Insurance Woes by Konnie Enos

My alarm goes off at five o’clock in the morning.

Now it goes off this all fired blessed early not because people have to get up and get out the door early in the morning but because it can take my son several hours to get ready for school though that’s only on the days he forgets to do his laundry the night before. He always forgets to do his laundry.

So yesterday my alarm goes off at the appointed hour.

I moan and roll over but before I can do much more than hit snooze my son walks in my room. “I’m up. Already took my bath.”

Now mind you, I’m not only still groggy, but not out of bed yet, the lights aren’t on and I most certainly haven’t found my glasses yet. “Do you have clean clothes? Did you do your laundry?”

“Mom, didn’t you hear me? I already took my bath.”

In other words, he was already dressed for the day.

Okay then, I rolled back over, he doesn’t have to be up for hours and I was too tired to get up yet.

Then he proceeded to tell me how he’d been running in the back yard, again, but this time he tripped in a hole he hadn’t seen in the dark and slammed his right shoulder into our fence, dislocating it. Of course he did relocate it, but now it was very, very sore. It should be noted our fence is a brick wall.

“Ice it.” I was too tired to deal with it and I wasn’t about to take him to the ER over it. Since no quick care was open at that hour, well he was waiting. I went back to sleep.

A couple of hours later, I finally got up and did check his shoulder.

Yeah it was swollen.

I got breakfast and got dressed while my husband took our daughter to campus for her classes.

Then I took him to the quick care.

Now the one we’ve been going to isn’t normally very busy. Usually in and out within a couple of hours. So, since we got there by nine I assumed we would be home before lunch time.

This time they said it was nearly that long just to be seen.

We waited.

They finally called us back and the nurse checked him in.

We waited some more.

Eventually the doctor came in and moved my son’s right shoulder around enough to have my son grimacing in pain.

Then we waited some more.

Then the nurse came in with paperwork to be signed.

Then we waited some more.

Then they took him to have x-rays done while I waited some more.

Finally we waited for the results.

No fractures, but they gave him a note to be out of school for two days and want him to see a specialist too, before he goes back to school.

By the time they’d released him and we’d dropped his prescription off at the pharmacy, it’s already well after noon.

We go home and get lunch.

Now I’m apprehensive about calling any new doctor’s because far too often around here I find they don’t take our primary insurance.

I make the call.

Oh fun. They do take our primary insurance. What they don’t take is our secondary insurance.

Now isn’t that lovely.

I call my secondary insurance to ask them about finding a provider.

What do they tell me?

“You have ask your PCP for a referral.”

That’s all well and dandy but I don’t have a PCP. They have assigned me to one and I did call the number they gave me but the practice the number got me in contact with had no idea who the doctor assigned to me was. In other words, not at that practice. Furthermore, they didn’t take my primary insurance.

Since my previous PCP closed her practice I have yet to find anyone to replace her who does take both of them.

So now I’m in a quandary.

The quick care sent the films to the doctor we can’t go to, yet I can’t find another doctor anyway. The doctor at the quick care said my son needed to see the specialist before he returned to school or removed his sling.

How is he supposed to do either if I can’t get him into a specialist for lack of finding one which takes both of our insurances?

Of course this isn’t the first time. Since our PCP quit we’ve had multiple issues with getting medical care. And our issues are usually because we DO have insurance.

If we can’t get care with insurance, how are people without it getting care?

So today I’m just a bit frustrated.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.