My insurance company is trying to drive me insane.

Oh wait...I already am insane. Which is sort of the point. You see, we're lucky enough to have some halfway decent coverage of mental health, at least in theory. But since Dr. C and Dr. P are both out-of-network (and who can blame them), we need to pay them directly, then submit for reimbursement to the insurance company.

This process used to go like this: I would print out and spend 30 seconds filling out a form, make copies of the form and our receipts, and drop them in the mail. Then within a fairly short period of time, CIGNA would send us a check for some portion of the bill (usually around 50%). No problem, other than me always losing the stamps and having to dig for them.

At the beginning of this year, we switched from a PPO plan to a POS plan. (I can't be the only person who reads that as "piece of shit plan", can I?) In February or so, I collected some receipts from the end of last year and the beginning of this year, and sent them in as usual. After a few months, I got a weird Explanation of Benefits (EOB), called CIGNA, and learned that now that we were in the POS, we had to send everything to a behavioral health section, rather than the main CIGNA office. No problem. She transferred over the one or or two receipts, while I sent in a bunch more.

Then we got an EOB saying that the POS people had sent the bills back to PPO because they thought we were in the PPO. ::sigh:: I called and had the bills sent back to the POS side.

Last night we opened up an EOB saying they've been sent back to PPO for processing. I'm considering ritual suicide on their front lawn. ::headdesk::

And considering that I've got another stack of receipts I'm not sending in until this gets sorted out, we're probably talking upwards of $1000 at this point. (Hmm, maybe not quite. But it's probably at least $800 that they owe us. Could be more, though.) Hey, when you've got two crazy people in the house, the bills add up.

Dan DiDio, that [many many expletives deleted] has cancelled Blue Beetle! Seriously, with Robin, Nightwing and Blue Beetle gone, I'm not sure I have a reason to drag my butt to the comic store anymore. I suppose I might go occasionally to pick up Tiny Titans for Yael (if the [expletives deleted] can manage to avoid cancelling that, too) but really, why else should I bother?

BRING ME THE HEAD OF DAN DIDIO! ON A PLATTER! PREFERABLY WITH AN APPLE STUFFED IN HIS MOUTH, THE PIG!

He's just cancelled the best book--bar none--that DC is publishing now, and I would be willing to argue it's the best book DC has published in a number of years. A book with great characters of color, great female characters, humor, drama, interesting plots...but hey, it doesn't have Batman in it, so obviously it'll never sell enough to keep publishing. ::eyeroll::

(I like that Newsarama calls him on the fact that with the cancellation of Birds of Prey, Manhunter, and Blue Beetle, the DC line is going back to mostly WASPy men. Go, Newsarama!)

My already crappy mood has just dipped even further. Oh. Yay.

Seriously, people, I'm so mad that I'm actually shaking slightly. Some of you might remember my previous experiences with the hospital repeatedly billing us for charges we do not owe? Y'know, because 3 1/2 years after Yael was born, they still can't bill the correct insurance company?

Yup, you guessed it, we just got another bill today. Well, not so much a bill as a letter from a collection agency. Yes, due to their incompetence, they've sent this fraudulent claim to collections for the second time. THE SECOND TIME. Last time we sent a firm but polite letter with all the relevant information to the collection agency and that was the end of that...y'know for 2 1/2 years.

You might be wondering why I'm so sure I do not owe this money. Well, to begin with, there's the fact that they've been billing my secondary insurance rather than my primary insurance. (At the time Yael was born, I had insurance through my job as well as Avi's. Part of the reason we did that was--wait for it--so that we could be sure all our bills would be covered. Hah!) Also, there's the fact that at the time, we specifically checked my primary insurance and it covered hospitalization at 100%. So if they had billed the right insurance company we wouldn't owe any money.

Of course, since that was 3 1/2 years ago, I no longer have the paperwork from that insurance company. Heck, I don't even have my insurance card anymore. We've been through two or three insurance companies since then.

If I had to take a guess, I would say that I have calledl the hospital with the correct insurance information four or five times, I have faxed it twice, and I have sent it by registered mail once. Possibly more than that, but that's the minimum.

Best part? This is the hospital the new kid's going to be born at. Whee? I guess that means it might be a bad idea to sue them for harassment.

::more screams of inarticulate rage::

People, I'm PREGNANT. If I'm poked and prodded too many times, I'm going to drive over the hospital and strangle their accounts receivable person and NO JURY OF MY PREGNANT PEERS WOULD CONVICT.