle than our minimum payment. The thing to watch out for is that now that I paid extra in February, it’s telling me we have no payment due until April. Apparently what happened was it took the auto payment and then three days later I payed extra on principle and then another, what I thought was a minimum payment. So it’s taking that as being our March payment already so I’ll need to make sure I remember to pay it instead of relying on an auto payment that’s not going to happen. The only thing I regret though, is that while I can set up an auto deduct from our checking into our savings (and that’s how we do it), the bank’s website won’t let me set up a schedule to pay extra on the loan. But I’ve been remembering well so far.

The key is to pay more on principle. When you pay extra on your loans (we do this on our house loan, too) even if it’s just an extra $10 a month, make sure that you designate it to pay on principle. Otherwise, if they have no policy that anything extra applies to principle, there’s a chance you’re just paying more on interest. The way I understand it, you pay a little principle and a lot of interest in the early days of a loan, by paying minimum payments. So by designating to principle, especially early on, you’re lowering the amount that interest is calculated by.

We had no fees for signing the loan, nothing added in there, just that little bit of credit I got back from the credit cards. (We didn’t know what the new total was going to be after the last CareOne payments were made because of the interest that would be assessed, therefore we paid more.) I think I bought a tank of gas with our refunds, heh. The only fee we could ever incur on this loan is an early pay-off fee. If we pay it off before the 3 year mark, we have to pay something like $250. I don’t see that happening myself, but if nothing else, if we think we’re getting close, we can just start paying only minimum until December 2010.

Oh, and since this is a home equity loan, if we sell the house, the loan has to be paid off. Actually, that was my original desire – sell the house, pay the debt, too, move. Heh. And with what we owe on the house and the debt and what the house is worth (and how its value is going up all the time with inflation and the work we’re doing to it, no matter how small), we should easily be able to pay both of those. I don’t know how much of a down payment we’d have for something else, but we’d have something.

So that’s the deal there.

I’m sure there are lots of people that have been helped with debt management programs but we just apparently weren’t destined to be some of those people. Granted, I guess it did help for a while there, but it seemed to me we were just going nowhere with it and that this is the MUCH better solution for us. If I had it to do over, there are lots of little things here and there I think we could have done differently to avoid getting into this situation in the first place. However, some of the things that helped start the snowball effect with the credit cards were unavoidable, things such as our not having dental insurance and Steve needing some emergency dental work, etc.

Not sure where life will take us in the future, but how nice it will be when we’ve gotten rid of the debt!

Addendum: I also forgot to mention that while we were on the debt management program, our credit scores were dropping a bit here and there. Obviously not enough to deny us loans or anything like that and I still think that they’re above average – we both had very good credit to start out. But it happened and I can’t imagine what it might have done to our credit if we’d stayed in the program until complete pay-off. I think that’s one of those things they don’t tell you when you get started in those programs.

Today we got a decent amount done.

First was his Bible story which really enjoys. We’re just working through a cute little book called The Praise Bible and it’s all full-page color illustrations and the stories are written very simply and easy to read and understand and it’s stories that he can handle and understand, too.  (For instance, it doesn’t have Cain and Able in it.)  We did the second half of the story of Joseph today and I am amazed at all that he retains. He keeps wanting to see Adam and Eve “being naughty” ie, staring in disbelief at the core of an apple they’ve eaten. The illustrations are kind of funny, too, the people look kind of strange, haha.

After that we did some “homework pages.” These are from the preschool book I bought some time ago that is supposedly “everything for early learning” (though this company also makes up through something like 6th grade). I’ve skipped a lot of this book due to it being too easy for Elijah, things like colors and basics about shapes. Today we did big and small and I think it was too easy for him, too. He had to circle the things that were the biggest on one page and the small ones on the other page. But I guess right now the important thing is really to make sure he knows this stuff and to make him actually sit down and be still for a while.

After that we did some math. Yesterday I found a paper in the Jeep that apparently goes to this little bank he brought home from Mission Friends and he’s supposed to put money in the bank then give it back for donation. Of course we don’t have to, but this is a good opportunity for us not only to do some math (something he’s not wanted to do much of in the past) and for him to learn about helping people. So we sat on the floor and dumped some money out of Daddy’s change jug (haha) and we counted pennies and talked about nickels and dimes. I took the quarters out for now to avoid information overload. His favorite number is 11, so we talked about the ways to get 11 cents from those three types of coins. Then we counted how many of each coin went into the bank and it was funny how that worked out: 50 pennies, 5 nickels, and 15 dimes. So we counted by ones, fives, and tens. And if he’s good, he’ll earn some more money for his bank. He was pretty excited and he asked if he could put it under the Christmas tree.

For arts and crafts, we just put a photo in a little plastic frame he likes and he says it’s for Granny in Mississippi and he wrapped it in Spongebob Christmas paper and put it under the tree. I’ve realized that I really need to get him some kid friendly scissors. I did the cutting with my huge titanium shears, haha, but he needs some kid scissors for lefties. Add that to my list.

So this was our day as far as school so far. Now he’s in bed supposed to be taking a nap. We will do some more reading later and maybe his find book (which is really cool, it’s The Usborne Big Book of Things to Spot).

I think that as long as I stay with the hands-on method, he not only pays attention the most but learns the best.

I still have plans to get the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and a science curriculum for little ones that looks really good.