My Insurance BITES!

So after being ignored for a week by my "elder," I tried the switchboard to see if I could find somebody who could help me figure out the hoops I needed to jump through to get them to pay for my midwife.

The whole reason we've stuck with this group for this long is because they cover home birth. Except they no longer do. Because now we are a PPO. And the "in plan" providers don't do home birth. Even though this group has advocated home birth for years as a safer alternative.

So they made the exception for child number three (they weren't a PPO yet at two) and I wanted to talk to someone who could do it for me again. Except the woman who answered the phone and acted really helpful had to go to a "meeting" and transferred me to medusa-the-evil.

"So you are telling me there are no exceptions even though it will save you $4000.00?" (It really will be closer to five, but I was trying to subtract fast). She put me on hold and when she came back (even more evil) told me that if I got a certified letter from every "in network provider" within a 25 mile radius that stated that they didn't perform home birth, they would allow the exception.

Seriously.

Do you know how much money I would have to spend to get that many certified letters? And do you really think that I can get that many people to write the letter for me, the stranger who called, in their busy, hospital birthing schedule?

And then she proceeded to try to educate me about midwives and homebirth (as if I haven't done it twice already and witnessed several others...I'm a trained doula for crying out loud!). She said the only reason that one would hire a midwife was if one planned to deliver at home, because that is what midwives do.

I don't know where medusa-the-evil is from, but around here women hire midwives to deliver at the hospital because they don't want the episiotomy. Good luck finding one that will actually take a chance with a homebirth. And God help you if you do because no insurance would actually cover a homebirth.

I tried the silent tactic, eventually hung up on her (because I was so mad that "goodbye" may have very well sounded like a curse), and broke my phone.

Yes, I did.

And then I lay on the floor and sobbed.

Guess what bill is due tomorrow. Guess who didn't pay it. They better work something out fast or I'll start naming names. And these are actually people who, in theory, care about their "Christian" reputation.

Emily should get a raise (if she did, in fact have a meeting and wasn't just putting me off to medusa because she doesn't like confrontation). Stephanie should be fired. The verdict is still out on my absent elder. For his sake, I hope he was just on vacation this week and forgot to post an "out-of-office" auto reply.