I feel sick...sick enough to throw up actually.
Here is how Medicaid works in Practice, not in theory. Every year you have to re-up, fill in forms and go through the humiliating process of proving that you are poor enough to receive it. Medicaid covers the premiums due for Medicare (that's right, you still have to pay premiums for Medicare even after you qualify through disability, or social security pensions).
The premiums are directly taken from your SS Disability or Pension checks.
On Oct 7th, a Medicaid Benefits agent claimed after a phone interview with my mother that as long as the forms were returned by Oct 31st, my mothers Medicaid benefits would continue without any break in coverage.
That agent lied. The forms were returned before Oct 31st with all the same information that my mother had given during the phone interview. The agent then claimed (after I phoned several weeks later to confirm that coverage was continuing as it should) that not all the information was received, AND THAT SHE HAD NOT EVEN GOT AROUND TO REVIEWING THE FORMS YET.
She threatened to send my mother's benefits claim to the fraud dept. The agent never even informed me that all she had to do was send an affidavit to be signed.
Several more weeks go by. Another phone call to the benefits department (this time with the help of a seniors aid group) and it was finally revealed that all my mother needed was to have an affidavit form signed. The form was mailed out, signed and returned.
Several weeks later, still nothing. Another call from Senior Network Services got through, and after a lengthy run-around with another agent, the Medicaid agency finally got around to approving the re-up. Benefits would be retroactive to the date of Oct 31st, the date of continuance.
I have just received a letter from the Social Security Administration, that my mother's Medicare premiums would be retroactively charged back to Nov 1st, and that her Social Security retirement check for January would have the deductions for two months worth of premiums from her already miniscule retirement check. And starting in February her retirement check will have the regular monthly premium for Medicare taken out.
I am outraged
. After two months of argy bargying over a clerical snafu, the Medicaid benefits agent has ****** everything up. Now I will have to contact Social Security (because the local Medicaid agency will likely not bother to deal with it for weeks) and explain that my mother's Medicaid coverage should be retroactively applied and her checks not be debited.
I doubt I will be able to do this until after the New Year, because both the Social Security Department and the Medicaid Department have lovely holidays during which time no business will be conducted.
So that's how it
works in America folks. If you're poor, and some bitchy agent ***** up your paperwork, you're ******.
So xjx388 explain again the wonders of America's ****** up health care packages for the needy. What's that? Charity you say. Bollocks.
GB
