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Sorry, this situation is so fracked that I'm just about on the boiling point. Normally I keep stuff like this from public space, but if I don't vent, I'm gonna explode.
So, last week, I had a filling fall out from one of my teeth. It was the 2nd tooth on the upper right. Well, it didn't so much fall out as crack, leaving behind 1/2 the filling and a pretty sharp, jagged edge rubbing against my inside lip. Fortunately, it did not hurt at all. Since Baron had finally put me on his insurance back in April, we made an appointment with his dentist to get the filling replaced.
So I go in, fill out all the paperwork for a new patient and sit down in the chair for the examination. After an Xray of the offending tooth, we talked about our options, mostly between a filling and a crown. The tooth actually has 2 fillings, one on each side, that nearly connects in the back. Because of that and the fact that it's in a high impact cutting area of the mouth, the chances of it fracturing at that weak point are high. Ie - it's going to need a crown sooner or later, did we wanna nip this off in the bud now? After a little thought and a phone call to Baron, I decided to get the fillings ($50 co-pay vs. $450.00 co-pay, yeah).
Biff, boom, bam; Tooth is filled again and I head home. A little soar in the jaw, but no worse for ware and any potential issues of the tooth's gaping hole getting worse nipped in the bud.
A few days latter I get a call from the dentist office - the insurance has declined to pay for the filling. Why? I wasn't out of the probationary period for getting fillings done. Wait, WHAT?!? We'd been paying since April, and I'm STILL in a probationary period? Apparently, I was fine for getting things like a checkup, or X-rays or a tooth cleaning, but not for anything found by those actions. Even better yet, according to the insurance, my probationary period for fillings ends ... 9/1. That's right. In less than a week. It two years probation for a crown, so I'm actually thankful I went with just the filling.
Look insurance, it's not like I wanted my filling to fall out, or that I did anything deliberate for it to fall out. It just did. Despite the best of intentions, health issues happen. But apparently, I am just a pile of money to them, and they aren't about helping take the edge off of trying to get an actual heath issue taken care of before it becomes something worse and more costly for everyone.
The dentist's office has been really kind over all this and has been bending over backwards trying to figure out something. They have literately spent hours on the phone with the insurance company trying to figure out some way to get them to pay. For now at least, they have offered us a payment plan that we'll be going with.
So in the end, despite me going on Barons insurance, we're having to pay, yet again, my medical out of our own pockets. And I have to really ask myself, what's the point of having medical insurance if I have to pay everything outta pocket anyways?
So, last week, I had a filling fall out from one of my teeth. It was the 2nd tooth on the upper right. Well, it didn't so much fall out as crack, leaving behind 1/2 the filling and a pretty sharp, jagged edge rubbing against my inside lip. Fortunately, it did not hurt at all. Since Baron had finally put me on his insurance back in April, we made an appointment with his dentist to get the filling replaced.
So I go in, fill out all the paperwork for a new patient and sit down in the chair for the examination. After an Xray of the offending tooth, we talked about our options, mostly between a filling and a crown. The tooth actually has 2 fillings, one on each side, that nearly connects in the back. Because of that and the fact that it's in a high impact cutting area of the mouth, the chances of it fracturing at that weak point are high. Ie - it's going to need a crown sooner or later, did we wanna nip this off in the bud now? After a little thought and a phone call to Baron, I decided to get the fillings ($50 co-pay vs. $450.00 co-pay, yeah).
Biff, boom, bam; Tooth is filled again and I head home. A little soar in the jaw, but no worse for ware and any potential issues of the tooth's gaping hole getting worse nipped in the bud.
A few days latter I get a call from the dentist office - the insurance has declined to pay for the filling. Why? I wasn't out of the probationary period for getting fillings done. Wait, WHAT?!? We'd been paying since April, and I'm STILL in a probationary period? Apparently, I was fine for getting things like a checkup, or X-rays or a tooth cleaning, but not for anything found by those actions. Even better yet, according to the insurance, my probationary period for fillings ends ... 9/1. That's right. In less than a week. It two years probation for a crown, so I'm actually thankful I went with just the filling.
Look insurance, it's not like I wanted my filling to fall out, or that I did anything deliberate for it to fall out. It just did. Despite the best of intentions, health issues happen. But apparently, I am just a pile of money to them, and they aren't about helping take the edge off of trying to get an actual heath issue taken care of before it becomes something worse and more costly for everyone.
The dentist's office has been really kind over all this and has been bending over backwards trying to figure out something. They have literately spent hours on the phone with the insurance company trying to figure out some way to get them to pay. For now at least, they have offered us a payment plan that we'll be going with.
So in the end, despite me going on Barons insurance, we're having to pay, yet again, my medical out of our own pockets. And I have to really ask myself, what's the point of having medical insurance if I have to pay everything outta pocket anyways?
