Have you ever had one of those days where it seems like the universe is out to get you? Well I did... Yesterday. I took our oldest to the dentist for the first time in too long to admit. I could make excuses about not having dental insurance, but regardless he should have been taken in before. He has a pretty bad cavity that needs a root canal. At 10 years old. It's horrifying. I've never had anything that extensive done and I just can't believe that I let my child's tooth get that bad. Ugh.
But enough guilting... We finally have dental insurance (signed up last month!) so we went in and got him checked out. The appointment went great, all the ladies in the office loved him, my big brave boy. He didn't complain or wimp out even though he was nervous. They told me he needs a root canal, one other filling, and a couple of sealants. We scheduled our next appointment and then they gave me the bill.
When I signed up for the insurance I made sure to get the plan with the most coverage I could get. I bought the most expensive plan because I knew our whole family needs to get some work done. Only after we'd already been seen did I find out that our dentist isn't in our insurance network. Every other dentist in the area seems to be, except for ours. What does that mean? It means that our insurance company will not pay our dentist. I pay the dentist and then get reimbursed by the insurance company. That might not be so bad except Alex's first appointment was nearly $300 and the rest of the work he needs done is going to be over $2000.
Another kick in the teeth? No dental plan in our area will cover a root canal unless you've been with the company for over a year. Apparently people sign up, get their work done, and cancel their policy. I have no intentions of doing that, as I said before we all need some work done so it's going to be a lifelong policy.
I'm at the point now where I have to decide, do I want to switch dentists or insurance companies? Honestly I would rather switch insurance companies. We like our dentist, we don't want to switch.
Even if we do switch insurance companies, they won't cover his root canal. As I've mentioned before, we don't have any savings. If we save every extra penny we can and put everything towards the dentist. It'll take 3-4 months to save up enough. I'm going to call the dentist today and see if we can work out a payment plan. I hope that we can because I want to get him all taken care of.
And aside from all of that, I had to pay $80 down on the cost of his first appointment. Which was nearly the last of our spending money for the next week and a half. I'll go over where that went in another post.
It seems like as soon as you start trying to build up a savings, or get things on the right track, things just pop up and problems happen. It's like you are knocked down before you can really even get started. I haven't lost faith though, I believe that this will work out somehow. I'm not going to throw my hands up in the air and give up. Even if it takes three months, we will get this taken care of.
Thank you guys for lending an ear, it helps to get it all out there. It's funny... I say things in this blog that I'm feeling, things that I wouldn't ever say aloud to anyone... Except maybe my hubbs. He's great about letting me vent to him. But without this blog, I think I would be a lot more stressed out! So thank you again, for being there! =)
No comments:
Post a Comment