Use Your Insurance.

It’s sort of a thing that everyone hates, but linking up with your insurance company, making difficult phone calls, and finding someone to represent you at that company can make a huge difference.

When this all happened, I was assigned a woman named Kim from Anthem (Blue Cross/Blue Shield), who called me once a week to check in and ask about my health. I had no idea that insurance companies did that.

In my experience, once you get someone on the phone, and you can talk to them, it makes understanding these things a bit easier.

Still, dealiing with all of the paperwork can be difficult, (See “It’s Written in the Book”) and you’re going to see so many people with so many different names and places, with different prescriptions for medication and equipment, it can all be mind boggling.

And then there’s pre-authorization.

Over a year ago now, I was prescribed a Dexcom G7 continuous glucose monitor, to keep an eye on my blood sugar from day to day. This thing is an absolute miracle device that allows you to see how what you do and eat effects your sugar, and, thus, keep yiur diabetes in control.

The only problem was, the monitor required pre-authorization from the insurance company, or it would cost several hundred dollars out of my pocket.

I didn’t get that pre-authorization, and didn’t get the monitor.

Now, I’m not saying that things would have been different, but I would have more easily been able to find out that my blood sugar was in a bad spot had I had the monitor, which I couldn’t get pre-authorized for until after I became insulin dependent.

Go figure.

After the surgery, when I came home, I found out that things like my wheelchair and my prosthetic also require pre-authorization from the insurance company, but knowing that was the case, I was able to ask the doctors who govern those things to examine and diagnose me with that in mind.

I had grown accustomed to the idea of asking my insurance company for favors, but the thing is, I have been paying quite handily for insurance all of my life. I earned that coverage. Those things are mine to get, and I don’t feel bad about advocating for my health and supplies.

It’s still a very difficult phone call for me, but, I promise, when. you reach the right person, the person who can explain to you what’s happening and how to make it right, it will feel like a ton of bricks sliding off of your back.

Make sure you use your benefits for you.

—

As always, if you have it in you, please give a thought to donating time or money to Hospice Austin. They do amazing work for people who are going through the hardest thing a person can face.

—