Here’s a comment from Grandma Dix,
Yes, Lori, you must take it very, very easy or your Mamas will just fly back there and look after you. We can take shifts so that we can monitor every move you make. Now I really don’t think your husband would care for all the mothers-in-law in the house at the same time. We love you and are concerned as only mothers can be. Mama D
Now no need to over react here. The misses is taking it easy. Not that we wouldn’t love any of you to come and visit but more than one at a time might be a bit too much!
Yesterday the misses went to her doctor where they scheduled her for a procedure today at noon. Looks like she’ll be fine. The big story of the day is the medical insurance system and Obama Care. Now see if you can follow this, it should shock and upset you as it did us.
The doctor’s office informed us yesterday that the emergency surgery could cost us about $20,000! After freaking out for a few minutes, we tried to figure out how this could be. This is so for a couple of reasons. First off, the initial surgery was elective and this was a result of that so the challenge is to prove that the emergency procedure was in fact an “emergency”. Thankfully our doctor’s office and the great office manager there sat down with the misses to try to figure out how to bill things to minimize our costs as much as possible. Our options were to turn it into insurance and worst case, be stuck with a $20,000 bill if they covered nothing. Â If they somehow deemed it was covered, our share would be about $6,000, still a shocker on top of what we’ve already spent. The third option and kind of a gamble was to negotiate like the insurance companies do directly with the doctors. It turns out that even if the insurance company bills us $20,000, they would negotiate the bill down to about 15% of that with the doctors and hospital to around $3000. This means the insurance company would make a whopping $17,000 profit! So Diane the office manager called each doctor and the hospital on our behalf and offered to pay the reduced amount directly to them, right away on the phone, avoiding the insurance company all together. The catch was, I had to pay this yesterday! In fact the way it went down was I received a call from the misses while she was still at the office who put Diane on the phone. She explained the situation and I asked if I could wait one week for my American Express card to roll over giving me another month to pay but she said by then things would be turned into insurance and in the system and then too late. So, reluctantly, I whipped out my card and gave her the number over the phone. Now I don’t even want to tell you what my Amex balance is that’ll be due next month but let’s just say it’s in the five figure range. I have no idea how I’ll pay this but the alternative of paying $6000 to $20,000 was a gamble I couldn’t take.
The main point to take away from all of this is that it’s not the doctors getting rich here. In fact there is a shortage of doctors nationwide as under the new Obama Care rules, this is how it works and they just don’t think it’s worth it anymore to practice. The medical malpractice insurance they must also carry is astronomical but that’s a whole other discussion. So to recap, the bill was going to be $20,000 with the doctors and hospital getting $3000. This is exactly why some peoples lives are ruined by a medical emergency. We were fortunate enough to have a person who tried to help us and doctors who would rather get paid the reduced money now than wait for the money to cycle through the insurance company. So the anesthesiologist, the hospital and the surgeon all charged my little gold card yesterday. Today’s procedure we believe is covered by insurance, at least all but our share. You see even after meeting our $6000 family deductible, we owe 30% of any bill! On top of that we’re still sitting on a few thousand dollars worth of bills from me going in last April. And this is what you get for $1200 a month in premiums, about $15,000 in our share of medical bills over the last 120 days, WOW! Â This is all due to insurance companies raising their costs due to Obama Care forcing them to cover the “uninsured” who cannot afford medical insurance. But the catch is even if they don’t have insurance and are supposedly “covered” they’re going to get some kind of bill anyhow. So everyone supposedly has insurance but the insurance doesn’t cover all the costs. The companies just doubled or tripled their costs so what they actually bill patients is still as much or more than they were getting before, get it? They’re not stupid, if their costs go up, they raise our costs. Thanks much O! Maybe we should all get the free medical care all members of Congress get!
Alright now to our little corner of the World. Lorenzo and I headed to Boulder and were back by 1. An hour or so later I ran him to the airport with the oldest riding along with me. Today I’m back in Boulder for a few meetings this afternoon but should be home by 5. Uncle T has graciously agreed to take the boys today so the misses can go to the doctors while I’m at work. Thanks.
The boys are back in school mode doing workbooks each morning and reading at night. I’m clipping coupons in the paper and waiting until tomorrow so I can use my Kohls Bucks (a store coupon I got when shopping for the oldest) that’s good starting tomorrow for the youngest. It’s worth $30 and I found a 15% coupon “off everything” in the paper this morning. So for you math whizzes, this means a $200 bill will now be $140, nothing to shake a stick at!
and oh yea, our dishwasher broke!
Time to run, don’t get sick and stay out of the hospital, God Bless.