I had a nice little edition planned for today. Today’s events have driven it from my head. That is not a good thing. Drama is only good when it happens to fictional people.
My alarm woke me up as usual at 8:30. Between midnight and then my phone is on Do Not Disturb. I saw that I got a call at 8:23. I figured it was from the nurse at my ophthalmologist giving me the time for my surgery on Monday. It was from the ophthalmologist but that wasn’t the message. It was that my insurance had been canceled! This is my nightmare. It is what happened last time I planned on having cataract surgery. I had a warning. Jane, who I stayed with on City Island was in town. She found mail for me. One was from Medicaid and dated December 28. It said that I hadn’t been recertified because I had not returned some paperwork. Why? Because I never got it because I moved and didn’t have my mail forwarded. I won’t say that this is because I’m an idiot, because this is directly related to my anxiety issues. I did start forwarding a month ago when I found that I had other mail delivered to Jane’s. This is older, I don’t know why I didn’t get it then.
I was not that worried as I kept getting insurance clearances for all my procedures. If it had been canceled in December I would not have been able to get my first eye operated on. My plan was to take it with me to therapy today and deal with it there. As this is at the heart of my anxiety I wanted her help. Plus she helps me to read the fine print. I still don’t have proper reading glasses.
But then I got that phone call. The women in the ophthalmologist’s said that Health First, the insurance company that handles my case for Medicaid, said it was canceled as of yesterday. I called my therapist and left a message. I fought the urge to curl up and not move and called Allison. She dropped what she was doing and came over here to help me. My therapists have all agreed that I have the most supportive friends. My therapists are right. For all my many faults I must be doing something right. More importantly, I am damn lucky.
Allison couldn’t get parking here so we picked up my paperwork and went out someplace we can talk and I could eat. It was before my usual breakfast time. We ended up on Arthur Ave as Allison is an expert on all things Italian, and knows the area. While I ate breakfast and worked to just hold it together Allison called Medicaid for me. She dealt with them and fortunately the people there were useful. They are used to these kinds of things happening. In the meantime my therapist called me. I told her what was going on, canceled today’s session, and she assured me that she’s had many patients go through this and it’s not a problem. It would work out.
Looking through the letter and talking to Medicaid we found out that my coverage ended two months after the letter was dated. In other words, yesterday. I got the letter the first day I couldn’t have everything taken care of immediately. Medicaid said that even though I needed to be recertified that Health First should cover what I need through April 30, so I should have still be covered.
I called by the ophthalmologist and told Debbie, the understanding woman who had called me, that I should still be covered. She called Health First and they said, “no.” Allison called back Medicaid. They said I had to call Health First. Neither one of us is exactly clear what happened but apparently I’m covered for two months at a time by Health First and the problem is the rollover from one period to the next. They were going to call my ophthalmologist when the approval went through. The problem was that was going to be too late for them to hold my appointment. I’m insured but my surgery was put back two weeks.
Without Allison I’d probably have not moved since I got the call in the morning. It’s good to have good friends. We celebrated by going to Artuso’s a famous Italian bakery. I had a chocolate mousse puff. Allison worked, she had a cannola. Why is that work? She does Italian food tours called cannoli crawls. This was research.
Now I’m back home. That was my day. You’ll have to live without yesterday’s idiot stories and maybe something on Donald Trump. I’m still dealing with today’s adventures. At least things turned out OK and I had a great dessert. I also got to spend time with one of my favorite people. Next time let’s do the time together and eating when disaster isn’t looming.
I don’t think I had plans for tonight. I’m going to stay home and recover emotionally. I’m disappointed the surgery was moved back but in the scheme of things that’s nothing.
Wise Madness 