Wednesday, July 13, 2011

I have a full time job

Jeremy teases me all the time about getting a job.

I work part time for my father (he is a consultant now in his own business since the EPA).  I volunteer/work for the church coordinating the nursery.  I volunteer at the boys' school.  I hope/plan to work on the accessible park project (which is on the back burner with the county) for which I am the co-founder/director.

I am a mom to three boys.  Three busy boys.  Carter and Luke have camps, sports, activities...
Brayden has doctors, therapies, appointments, too many unexpected medical problems, etc...

But what feel like my full time job some days is managing Brayden's life.  I sat in the study one morning this week to go through the paper work, just a few months of it, for four hours straight.  We get something in the mail from his insurance about every detail, every day..."Explanation of benefits" or "Approvals" for nursing hours, medical supplies, feeding supplies, medications, doctor appt, labwork, hospital, therapy, etc.  Everything comes with paperwork.  Then we also get paperwork for each thing from the supplemental insurance too.  Each item gets its own paperwork.  Do you have any idea how much paper that is in one month?
Then we have the delivered medical supplies.  I have to call and order them but not all at the same time because insurance cannot process it all at the same time.  Once the supplies are delivered we have more papers in the boxes.  More often than not the deliveries are messed up/incomplete and spend more time on the phone trying to fix it and get the correct supplies in a timely manner.  We also get diapers through another medical supply company so more time on the phone with them too.

Then the doctors. labs and hospitals.  Coordinating the appointments can bring on a headache...just call the Children's line for kicks, see how that goes...making appointments is usually torture and requires more patience than I usually have.  I have to check in with a couple of Brayden's doctors by email/phone once a month, too.  Then the paperwork for the doctor and hospitals.  We have had the same two insurances for Brayden for sometime now, yet still we get billed all the time.  Either it is not processed through the primary insurance correctly or not sent to the secondary insurance. We get the bills, I have to call billing and explain it all again, then call insurance to make sure it gets processed properly.  This happens ALL the time.

Medications, I run back and forth to the pharmacy usually 4x a month.  Calling in the medications becomes a pain.  I am tired of listening to the automated system...I do this 8x a month.  Sometimes medications have problems being processed through both insurances...more phone calls.

Then we have meetings with Brayden's case worker, service coordinator, school, nursing agency...

It feels like it is never ending and I am never caught up.  It is a full-time job.  I need a cool job title.  Although I do like being called Brayden's mom (and Carter and Luke's too).

4 comments:

Searching for Grace said...

You just explained my monthly routines!!! It IS a full time job!! The medical equipment is the hardest for us. :( Thanks for the post!!! Its nice to hear I am not the only that feels this way!!!!

~~~Super Mom~~~ award to you!!!

Debbie said...

no need to explain the details of your very full time job to me...I totally get it!!!!!!!

You carry full time/24/7 job...but they're worth it!

kirstenpetree said...

It's Definitely a full time job!!

Wherever HE Leads We'll Go said...

I can definitely relate to this post. The paperwork and phone calls are enough to make me crazy sometimes!