Medicaid
I walked into the living room and my husband was sitting on the floor with his head in his hands. His wallet had exploded all over the floor. The carpet was littered with all kinds of cards: business cards, credit cards, and a new mysterious gold Medicaid card.
About a month ago, we received a Medicaid card and a letter in the mail saying that my stepson may or may not qualify for Medicaid. This is particularly entertaining because we never even applied for Medicaid. The letter basically said that the card may or may not be valid. It made it seem like we should just take the card to the doctor’s office and try it out. Maybe will have to pay full price for a visit. Maybe we won’t have to pay anything at all.
My husband promptly called Medicaid to find out what was going on and was told that my stepson did qualify and that we would get information in the mail about HMO’s. About two weeks later we received a letter telling us we had thirty days to pick an HMO. I did some research on the web to try to figure things out and didn’t get very far. My stepson needs to see a physical therapist and we need to find a plan that will cover that.
A few days after that letter arrived a woman called asking my husband for a bunch of personal information about my stepson. Eventually this woman identified herself as a support coordinator and said that my stepson qualified for CMS. CMS provides special services for children who have more medical needs than most. She said that she would call us back to give us more details about CMS.
A few days after this call, we got a letter from Medicaid saying that they picked a HMO for us already. When husband called to inquire about this the woman on the phone said, “You didn’t choose a health plan within the thirty days so one was assigned to you.”
“It hasn’t been thirty days since, I received the letter,” he said.
“You didn’t choose a plan within the thirty days,” she repeated.
We haven’t heard back from this support coordinator person. No one we call knows anything about what’s going on. The system is almost impossible to navigate. By the time we get this straightened out we’ll be moving to England.
