Down, down, down

Today I'm doing work related things and since I don't talk about work it's Top Secret.

In other news, the dental saga still lives on. When we last left off I thought everything was settled. But alas, things do not seem to be going my way.

I decided to call the office to verify my appointment time and find out what they had found out about all our fantastic new benefits and how great my life was now going to be. I confirmed my appointment time, which was different than what they had told me. Eight o'clock is different than ten o'clock. Otherwise I would show up to work 2 hours late and call it the same difference. Then I asked one of those regrettable questions...Did you verify all the benefits and what are the new numbers?

"Well, the information you gave us is an HMO and you basically only get a discount. Your husband's coverage terminated on December 31st and we don't have any new insurance information for him." At this time Jace was in open enrollment but they had given him the basic plan on January 1st, even though his enrollment doesn't end till the 15th. So he's in this sort of floating gap coverage period, instead of just extending the old insurance up until the new insurance kicks in.

"So what's the cost under my insurance?" I innocently ask. They couldn't give me an answer. So basically they have no idea. And they didn't call me back to let me know all this. They were going to let me walk in thinking we were good to go, get the procedure, and then STICK ME WITH A BIG FAT BILL! A $2700 bill. What is wrong with these people?!

I cancelled my appointment. I had to. This was the third time I'd had a run in with these office people. How many times does God need to tell you that this is a bad idea? So we are free and unentangled and don't owe anything to this swine. (<-favorite word to call scamming scheisters and like ilk)

But it gets worse, sort of. Now Jace has finished enrollment. Yippee! We can move on with life. "But I can't find any dentists listed here in town that take the insurance you got," Jace tells me. So we first come up with this plan that I'll go talk to my first dentist and see if he takes the insurance and maybe he's just not listed. That happens. Then I decide I'll call and just dump this coverage and go back to my old coverage. This is smart because otherwise I would be paying for an HMO that I can't use. I'm going to get back on my old coverage. I try to do this on the computer. No luck. I'll call and talk to the nice lady. And she is nice. We make all the changes. I'm home free. "Why don't you add Me and Rowan?" Jace asks. O.k., I have her on the phone and this is going smooth. I give her all the information. Clack, clack, clack on her keyboard. Then she stops clacking. You know that millisecond of time when you know something is different and your fortune has changed? That was that millisecond. "Is your husband covered under TopSecretCompany, too?" she asks. "Yes, they just switched over and he just finished enrollment," I answer. It turns out, apparently, that if you are a TopSecretCompany couple then you can't be dependents of each other. What this means is that we can't both carry dental coverage on each other. This sucks. A lot.

Both of us carrying dental on everyone meant DOUBLE DENTAL. This is good stuff. In a world where dental will only give you a max benefit of $1500 or so per year, having double dental means you just upped your benefits to $3000 per year. This means when you get a crown and your first insurance pays and then you think you're getting stuck still paying for half of it, your second insurance comes in and pays the other half. You end up paying $0. But now that Jace and I are both affiliates of TopSecretCompany we can't do this. Only one of us can carry the insurance. So I had to dump mine.

All of this to say I now have a tummyache and a headache and I need to go cower under my covers and feel all boo-hooey. (Refer back to the PTSD post) I've had it up to "here" for today.