A Pre-Existing Condition

I hate medical insurance.

Don't get me wrong, I like having medical insurance, I just hate dealing with it. Recently I had to change insurance plans and switch to my hubby's plan. This happened to coincide with my last day of work though it didn't actually have anything to do with my job (other than my not having an employer's plan to switch to), it had to do with my extended student benefits ending. Since I'm getting ready to pop a kid out any day now it's kind of important that I have medical insurance when that happens. I've dealt with changing plans before so I worked with hubby and got him (and his HR person) the necessary paperwork to prove I was losing coverage on my existing plan, otherwise known in the medical insurance world as a qualifying event. In another twist of coincidence the timing coincided with hubby's plan's open enrollment period, but the qualifying event ensured that didn't matter and I could go on it regardless of the plan's regularly scheduled enrollment period.

The other thing tied to a qualifying event is continuous coverage, which is required to keep new insurance plans from slapping a "pre-existing condition waiting period" on you. In case you hadn't heard pregnancy is a pre-existing condition from an insurance company's point-of-view, and taking on a new member and immediately having to pay for a delivery isn't something insurance companies particularly want to do. I knew this and tried VERY HARD to supply the paperwork to hubby's HR person to make sure the pre-existing condition period would get waived... And sure enough today we received a letter from the insurance company saying based on their records I have a one-year waiting period for pre-existing conditions. SIGH. Hubby talked to his HR person and it appears somehow somewhere lines got crossed and the paperwork he gave her was just to get me on the plan, now we have to submit separate paperwork to the insurance company to deal with the pre-existing condition mess. Thankfully I know enough about medical insurance to keep any piece of paper I ever receive that says "Certificate of Insurance" on it, so I put everything together and tomorrow proof that I've had continuous coverage for the past 3 years will be going out in the mail. (Technically I only need to prove continuous coverage for 1 year but I'm going for overkill just because.) Even though we're dealing with it, based on the timing of everything I'd bet you real money that the paperwork won't be processed in time (since insurance companies aren't exactly known for lightning fast reflexes when it comes to processing paperwork), claims will be denied and we'll have to call everyone everywhere and tell them to resubmit claims and process everything again. I can't wait.