Noah: What I’m most worried about right now is that he’s not getting enough sleep.
For the last two days, he’s only napped for HALF AN HOUR at day care. And because I’m a little data-obsessed, I know via Trixie Tracker, that he sleeps an average of about an hour per day less than other babies his age.
Why Our Insurance & Flexible Spending Accounts Keep Behaving Badly: I have blogged before on the fact that we pay for cadillac health insurance coverage, and that this has an even worse economic impact on us than just the out of pocket cost, because the company’s contributions towards Jill’s coverage are imputed income to me.
This week, Blue Cross/Blue Shield PPO rejected our claim for Noah’s 6 month well-baby visit and standard 6-month immunizations.
I’ll pause for a moment so you can pick your jaws back up from the floor.
I swear it is true; I could not make that up if I tried.
When I called — and they are available to be called from 9 am pacific time until midnight pacific time — they said that the “routinely reject” charges like this because “they did not know whethe ror not he was covered by other insurance.”
Um. He’s not.
And even if he were, for what I pay to cover him on my insurance, they should cover it.
Anyway, when I said, “Um, he’s not,” to the customer service person, she said, “Fine, then I’ll resubmit that for processing.”
“Could you tell me what that means?”
Slowly, as if I were obviously not very bright, she answered, “It means that I will re-sub-mit that. For process-ing.”
“Um, right. Well, I’m still not clear. Does that mean you’ll be paying the claim?”
“Resubmitting it for processing is not a guarantee of payment.”
*fume*fume*fume*
“Ok, well, can you tell me what I need to do to follow up and make sure that this is being handled properly?”
“When we resubmit something for processing, it can take up to 30 days.”
Blink. Hokay, I gotta go.
Having not gotten any resolution from BCBS, I decided to tackle UniAccount, the company who handles our Flexible Spending Accounts — you know, the pre-tax money you can either use for health care expenses (including, TTC-ers, your frozen swimmers!) or child care expenses.
Since Noah was born, I’ve submitted a hair under $4k in child care expenses, out of a maximum $5k allowed by law. But with the child care savings accounts, you can’t spend it until you’ve actually had it withdrawn from your pre-tax salary. Right now, that amounts to a little less than $300/paycheck for me, and the total that’s passed through the FSA is only about $3k.
So they owe me roughly $900, and they’re supposed to be paying me in not-quite $300 incriments every pay-period.
This week, we got a check for $60.80. In the account summary information attached to the check, it still says that they owe me roughly $900, and that I have $233 available to be reimbursed.
Incidently, this is the second time this has happened.
So I called.
The woman remembered me from last time. She’s very sorry this is happening again, but it appears that my money is stuck.
Stuck?
Yes. Stuck. She can’t figure out how to get it unstuck. She’ll have to call me back when her manager comes into the office at 8 pacific time.
How does money get stuck in a computer?
It’s almost open enrollment season.
Should we keep Jill on this insurance because it’s covers 3 tries of IUI and we think we’ll be trying for her soon? Or is the out of pocket cost of the IUI cheaper than the insurance?
Should we move Noah onto Jill’s insurance because it’s cheaper? Will that just confuse things more?
Should I register the domains bcbssucks.com and uniaccountsucks.com? (I was really surprised they were available.)
What’s going to happen when I go to California for work, week after next?
Is Noah going to decide to self-wean out of being mad?
Are either he or Jill going to be able to sleep?
Will I feel unneeded if everything goes just fine?
Will the TSA be a nightmare?
Will I be able to ship my milk back cold fed-ex from the hotel?
Work: I’m still in the hard part of the learning curve on the various technologies that I need to use. I feel like I should know this stuff already — which is a big thing I use to beat myself up in general in life. I’m worried that I’m going to disappoint people.
And I feel really weird about blogging about it, because I know that some work people read the blog. (But I don’t think my manager does. I think it’s just the one or two people who have myspace pages and are more current about actually using technology.)
Oh, and I dozed off today in a meeting with the entire department, and was busted by the General Counsel. Fortunately, he seemed more amused than annoyed. I blame the 3-3:45 am feeding last night. But it’s still embarassing.
PLLP 9/28: Fruit: none. Veg: ~1/3 cup broccoli. Treats: Cake at the staff meeting.
PLLP 9/27: Fruit: banana. Veg: ~1 cup mixed veg at lunch, 3/4 cup broccoli at dinner. Treats: big ass piece of chocolate cake at lunch.
(Did you know that Ikea has a cafeteria? The food is actually very good, and not that expensive. And the chocolate cake was amazing.)
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