That’s the Reality, So I’d Rather Laugh Than Whine About It

I mentioned this in passing to a friend last night and, judging by her reaction, I’m realizing that it may not be such a normal thing that I get something in the mail nearly every day related to medical bills? Granted, not every single one is a bill needing to be paid, may be an Explanation of Benefits notice or some such, but it is rare now to have a mail day without receiving something related to medical procedures, benefits, supplies, medications, hospital visits, etc. That wasn’t even the case when Kenny was sick, but it has become the norm for me now.

It’s a lot to keep on top of, and I’m not always amazing at it, to tell the truth. Old me would never have received a second notice on anything, would have stayed up to date on it all. But it’s, well, it’s a lot. And relentless. And never just a matter of paying the bill that comes because I need to employ brain power to catch mistakes. There have been SO many of them, and over the past three years could have meant my paying actual tens of thousands (!!!!) more in bills than I should have had I not caught or questioned things. I used to trust the medical billing system (I know, so naive!), and I’d just blindly pay things when bills came. No longer. It’s been especially complicated because of the number of times we’ve needed to change our health insurance these past two years, so often things have been misbilled despite how careful I am with checking beforehand that they have the right insurance on file. I am grateful that things with our medical insurance should have stabilized now.

Sometimes it can be just plain comical, though. I have received medical bills (yes, very much plural) for Kendall saying that his date of treatment was after he died (if it’s true that they did indeed see him in September of 2022 then I want in on that action, or at least have some questions!). Or what about this bill that came in the mail a few weeks ago for services from 2013??? (This is actually the second time this has happened in the past three months.)

Obviously that was a mistake, and no, I wouldn’t ever be expected to pay something so old (they weren’t actually decade old unpaid balances, were totally a computer error on the part of my doctor’s billing department), but the ridiculousness of it all just makes me laugh sometimes.

It’s amazing to constantly be living within the miracle of things continuing to somehow keep working out financially for our family, that every bill has been able to be paid, every medical test or procedure or doctor’s visit or hospital stay or surgery or access to needed medical supplies, whatever was needed, has been able to happen.

But it is crazy to realize that I now have a special needs child, when that wasn’t something I ever had Kendall’s help to figure out. We never got to work together as a team learning to navigate this completely new and foreign world. And for the worst, hardest part of things, I haven’t had Mom here, either. Yet somehow I’ve been able to muddle along and figure things out and juggle all that that entails. No, it’s not “somehow.” Circumstances in my life are continual evidence of how much divine help I’m getting. All the time. There’s no way I was ever doing any of this “on my own.”