We just got back from the pediatrician for the munchkin’s year old check-up. He had two shots, and was a trooper. He had a long conversation with our pediatrician while the doctor was writing up for some bloodwork and things. I’m not sure what about, but they were entertaining each other. He’s 32 inches tall and 24lbs 15oz, officially. He’s not gaining weight as much as he was, but he’s so active now racing around the house that this is not an issue.
Our Medicaid/Health Ease insurance expires on Monday, and the doctor was talking to me about that. Medicaid did send me a letter after the expiration notification which made it sound, to me, as though they were still going to insure him after May, but under a different system. Our doc is well versed in Medicaid scenarios and was giving me a lot of really good advice about ways we can go about things if they were not saying what I thought and the munchkin will be without insurance in three days.
I explained to him that if we insured through my husband’s company it would be at least $400 a month out of our paycheck and he agreed that was ridiculous as generally you wouldn’t pay that much out of pocket for check-ups without insurance for as healthy a boy as the munchkin is. He advised for us to put even half of that aside in savings and use it in case there was some kind of hideous medical expense, and if not just put it in an IRA or his college fund if we didn’t have to use it. That they can work with us for his checkups as they do shots for $11 a pop, and the bare minimum of wellness checks per year would only be about $50 each time out of pocket.
That was very comforting, and excellent advice. Since I’ve been out of work we haven’t put anything in the IRA, and I’ve just started putting stuff aside into savings again, which has been hard.
He couldn’t give me definite assurance that we would re-qualify for Medicaid because we’re right on that cusp with my husband’s earnings. As it is I’m wondering if we will actually get WIC on Tuesday, because of that cusp. I have to gather up some recent paychecks of my husband’s and a bunch of other information to take with me.
On the upside I’m not as worried about the possible cancelling of Medicaid as I was. I need to get the letters they sent out of filing and call the number again. We’ve not been home enough over the past few days for me to be able to sit there on hold to hopefully get verbal explanations.
