Victory!

I am now registered as an insured Mama at the North Austin Medical Center where Matt and I (mostly I) have been planning on delivering the baby since we started seeing Dr. Neyman earlier this year.

Just in case you haven't been privy to all the gory details, the quick version: the little one and I got approved for a type of state health insurance called CHIP Perinatal, which is a relatively new program here designed for women who do not qualify for Medicaid because of their income or immigration status. It covers mothers in certain income categories (like mine and Matt's) via their unborn children with prenatal care, labor and delivery, and a year of insurance for the child. I was initially very excited to be covered by this program, until I started talking to people at my doctor's office and the hospital and realized that no one would admit to knowing anything about the program and how it works. The hospital was insisting that they would register me as uninsured and have me apply for another form of emergency state aid, literally from my hospital bed. I've spent so much time trying to solve this problem of not having health insurance one way or another - as has Matt, and many of our extended family members - that imagining that scene taking place around our new family just got me completely pissed and highly motivated.

After making a few polite inquiries with various Hospital and HHSC departments, I decided to abandon the usual methods, and I started researching St. David's Healthcare, the company that owns the hospital where I'll deliver. I got the names of the CEO and CFO of the company, as well as names of people at the heads of various departments that seemed relevant, and I used my knowledge of the company's standard email format (firstname.lastname@stdavids.com), to email nine executives on Thursday with a concise, well-written request that the situation be looked into. I said I felt confident that the situation could be resolved once the right staff members had the right information. Four of the emails bounced back, but five made it through to various execs, and within three hours, my "case" had been escalated to the head of the PreAdmissions Department. By Monday morning, I had received an email directly from the CEO, who had copied the staff member he wanted to take care of the situation. Half an hour after receiving that email, I got a call from the PreAdmissions department informing me that the situation had miraculously been resolved. They admitted that I was indeed covered and would be registered as such. The woman I spoke with also said that "I had opened a lot of doors for them" and that there's a much better understanding now of how the program I have works.

Which, honestly, is kind of lame. I'm ecstatic about the fact that they resolved the problem, but it's their job to do that, and no one would take 10 minutes to read the policy and/or call the HMO that manages the health plan until I started to cause a little trouble. It took me less than an hour to get all the information I needed about the program's coverage policies, because it's all on the HHSC's website, plain as day. I hope that the ruckus raising I did at the executive level will prevent less savvy women on this plan from having to be jerked around like I was, but it should never have been my responsibility. When a new public healthcare program is created, relevant hospital staff should be trained on how it works. It's frustrating to know that the majority of women and children qualifying for this program are most likely less educated, less confident, and less proficient in English than myself, and have probably suffered needlessly because of it or potentially even denied benefits they're entitled to.

I'm incredibly relieved that this battle is over, and that I won. I feel like I can spend the next month taking care of the fun stuff now, like what color fuzzi bunz to buy and where to hang mobiles and learning how to install a car seat, and buying as much awesomely unnecessary stuff as I can at the Mommy and Me Consignment Sale in a couple of weeks. Not to mention choosing a middle name for this little squirmer. But I doubt I'll forget how intensely annoying and wrong this process has been for me, and I would not be surprised if it planted the seed for some future career in health care reform. If there is such a thing . . . if not, I may have to use my recent experience helping start up the nonprofit writing center to create that career. I suppose it's largely because I'm pregnant and nothing feels more essential to me right now than the well-being of my family, but our health care system is so broken and so pathetic, and I feel like nothing is more important in this country at this point in time than fixing our crumbling systems - systems that - with our ridiculous amount of resources - should be among the best in the world and should be able to support the health and wellbeing of everyone who lives here with ease. I hope to see big changes in my lifetime, and I do hope to be a part of those changes in one way or another.