Trauma at Target

Over the past year and half, health insurance has not caused me much stress. Exchanges with my insurance company have been relatively smooth, a few bumps but nothing major. Due to the ongoing nature of cancer treatments, a case worker was assigned to me so I have regular human contact which is handy whenever a potentially confusing issue arises. My case worker has been invaluable in my cancer/doctor/insurance journey.

With my next surgery scheduled for Tuesday, I needed a physical in order to be "officially" approved for the procedure. My now healthy body passed with flying colors. While at the clinic, I was shown paperwork with my insurance information, and it looked fine to me. How wrong I was.

About an hour after leaving the facility, I am shopping in Target, enjoying a stroll through the underwear section when my phone rings. Of course, I can't get to the phone in time, and soon receive a cryptic message from an employee at the facility telling me to have her paged when I call back and her work schedule for the next few days. I return the call immediately. Turns out the woman works in the billing department, and is calling my insurance companies to get approval for the procedure (which was done months ago by my doctor's office). Without going into too much boring detail, she tells me she couldn't understand my different insurances and that I had almost needed to pay the hospital $5000 before my procedure. But, after leaving me the message, she soon deduced that I had two insurance policies, and was on the other line with my primary plan. The entire conversation unnerved me since she seemed to have little understanding of what I assumed were basic insurance transactions. And she chided me for never telling my primary insurance company about my secondary. Since the issue of introducing my two insurance plans had never come up before, I don't know why I should be scolded for it now.

About ten minutes later, I remembered that the procedure had been pre-certified by my primary insurance company, so I called her back. In the meantime, she seemed to have gained a better grasp of the situation. But I was still concerned, so I called my case worker. My advocate could already see the report of the call, and assured me that all would be fine. Especially since I have a history of a malignancy (guaranteed coverage!) and the procedure is outpatient (no pre-certification is needed). Go case workers!

So in conclusion, twenty-five minutes later, I am still in Target. Through all of these conversations, I am wandering from the underwear wall into the sock aisle (good discounts), passing through women's wear, and finally sitting at a table in the cafe area. Yes, I was the annoying person talking about extremely private issues on a mobile phone in a public arena. In my defense, one of the reasons why I kept moving through various areas in the store was to be where no one else was shopping. Except that during my movements through the store, with a cart, a large Early Gray tea dripped large drops of brown liquid on the front and arm of a new white sweater. After wrapping up my conversations, I found all kinds of delightful products to ease my pain. Thank goodness for shopping therapy, I feel much better now.