There are some advantages to being a professional squeaky wheel (my new job title).
The first is that, within hours, my health insurance coverage with WSHIP was reinstated and the bureaucrats at WSHIP are sending me make-nice e-mails.
Well, actually, that's the only advantage.
The disadvantage--if you want to call it that, to keep the parallel structure going--to this whole situation, which I'm not sure that folks who "apologize for the inconvenience" get, is how stressful this is for someone like me who is living with metastatic disease, feels like crap a good part of the time, and collapses with very few reserves left after dealing with this kind of problem.
How do you think I feel when I get a letter telling me my health insurance has been canceled?
Yesterday I had so much adrenalin pumping that I felt like the top of my head would pop off, and then I felt sick, also from the adrenalin. But I managed to fill out the WSHIP forms, make copies of my Medicare card, and fax the whole thing to WSHIP.
If You Want to Know More About WSHIP
OK, if you are reading this to find out more about WSHIP (and less about me), this is what I learned.
The paperwork that was sent to me to fill out and return with a copy of my Medicare card was supposed to verify my eligibility for WSHIP coverage.
The woman in charge of the department that handled the paperwork, Sharon K. Manning, says that the state insurance commissioner's office recommended that WSHIP verify everyone's eligibility.
In my experience, the state insurance commissioner's office is usually smarter than that, but I've e-mailed them to ask if this was, indeed, their lame idea. (No reply yet.)
Because all the two-page form asks for is for me to fill in my address (twice), and never mind that it is printed correctly at the top of the form. And answer some yes/no questions about whether or not I am eligible for Medicare, which I am.
Then make a copy of my Medicare card to mail in with the form. Now remember, I did this, twice, and WSHIP first sent the form back to me (because they said they didn't receive the copy of the card) and then lost it.
But my point is this: WSHIP knows, and knew, that I am eligible for Medicare because my medical bills go first to Medicare (my primary insurance) and then to WSHIP, which pays a percentage of what's left over after Medicare is done.
So why ask for a copy of my card? It makes no sense. I'm already in the system.
I assume that the purpose of the whole verification exercise was to catch people who actually live out of state but are using this plan, but wouldn't they just lie?
And my biggest concern is the number of people who lost their health insurance because of this paperwork mess. Because Ms. Manning told me on the phone yesterday that they were unprepared for the response--Lots of incomplete forms. Lots of people who didn't respond when asked for more info and when their forms were sent back to them.
So this is the big question: How many people in Washington state--and remember, these folks are the sickest of the sick, that's why they're on WSHIP--lost their health insurance in this paperwork mess?
Stay tuned.
See also:
@ Jeanne Sather 2009.
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