Friday, November 12, 2010

One of many blessings

1. I've been hesitant to post this because I'm afraid people will not understand what I am writing here. We have been very blessed through this experience. Please DO NOT send us money after reading this post.
2. There are many many stories I could tell about how God was with us through the whole experience of Ram's surgery. God truly worked out every detail-even working out details that I had not thought of. I do plan to eventually post many of the blessings because it was so amazing to me that I want to share. I haven't quite worked out what to call these posts. I haven't made a list of these blessings yet. #3 was so amazing that I had to share it now.
3. First, I want to explain that Ram had lots of expensive medical tests done this summer before they found the tumor. He had a physical in June that started the process. We lost count of how many blood tests they did and they were not just routine blood tests. He saw 2 different specialists plus his regular doctor multiple times. He had a bone marrow biopsy. He had a colonoscopy and endoscopy. He had 2 CT scans. All of that was before he went to Mayo.
We chose to have the church move us from plan B to plan C insurance last year. We figured we were relatively healthy so it would save the church money to be on plan C. We had no idea when we made that decision that Ram would need major surgery. So copayments and medical bills are up from what we would have on plan B.
We had received bills for the first CT scan Ram had and the insurance statements matched up. God has provided for our medical bills so I wasn't worried, but I expected to see bills for his second CT scan that were equal to the first CT scan.  He also saw a specialist that day that he had a second CT scan. So I was expecting to receive a bill for the specialist visit that day plus several bills for the second CT scan.
Last week we received a bill for the second CT scan plus the specialist he saw that day. I am amazed that the bill was for $25 copayment to see the specialist plus ZERO for the CT scan. This total bill was over $5000. After insurance we owe just $25. Now I know that there will probably be more than one bill for each CT scan. I know that insurance has not sent us a statement to verify this. But receiving a bill means more than a statement to me. It is AMAZING to me that our insurance paid almost $5000 for this day.
Thank you Jesus, that we received a paid in full bill for an expensive test before he got to Mayo.

2 comments:

Sue said...

What a blessing! I understand what you're talking out. My younger son was treated for cancer as a toddler. Once he was in a treatment routine - one week chemo, 3 weeks off - our share was $2.10 after treatment. The bulk of the costs were covered by insurance. We met many parents who had little or no insurance. And best of all, Jacob recovered and is now 28 years old! God is SO good!

Dakotapam said...

In my experience with our insurance if you just go in for a CT scan, then you pay the big co-insurance. however, if the CT scan is PART of an office visit, it is usually covered under the co-pay of the office visit. For instance, if you have a mole removed in the dr. office=co-pay. Go to outpatient surgery to have same mole removed= deductable + coinsurance.

I am so glad that we do have such good insurance that does cover so much. The babies were expensive (about $4000 out of pocket, partially because I went into labor and had an overnight stay in 2009, and then delivered the girls 2.5 weeks later in 2010, plus Emily had a very expensive NICU stay, she was about $20,000 for her five days!)

I pray that Ram is feeling stronger every day!

I need to get to work to get you guys to North Dakota!