doodledee

Here's a funny story about a topic I know basically nothing about: health insurance. Ok, to be fair, I know *something* about it, but I'm going to pretend I don't because a) whenever I get insurance stuff in the mail – be it claims information, benefits explanations, or even just a newsletter – it rarely makes any sense and b) everyone else on the planet seems to understand the nuances of health insurance to the point that many of the actually have a plan to 'fix' it. Kudos to them. I didn't even know it was broken. Just kidding, I totally did.

So anyway, one of the things I know a little bit about is Health Savings Accounts. In a nutshell, you put some money in a lockbox and you can spend it on healthcare when you need it. After you spend a certain amount, your insurance covers the rest. One of the oft talked-up benefits of HSA's is the theory that if The Individual is in control of their health care dollars, The Individual will make better decisions about how they consume health care. Maybe they'll take the generic drug or maybe they'll skip the ER in favor of urgent care or maybe they'll never visit the dentist. Ideally all this empowerment will drive competition, which in turn will drive lower prices, which in turn will mean Adam Smith will get to throw another of his kick ass 'Told Ya So' parties on his 50-foot yacht, 'The Capitalist's Tool'.

I don't have an HSA at work, but I do have a flexible-spending account. (They're not exactly the same, but their similar enough for purposes of this story.) Historically I haven't poured money into my FSA because we had such bitchin' insurance, but this fall my employer decided it was time for new insurance, and the new plan has, "different" coverage than the old plan. Translation: I was going to need to fund my FSA "differently" than before.

The Mrs. being pregnant is obviously our biggest medical expense for the rest of the year, so I dug through all the 'participant's responsibility' documentation to try and figure out how much we'll be on the hook for after the delivery. It's all in percentages, natch, so I talk to my new provider and ask "how much should I plan on putting aside?" and they [smartly] reply, "it depends on how much the doctor charges, call them and ask", and I say "duh".

So I figure, hey, no problem, I'll just call the doctor and ask how much it'll be. I say no problem because I assumed all the HSA early birds would have blazed a trail to the hospital doors, and all I'd have to do is knock and ask politely for my up-front pricing. And then leave a flaming bag of Scrubs DVD's on their front porch. Genius.

Long story short – and needless to say, brace yourself - the trail had not been blazed. (They probably stopped to hunt for food too many times.) Sequence: we called our doctor, she said to call billing; we call billing, they say to call coding; we call coding, they say they can give partial estimate, but that other departments had to be called for other prices. They offered long explanations on how the hospital 'works', which I suppose was kind of interesting, but didn't really matter to me, I just wanted to know how much it was going to cost. After like 7 more calls, including a classic run around and a 'please hold' that lasted for more than an hour I shit you not, we still don't have a full estimate of how much it's going to cost. But we think we're close enough, so we're done calling.

The lesson in all this? There really isn't one. But that doesn't mean I wasn't surprised by the difficulty encountered. I know I shouldn't have been, but I still was. Funny how that works.