And now for the health insurance piece: Let the games begin

    The medical files have arrived at the Really Famous Hospital, according to the FedEx website and my handy tracking number, but they haven't yet made it to the right desk, Dr. God's assistant tells me.  The mail clerk must still be out for a smoke.

    That doesn't mean that I've been obsessing about this delivery all day.  Oh no, I now have a whole new topic to fuss about: the health insurance authorization.

    I can't be the only person who's noticed that all the ads for health insurance portray people who look like they would never possibly need anything in the way of medical care, not even a teensy bit of antibiotic on a bandaid.  If you've forgotten the look of these ads, check out the pix here and here.  See what I mean?   The message here is that if you just buy this insurance, you'll never, ever get sick!  You'll be just like all these perky folks! 
   Sort of like the life insurance ads making you think that their policies buy you a free pass on the whole mortality thing.  
    Right.  
    Well, now that we're actually really using our health insurance, or trying to, I'm not feeling all that perky about it. 

    I knew our adventures were beginning last week, when the assistants of all three of our doctors (the PCP, the local neurosurgeon, and Dr. God) said that it had to be one of the other offices who was responsible for initiating the authorization.

   One person even suggested that I was the person who should do this.  Sure, why not??

Me: Hi, is this a representative from the Incredibly Large Insurance Company?

The ILIC Rep: Yes, it is.  How may I help you today?

Me: I'd like to order a few rounds of that Proton Beam Therapy stuff.

The ILIC Rep: A few rounds it is, ma'am.  I can supersize this for only $50k more, interested??

   Yeah, somehow don't think this is how it should go.  So I called up the Incredibly Large Insurance Company (ILIC) today on the phone, just to see how things are coming along, authorization-wise.  This is all sort of critical, since (1) we don't have any proton beam machines in our entire state, let alone in our insurance network, and (2) paying out of network costs would require me getting a second job.  As a bank robber.  Or maybe I could start my own Ponzi scheme...if Bernie could do it....

   But, no, I'd suck at a life of crime.  Knowing this, I turned to those ILIC reps.  I ended up speaking to two of them today, who BOTH assured me that the authorization process had been appropriately initiated and, no, there wasn't a single additional piece of information needed.

    However, when I got home--you guessed it--there was a fat envelope from my disgruntled-sounding insurance company, detailing at great length and in incomprehensible, bureaucratic prose all the other medical stuff that needs to be sent in before they'll consider the case.

    Maybe I should start thinking about the whole Ponzi thing...........