If you're wondering how many pieces of chocolate it takes to possibly quell an oncoming anxiety attack, the answer is four.
The past three four weeks have been rough, nearly unbearable at times. So far, everyone is still alive but people have been on the rocks from time to time.
I just finished an interview with the Medicare people. Exactly one month after I submitted the paperwork and it happened ONLY because I started phoning every number available to me and leaving messages. We're not going to mention that they said they didn't get messages. Well, we will say it that one time.
Paperwork for insurance, financing, medical is stressful on the best day. I gather and process paperwork for my job. It's kind of my thing. I have a now-unorganized stack of paperwork on my table in my office that has been sitting there for a month. The majority of which was faxed to Medicaid one month ago. The steps go: apply online, wait for a letter requesting documents, provide documents, wait for an interview, interview, wait, provide more documents, wait, and eventually get an answer that hopefully arrives before the person who needs it dies.
I just clicked "send" on the second batch of paperwork for Medicaid. It's taken so long that they needed update bank statements. Also, my f-i-l banks at a big national bank with a terrible reputation and I'm not familiar with their statements. My little credit union provides everything in one statement: checking, savings, loan, credit card. So what had happened was I had missed sending the savings account statements. Because: of course.
While I was on the phone with the Medicaid person, I opened his bank account online and started Print to Save as PDF his statements. I faxed those and his updating checking account statements within an half-hour of the conversation. I also put "PLEASE CONFIRM RECEIPT" in large, bold lettering on the coversheet.
It's now a week later and no confirmation receipt. We did, however, get a letter printed a week ago and just received, stating that we had missing forms and a deadline of 9/23 (received on the 20th) and if we fail to do so, we will have to begin this process over again. The amount of abject frustration that I feel has no description. Cue BFF Swistle who very aptly described it as such:
"It is like a circus-themed obstacle course with flaming hoops, flaming trampolines, flaming tightropes—and you are navigating them, with people saying to you, “Um, can you specify what time of day you went through the flaming hoop?? Uh huh, and the second time you say you went through the hoop, when was that? No, sorry, we can’t provide any verification of the hoop-passage; you’ll have to try it again.”
AND THEN they also sent a copy of the letter to my father-in-law TO THE FACILITY. Cue a worried phone call from my nearly 86-year-old f-i-l who has dementia and is in a long term care facility.
THEN cut to me phoning said Medicaid worker and leaving a curt voice message about how that is CERTAINLY NOT a good idea and by the way, I requested a confirmation and didn't receive one AND don't give me a deadline then NOT tell me that I've fulfilled my responsibility to said deadline.
FOR EFFS SAKES
Sidenote: My given name is now an internet meme representing a terrible person. It was funny for five minutes and now I'm exhausted by it. BECAUSE that meme now causes me to be OVERLY SOLICITOUS and gracious when sometimes it is not warranted.
Tomorrow I will phone every number that I have to get confirmation of receipt of the requested documents and ask for an update, again. It will be two months as of next Friday that I began this process. TWO MONTHS. My next step is to email the governor and my state representatives about the abhorrent process it takes to get someone enrolled in Medicaid. I will, indeed, become the internet version of myself.
Because not everyone has a Me to do this. What happens to the folks who simply cannot meet these requirements JUST TO APPLY. I can rationalize that the agency is short-staffed. I cannot rationalize basic human decency. We're not talking library books, we're talking people. People who are clearly in crisis or they wouldn't be applying.
AND we can go through this just to be denied on - what feels like a whim - because "You accidentally failed to report that $50 in Starbucks Rewards Cash." (also a quote from my lovely BFF)
