And to Celebrate
I spent nearly all of my free time last week going through every single medical bill, receipt, and insurance statement in the house.
Later today, I will be spending some quality time at the local FedEx/Kinko's branch, where I will be making photocopies of all of the documentation required to submit 45 separate claims.
I would be submitting more, but we missed the deadline on a bunch of claims.
The deadline is 15 months from the date of service (a word that, by rights, should be in quotes). Fifteen months is a really long time, but we missed it nonetheless in more cases than I care to admit. This would grieve me if not for our new, post-Greece mentality.
My updated spreadsheet now has 210 separate line items based on the insurance statements we've received and another 117 line items for individual out-of-pocket expenses for the past 19 months.
Not counting IVF, those expenses total $5,866.67—so far—of which we've recouped $1,267.43 (so far) through insurance. Including the IVF expenses gives me a headache. (It more triples the first figure but does not have nearly the same inflationary effect on the second.)
Here's a real mind-blower for you:
The retail cost of my one year of intense treatment—chemo plus Herceptin every three weeks for four months, then Herceptin alone for eight months—was three hundred sixty-nine thousand five hundred sixty-one dollars. (In my opinion, figures that astronomical deserve to be written out in full.)
That's what my insurance companies were billed, anyway.
And that does not include things like:
Anyone care to join me at a screening of Michael Moore's Sicko this week????
Later today, I will be spending some quality time at the local FedEx/Kinko's branch, where I will be making photocopies of all of the documentation required to submit 45 separate claims.
I would be submitting more, but we missed the deadline on a bunch of claims.
The deadline is 15 months from the date of service (a word that, by rights, should be in quotes). Fifteen months is a really long time, but we missed it nonetheless in more cases than I care to admit. This would grieve me if not for our new, post-Greece mentality.
My updated spreadsheet now has 210 separate line items based on the insurance statements we've received and another 117 line items for individual out-of-pocket expenses for the past 19 months.
Not counting IVF, those expenses total $5,866.67—so far—of which we've recouped $1,267.43 (so far) through insurance. Including the IVF expenses gives me a headache. (It more triples the first figure but does not have nearly the same inflationary effect on the second.)
Here's a real mind-blower for you:
The retail cost of my one year of intense treatment—chemo plus Herceptin every three weeks for four months, then Herceptin alone for eight months—was three hundred sixty-nine thousand five hundred sixty-one dollars. (In my opinion, figures that astronomical deserve to be written out in full.)
That's what my insurance companies were billed, anyway.
And that does not include things like:
- the three surgeries I had before chemo;
- the two I had afterward;
- the many, many visits to my portfolio of physicians;
- all of the prescriptions I have filled;
- the endless lab tests ordered on my behalf; or
- the various—and not remotely bargain-priced—radiologic and nuclear-medicine scans I have endured.
Anyone care to join me at a screening of Michael Moore's Sicko this week????
posted by Jody Rosen Knower at 5:11 AM
1 Comments:
Hey I'll see SICKO with you! In lieu of splitting popcorn and Junior Mints, I'll bring some Vicodin if you bring some Percocet.
-robin
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