Two weeks ago, I received an email from our health insurance carrier stating that there was timely news just for me and that new claims had been processed for me.
I was very confused since our health insurance doesn’t cover 99.9% of my medical care costs. I knew that a claim hadn’t been filed since my last IV iron infusion at the end of last October, and that the claim was completed a few months ago. The email told me to log in to my online portal and check out the new information that was available. So, I logged in and searched the claims, and I didn’t see anything new. The last claim was, in fact, my IV iron infusion from October. And, the status hadn’t changed on it. I sighed to myself and tried to come up with possibilities for whatever was happening. I was really hoping that this wasn’t a situation that was going to take me a long time to unravel. I decided (maybe foolishly) to ignore it for the time being. I figured that I would eventually find out what was happening, so I didn’t even mention it to my husband. We already have so many weird health situations in our everyday lives, and it didn’t seem like something that needed to be shared.
Fast forward to this last week. My husband grabbed the mail and put an envelope from our health insurance carrier on my desk. Again, we get so much mail about my health situation, we don’t really acknowledge when we receive something. We just add it to the pile and discuss if needed. One morning, as he was getting ready to leave for work, I was in my home office getting ready to start my work day. I saw the envelope on my desk, let out an exasperated sigh, and started to open the envelope. My husband heard the sigh from the hallway. Here is how the conversation went:
Husband: Why are you sighing?
Me: I don’t understand why I keep getting contacted by our health insurance carrier. I got an email two weeks ago, and it didn’t make sense. We must now owe something that we thought we handled previously.
[a few minutes go by]
Me [grunting in an exasperated manner]: I don’t understand why they are sending me claim information about a claim with ________________ from September 2021. They never pay for specialty urine tests with that company. We already paid the company for that test in 2021.
[one more minute goes by as I continue reading pages 1-4]
Me: Holy shit!!!
Husband: What?
Me: Our health insurance carrier has reimbursed us $51.56 for the specialty test from ________________ that we paid around $550.00 for in 2021. There is an actual check in this envelope on page 5 for $51.56. I almost stopped reading on page 4 and missed it.
Husband: Are you joking?!?
Me: No. We are rich now. Of course, the check is made out to you since you are the primary insured person. You better sign that baby fast and take it to the bank, so that we don’t lose it and miss out on the exceptional health care coverage we just received 2.5 years later. 🤣🤦♀️
Laughter immediately ensued between us.
I logged back in to the online portal for our health insurance carrier to look at the claim from 2021. The reason that the online portal didn’t seem different when I checked it after receiving the email two weeks ago is because I can’t even see claims prior to 2 years ago. So, in summary, I received an email to log in to see new information about my account, but I can’t even see the new information because the online portal only lets me go back to February 2022. Even the company seems to understand that needing to view claims from 2.5 years ago is ridiculous.
We are still laughing today. I am so grateful for these moments that provide some humor.
Brutal. Time and energy spent dealing with the financial aspects of my health situation.
Beautiful. Getting a surprise reimbursement check from our health insurance carrier. Laughing all the way to the bank . . . literally.
Just another day of . . . This Brutiful Life: The Brutal & Beautiful Moments of My Life.
This Brutiful Life 