That’s my go to complaint. It really should not be this hard. But it is.
Health insurance. Didn’t want to fess up but I’ve been without it this past month. Long story short, the assistance I was counting on per making my selection did not come through (not responding to emails is such an easy way to blow someone off) and when I showed up at the office in person instead (an hour drive, each way) I learned that A. I had missed a deadline and B. I needed to go back home and get on the phone with the folks at the Mass Health Connector anyway.
So….I cancelled my appointments for September and before I left the hospital, stopped by to see my clinical trial nurse. I should always talk to a nurse when I have an issue—no one is more empathetic, more pragmatic or less likely to take shit or no for an answer than a nurse. I then made arrangements with Alice to contact the sponsor to see if I could get drug even though I was not coming in for my labwork/echocardiogram.
Arrangements were made to have my drug mailed to me (not quite without a hitch–they forgot and it had to be overnighted) and I figured out (on my own) which policy would work best for the remaining three months of this calendar year–a higher premium, no deductible plan. As my income is 360.70% of poverty (yes) I qualified for a tax credit which brought my premium down by $127.00 a month.
I feel better when there’s something in my checking account, so I waited until last Friday, three days prior to the deadline, to choose my plan. Because the 23rd (the deadline you have to pay your premium by in order to get health insurance for the following month) was on a Sunday, I needed to get my online payment in by that afternoon. When I attempted to log onto my account, the system did not recognize me. I called back, and was offered two options—drive an hour to Boston to make a payment in person or wait another three hours at which time I was assured my account would be active. I gambled on the latter. Three hours later I still did not register and I placed another phone call to the Health Connector. This time I was again assured (and by now I was in tears) that even though it wasn’t working now, my account should be online by the next day, Saturday.
‘I don’t think you understand’ I explained to the woman on the other end of the line. ‘I am a cancer patient, I already had to cancel my appointments this month, because I had Cobra if I don’t get insurance by the end of this month I can’t get it until January, and if I don’t have insurance for next month, I will have to cancel my appointments again in October and will likely be kicked out of the clinical trial I am enrolled in. I need to know that this is going to work.’
I had a good cry after hanging up and a giant pit in my stomach. And, just as I’d feared, I was never able to access my account.
So I called first thing this morning only to learn that their entire online system was down and that I would need to call back later. I did, two more times. By this afternoon it was finally up and running and I spent an hour on the phone with a very sweet and patient representative. By the end of our phone call I was talking to someone else–an account specialist–as it had been determined that there was a technical error on their end–my billing account had never been activated.
I was given a case number, as this would now have to go into resolution. And I was now informed that I could have health insurance for October but only if I paid for November as well, even though the mistake was theirs. The reason being that the system would not recognize my retroactive payment as an active subscriber as we were past the billing period unless I paid for the next month as well.
Sigh.
The dollar amount for two months of premiums exceeds the amount I currently have in my checking account by several hundred dollars. As in, not doable. I have been told that my case will take several days to resolve. I have to hope that by then my alimony check will have arrived so that I can make the payment.
Caseworker y’all. It would be so great if I could worry about staying healthy and somebody else could help me with this other crap–all of which is a cumulative side effect of years of living with cancer as well as clinical trial participation. Cognitive, financial, emotional toll; unrelenting stress. The wear and tear of dealing with an advanced cancer for almost one quarter of my life.
It’s hard, really flipping hard. And until there are more supportive services in place, it’s not going to get any easier. As in, bucket list, my ass. I’m just trying to get by here.
life and breath: outliving lung cancer 