I am not going to write about how freaking cold it is, not because I don’t think it’s noteworthy, but because the only sentiments I’m capable of are “Duuuuuuude! It is SOOOO COLD! Oh my god! SOOOOOOO COLD!” The descriptive portion of my brain has been closed due to extreme conditions. I hope you understand.
Instead of inarticulate moaning about the weather, I will bring you further tales of insurance skeeziness. First, some history. I’ll warn you now, if you don’t like lady parts, avert your eyes. Still there? Then here goes.
I have one ongoing medical problem, if you can call it that. When I was 17, I found a lump in my breast. I went to the doctor who said it was probably a fibroadenoma, which is totally harmless, but that it should be removed. It was removed, biopsied, found to be a fibroadenoma and thus totally benign. End of story.
Except that about three years ago, I found another one. I went back to the doctor (a different doctor, who I must say, thought it was weird that the first doctor had me get the first fibroadenoma removed). She had me get an ultrasound, then another in six months, and another six months after that. No change, so no problem.
Cut to this month, when I applied for individual health insurance. Yesterday, I got a call from the company saying that there was “missing information”. They then proceeded to ask me, in about 10 different ways, “Hey, what’s up with your boobs?” Specifically, I was asked at least twice, though in different ways, whether I had actually been told I needed no ongoing treatment. I was asked whether I had ever been biopsied. I had to explain the situation twice. And finally, I was asked the question that scares me: “Do you currently have a lump in your breast?” It isn’t the lump that’s scary. Quite the contrary, it’s the fact that I know the lump is harmless, but that the only answer to that question is yes, and I have no idea what the implications to that are, premium-wise.
The really frustrating thing is that I did not share one thing with the woman on the phone that I hadn’t already written on the application. The scary question was there in black and white, and I already answered it with the scary true answer. And, as I shared with you before, they have access to a document with my entire medical history, which I'm sure contains the same information in convenient doctor-speak.
It upsets me because I think it’s pretty clear they were hoping to catch me. I am relatively well-spoken, completely understand the scope of my condition, and am less scared of the insurance company and its minions than pissed off by them. But if I weren’t as well-spoken, or had a doctor who didn’t explain things well, or didn’t react to anything out of the ordinary by reading every article ever posted to the internet about it, I might have said something, on the record, that could have been used against me. I get that they want to make sure that I don’t have cancer. (Because clearly, a cancer patient doesn’t deserve insurance. Helping people who need it is no way to run a business.) But it seems to me that they also want to make sure that they don't miss an opportunity to squeeze extra money out of me every month.
Maybe I'm getting paranoid. Maybe the cold is getting to me. Maybe it's the effort not to insert "lovely" or "lady" (or both!) in front of the many tempting occurrences of "lump" in this post. But I feel more and more like I'm fighting a losing battle here. It's enough to make a girl move her family to Canada.
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