Carnival Cruise Lines Can Suck My Big Toe

So, the first thing that happened, and I’ll be writing more about this in the future, Carnival Cruise Lines decided that my bilateral massive multiple pulmonary embolisms and the both extremity cellulitis infection that left me with open wounds and abscesses on both legs was not ‘worthy’ of being given an exception for cruise reimbursement. We asked not for our money back on the cruise, but rather, we asked that they simply give us a credit for the cruise–for which they were, by one of their own employee’s admissions–able to rebook our cabin. We intended to use the credit on a future cruise, during which we would have spent more money than the credit we had with them. But Carnival Cruises decided we were not important enough as a customer to keep our business and held firmly to their ‘contracted’ agreement, and refused to refund or credit us any money in their special ‘consideration’ department.

Well, let me tell you what that means for me: I will never, EVER cruise with Carnival again. I also intend to make sure everyone I know hears just how ‘unvaluable’ Carnival thinks its customers are. We lost $2000 during a time when because of the health problems we could have really used that money and we never even asked for it back – we just wanted a credit so we could take a cruise at a later date when my wounds had healed and I had recovered some. I could have really used the vacation.

I hear Disney cruises out of Port Galveston too, as do Norwegian and one other line. When we’re ready to cruise later in the year, anyone but Carnival will get my business. If you plan on cruising, keep in mind Carnival will provide you with the best customer service as long as they are still trying to get your money. Once you’ve parted with your money though, they took weeks to even answer my request and then very blanketly denied the special consideration with absolutely zero explanation other than they didn’t want to honor our request, so sorry, buy trip insurance next time. Well, if anyone had offered us trip insurance, perhaps we would have.

If this matters to you at all, don’t cruise with Carnival. I’ve been told Disney offers a much better service anyway. I’ll be writing this review of how Carnival treated me on multiple sites. I want a wide audience to see how little their customers mean to them.

The Government Can Suck My Big Toe

So, the next thing to rant about is the government. I was qualified for a government funded insurance program, through Medicaid, to help pay for my medical bills. I sent in all the forms, filled out all the paperwork–and there was a mountain of it to be sure–and then was hospitalized at one point when a request for additional information came in. We were in contact with a caseworker both on our own and through the hospital and let them know we’d be a little bit late on some paperwork, because I was in the hospital. No big deal, we got approved for the program and we were approved for August, October, November, December, January, February and March. Wait a minute, where’s September? Oh, that just happens to be the month in which we had a $29,000 hospital bill and doctor’s bills in excess of $20k too. That month, yes, that one month, was denied. Something about not having a qualifying child. Gee, did my son disappear for the month of September?

To make matters worse, YESTERDAY I get a card in the mail saying my new insurance company through the state program is Amerigroup, and that my primary care provider is some doctor I have never heard of in Webster, Texas. Well, that’s news to me, ’cause I don’t live in Webster and my primary care doctor is at UTMB. Has been for months now. I know I filled out the form to have that doctor as my primary care and had selected United Health Care as my insurance carrier.

So why was I placed with Amerigroup and not with United? No one knows. But they say it’s because I never returned the forms to them.

Bullshit. I know I returned those forms. I filled them out, picked the primary care from the list and everything and I personally had Lynn drive me to the post office where I personally put them in the freaking mailbox. I said as such and the lady on the phone said, “Well, we tried to call you on December 30th and again this month. I asked if anyone had left me a message. She said, “We tried to call.” I said, “Yes, but did anyone leave me a message?” She said, “It’s your duty to call us and keep us informed.”

I said, “Wait a minute… It was my duty to fill out the form you sent me and select my primary care provider and insurance carrier. I did that. If you did not leave me a message, how was I supposed to know you needed me to call you? I did what I was supposed to do. Did you leave me a message?”

“We cannot, by law, leave you a message.”

“Then how I am supposed to call you back or even know that you needed me to call you? How?”

“It’s your duty to–”

“Oh, God!”

And I hung up on her.

That’s total and utter bullshit. I have no way of reading minds here. I’m supposed to just know that they wanted me to call them? I’m supposed to assume that the post office lost my paperwork or that it wasn’t sitting on some imbecile’s desk somewhere unprocessed and that they were going to put me in the wrong group?

But here’s the problem: I have an appointment tomorrow. I have pulmonary function testing next week. I have two other appointments the week after that and I am being treated for a condition that can kill me. Literally – not talking melodramatic here. This other doctor doesn’t know me or my case or history and is nothing more than a primary care physician who would have to refer me to someone else anyway, who cannot, as a specialist, get in in before my prescriptions run out! UTMB, my primary care doctors, does not accept Amerigroup insurance at all! I would have not known anything about this, except UTMB is upfront with me about things and they are on the ball and noticed today that it changed in the system to Amerigroup. They called me. I got my cards yesterday, on the 5th of February, and they were effective on the first of February!

Now, I can’t go to the doctor’s appointment tomorrow without paying full price, and the several thousands of dollars worth of pulmonary function testing won’t be covered…. sure, they can change me over to United, but it will take at least 30 days and perhaps as much as 50 days to do so, and my medical benefits on this program END on the last day or March!

So the pulmonary function testing I’ve been waiting to get since September will likely not happen… and without that, how do we continue treatment?

I’m in tears as I type this, because I don’t know what to do. I don’t qualify for Medicare yet. I can afford regular doctor’s visits, but I can’t afford the thousands of dollars for the pulmonary function testing, and if anything major happens to me again–like the legs that are already acting up again–and I need to go into the hospital, I’m not covered.

That terrifies me.

Reimbursement Would Be Nice

While on the phone with the state to try to figure out if there was anything we could do about all this, they discovered that all my medical bills that were sent in to them, in a packet, in the mail, on time like I was asked to send to them, plus the proof of payment we had made for all bills in August, September, and October (the back pay months) were scanned in, but no caseworker had DONE anything with them. We have been waiting all this time for reimbursement to the provider so we could get the provider to cut us a check for several thousands worth of dollars of medical bills, but though the bills and receipts had been scanned in, no one had worked the case to prepare them for reimbursement.

GLIMMER OF HOPE?

There is a small glimmer of hope. One of the employees finally with eligibility did go ahead and say there was no reason she could see why September excluded us. It said I didn’t have a qualifying child in September, but I’m pretty sure my son wasn’t any different in September than he was in August or October. She says they will, within five days, set that to pay and the bills that are outstanding can be submitted to them and they will go through.

So then, Lynn, who is handling much of this for me after I blew up and started ranting and bawling when the one lady made me hang up on her (yes, it was her fault I hung up on her, really, it was)…. she called the UTMB business office back and they were NOT working on my case like they said they were. They were about to turn over over $50,000 worth of unpaid bills to collections, even though we have and had been in contact with them about this the entire time!

So for now, they are apparently waiting five days to get a case date file something or another and will hold off for the time being.

In the meantime, we asked UTMB to use our financial counseling approval file to give us reduced rate office visits based on our income vs. our expenses for medical, that we were approved of just two days before the state approved me for medical, and suddenly, UTMB has no record of us having been approved for that program. But we can reapply. It only takes about 60 days to get a decision… Sigh.

In the meantime, I had to cancel my appointment tomorrow, an appointment that we made last week when I SHOULD have gone to the ER but instead grabbed an old prescription of antibiotics that was given to me the last time my leg messed up, trying to avoid the ER, and made the appointment, knowing if I could just see a doctor they would keep me out of the ER. My leg is still messed up. I’m running a fever again. I feel lousy. And I just want to curl up in a ball and cry.

It’s not fair.

It’s not right.

It sucks.

People are mean and sometimes stupid.

But I do want to thank the lady whose name starts with a J, but I won’t say it so I don’t get anyone in trouble. She was kind and seemed more than willing to want to help and spent over an hour and a half on the phone trying to do something and she got more done for us than anyone else. Some people, I am grateful for and the state could well use more people like that employee. Thank you to the universe for her kindness and caring concern.

NOW WHAT?

In the meantime, I don’t know what to do. I was so happy when the insurance was approved, and now, when I need it the most, it’s failing me. Where are people supposed to just come up with thousands of dollars at the drop of the hat? Is it fair that people who aren’t super independently wealthy and don’t have insurance are what… supposed to just die and be done with it?

I’ve come too far… I can’t have a setback like this now. I just can’t.

I don’t know if I believe it will do any good or not, but if you’ve got some good juju, I could use it. Prayers, thoughts, love, light, whatever you’ve got – I need to get this insurance stuff cleared up by next week, because I NEED these tests. I NEED them, and if I don’t get them before the end of March and paid for by the state insurance program, I will have to wait 60 days with no treatment before PCIP kicks in and then I will have to pay 20% of several thousands of dollars worth of tests, plus meet my deductible first. I need your help if you can put all the positive energy into this that you can.

It’s not right when I did what I was supposed to do that some minimum wage earning government employee–who probably has better insurance than I have–is able to make a mistake that might cost me my life.

Grrrr…..

Frustrated and stuff,
Michy