Frustrated by Health Care

My daughter woke up this morning with an eye problem. It seemed like an eye infection and a painful one at that. I made her go to the Immediate Care and get something for it. She dropped off her prescriptions at Wal-mart and came home to wait because they said it was going to be a 2 hour wait for them to be filled. She waited the 2 hours and went back to pick up the eye drops and pain reliever. She was told the eye drops would cost $80 with our insurance. She went back to the dr. and asked if there was something else she could be given that wasn't as expensive. He gave her the prescription and since Wal-Mart Pharmacy was closed for lunch she went to Walgreens. They told her that our insurance expired 9/1/08!!!! I told her there is no way the insurance is expired. The monthly premiums are deducted from my paycheck and open enrollment for 2009 doesn't start until 10/31/08. I told her to get the prescription back and go back to WalMart. WalMart tells her the same thing, and that the medicine will be $17.00 without insurance. So at least it was cheap enough that she could get the drops and start healing her eye.

I called the insurance company and listen to the recorded voice of the cheerful woman and answered my way through to customer service. Another voice comes on the line (recorded) and tells me that there is a problem with their facility and it is closed. What the hell does that mean? I got online and typed in the url and a white page with black letters pops up and says the facility is closed. Did my insurance company fold and I don't even know it?

In January my employer decided to help keep our insurance premiums down they were switching from UnitedHealthCare to Cigna. Cigna has caused nothing but problems this year. Most of the doctors in my town won't even accept Cigna because "they don't pay their bills". Isn't that comforting.

The Immediate Care that she went to this morning already has the insurance information in the computer and probably doesn't check each time you visit the dr. So if it's really cancelled, I'm sure I'll be getting a big bill in the mail next month.

Can I just scream? ACKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!