I Hope My Health Insurance Covers Straight Jackets

The other day my daughter was referred to physical therapy by her orthopedist. An orthopedist who gave me a list of about a million physical therapists in our neighborhood. Because I’m vying for the Mother of the Decade award, I started calling right away, hoping to find someone who accepted our insurance.

Here’s a pseudo transcript of our conversations:

Me: Hi, do you accept HealthNet?

NotMe: We accept HealthNet but we are out of network for HealthNet.

Me: I don’t know what that means.

NotMe: Give me all your information and I will tell you.

Me: Why can’t you just tell me?

NotMe: We need to call HealthNet to find out.

Me: So you don’t know?

NotMe: Every policy is different. So give me your policy number, your name, your social, your mother’s maiden name and your PIN. (Editorial aside: I’m worried about the whole mother’s maiden name thing. Because my maiden name is the same as my regular last name. So everyone knows it. Does this mean that I have to add “fraud” to the things that I worry about in terms of my children’s future?)

A few days later, Not Me called me to say that I would have to meet a $1,000 deductible, of which I’ve only met $25 so far, before HealthNet would cover the physical therapy.

Therefore, just to save you some time in the future, “We accept HealthNet but we are out of network for it” means “We accept cash and checks and major credit cards.”

Finally I broke down and just called HealthNet and got phone numbers of physical therapists not conveniently located to me. The good news is that they accept HealthNet, so I only have a FIFTY DOLLAR co-payment per visit.

So here’s my money saving tip for you: don’t seek out medical services.

In other news, Husbandrinka has been trying to pressure me to switch pediatricians. I love our pediatrician, but like the rest of the free world, she doesn’t accept our insurance. This means that all visits are out of pocket, although we do get reimbursed for the annual check ups. But I love her because she’s a good doctor and smart and there’s never a long wait (probably because no one can afford to pay out of pocket). So, dilemma. Except I know that we have to cut out unnecessary expenses, so I’m coming to terms with finding a new pediatrician (sob!).

And then Husbandrinka tells me that we have to find a male pediatrician for Young Ladrinka because “he’s at that age where seeing a female pediatrician is embarrassing.”

This is more than I can handle because although I have no idea who the new pediatrician will be, I was assuming that I’d get another female pediatrician so that I wouldn’t have to take my two kids to two different pediatricians. And although you could argue that I should just take them both to a male pediatrician, I am ready to nip that mother in the bud by proposing that most pedophiles are male, especially if we get one of those priest-pediatricians that are so popular these days.

So now I don’t know what to do.

The only thing that could make my dilemma better is if Awesome Dude showed up in the comments to tell us that men are genetically superior to women as doctors.

One year ago ...

• Killer - 2012