Fat chance.
Some year-old business in February of 2007 came back to bite me this year. I’d received a letter from Social Security saying my disability benefits totaled $1,025 per month. This perplexed me as I was only collecting (at the time) $461 per month. I called them and they said it was because I was receiving Workman’s Comp benefits.
The pizza shop I was working for at the time, in 2004, was “privately insured” through a company I’ll call GB. Several inquiries were made to get a definitive answer about my benefits through GB - with no response. I contacted a lawyer in February 2007 to look into it. He was satisfied and found I was getting what I was supposed to be getting and that my combined benefits were actually slightly more than I would’ve gotten had I only been on disability alone, because Social Security allows you to make a little over the limit from an outside source without penalizing you. I thanked the attorney for looking into it and forgot it.
In January of 2008, something strange happened. GB sent me checks for $444.34 every two weeks, directly depositing them into my checking account. I got a check the first and third week, and for no apparent reason got one on the fourth week. I didn’t realize it until a couple of weeks later when I checked my online balance against my checkbook. By mid-February I realized I hadn’t gotten a check in over three weeks. Like a fool, I figured they were making up for the check they deposited in error.
I got an unexpected letter from the Ohio Bureau of Workman’s Comp saying my attorney had filed a grievance against GB because they never provided him with the information he needed last year to close his file on me. A week later the Ohio bureau found GB in violation of the guidelines because they’d only responded a week ago (over a year).
By the third week of February of this year, I still hadn’t gotten a check from GB and things were getting very tight, especially since I was uninsured and a month’s worth of Plavix is $157 at Wal-Mart. This brought my monthly prescriptions to $225 a month. I attempted to contact GB and finally got a hold of someone who said she was new and was unfamiliar with my case. She said she’d get back to me, but never did.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Jet in Columbus
I had a good day today for a change, I just got back from Wal-mart and it turns out that they enrolled me in some in-store program and I got $90 worth of prescriptions for $6.50!!
2 - Jet in Columbus
If anyone has had similar experiences and knows a way out of this maze, I'd really appreciate hearing from you
Thanks
Jet
3 - Jet in Columbus
My shrink just yelled at me when I told her I was thinking of hoarding 30mg of Cymbalta and only taking 60, trying to save enough for 15 days in case they cut me off again. Instead she says she'll try to find me some more from drug rep samples.
paranoia can be so fun...
4 - Stevie Wilson
loved the post and I really know what you are going through.
1) you can ask your doctors-- all of them-- to check with the drug companies about programs for people who really have no money to pay for the medication. Each company is different and the request needs to come from an MD but it is taken seriously. (my brother got his Plavix free-- it was 157/month)
2) ask for samples every single time you see the MD and tell them to call the drug rep to request samples and comp stock bottles for a special patient who is on limited funds-- give each MD a list of all your meds, you never know what they have in the sample closet
3) stockpiling is a good idea-- but realize that depending on the medication, it can be a sign that you are getting better or worse depending on the doctor. (a shrink might see it as a sign of potential suicide)
4) contact your local state and national legislators and tell them your plight.
If you don't mind the media coverage, contact your local tv or radio stations about a segment on what people in your circumstances have to do to get by.
good luck!
5 - Jet in Columbus
Thanks Stevie, all good suggestions. one fly in the ointment is having to sign dozens of release forms so that one doctor can share medical records with another. Since I have several of my own personal MDs and GB has many more it's a genuine maze trying to sort out who I should go to for what information.
If you'd like to read what led up to all this, you're welcome to check out my diary blog by clicking here
6 - Jet in Columbus
One of the problems with going public with it Steve is that my attackers were never caught and could come after me, once they know who I am.
7 - Dan Miller
Jet,
Words have long been my passion, professionally and otherwise. Yet, although I want and, indeed need, to say something to you, I don't know how or where to begin.
To say that you humble me is a gross understatement. Please take it as such.
You also inspire me. I have been sitting here feeling sorry for myself and writing more than I should, because I can't walk easily and haven't been able to ride my horses for about a month. There is a very good chance that my problems are ephemeral. You also shame me, for the same reason.
Please, please, continue writing. We have agreed and disagreed on several points; while agreement may boost my ego, I much prefer rational disagreement. That you have provided. I need you, and so do many others.
If I were not an Agnostic, I would wish you Godspeed. I can't do that in good conscience, but can and do wish you the very best.
Dan
8 - Jet in Columbus
Thank you Dan Miller. Please don't belittle your pain to me, for I know it all to well and though it is your's and not mine, I feel for you. You're passion for horses and writing is no less,nor less important than my passions.
You've hit on an aspect of my life almost without knowing it.
Friends.
Over the last four years I've lost all of mine. I've gained a few, but I tend to call them friendly strangers, so we agree on things and send e-mails and smile at eachother a lot, we've never actually never met in person.
One is Dave Nalle, who put up with me when I first found this site in late 2005. Rather than shove me away like an unwanted agravation, he encouraged me to join this little group and begin writing articles. I was a year into this ordeal, and was goiing through (and still am) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, with a deep depression verging on suicide. Dave gave me an avenue to let some of my frustrations out, a long with some science, a few jokes and most of all the commradarie(sic) that this site provides.
A real true friend is Chantal Stone, of whome we don't really hear enough from. She is a perfect stranger that I met on this site. One day she came to my home, to give me a lift to an eye appointment at Ohio State. She waited through the examination period and laughed with me and kept me company, even going into the examination room and sharing my paid when I was told the results, then drove me home and left me with a smile and a small hope things might get better... they didn't but it was a lift I sorely needed.
The reason I've lost all of my friends is because they had to watch from a safe distance as my life litterly flew apart like a soggy doughnut. Each succeeding disaster that they witnessed was something completely out of my control to prevent, and while they hung on, they all understandably caught the "there but for the grace of God, go I" syndrome.
On top of that I gradually became someone completely different from the person they'd befriended.
One of the things that tore me apart was a tradition I'd loved all of my life and was ripped from me... Christmas.
I used to thank "God" or my guardian angel for my good fortunes by leaving annonymous gifts for my neediest friends on their doorstep at 3AM in the morning on Christmas day. A couple of bags of groceries consisting not of candy or cards or treats, but canned hams, soup, a thawed turkey and fixings for christmas dinner, things like that. I was the joy of giving. Actually I was avoiding the sometimes unavoidable suspecion that I must want something in return instead of generousity. Another thing I'd do would be to leave a $100 bill in a card taped to the window of their front door with no signature, or I'd pay whatever they were behind on an electric bill plus enough over so they'd not have to worry about it for a couple of months.
It was the joy of just doing something for someone you care about without wanting a "payback". I'm sure a few probably figured it was me, but we'd never say anything about it. Of all the things that have been ripped away from me, that hurts the worst.
It's human nature to substitute one thing for another when you lose something important to you. It happens to all of us eventually like losing a relative. We hurt and then eventually move on. My ability to move on is slowly leaving me like a hand full of sand-the harder I try to hold it, the more of it that slips through my fingers.
Last year I was late with a credit card payment, the first in 22 years, due to GB cutting me off while they reviewed my case because their caseworker had misplaced some paperwork. Master Card and Visa raised my vinance rates from 7.9 on both cardes to over 33.9 percent and a debt of about twenty grand almost hit 60 grand in less than three months. When I went for help from the Legal Aid Society, they said that their lawyers were no longer helping people with bankruptcies for free because of how the laws had become so complicated during the Bush years favoring the card companies instead of the people who needed help. When they told me I'd have to come up with nearly a thousand dollars in fees and court coststs and "financial counseling" I nearly lost it. Then people like Dave, Chantal,and others not wanting to be named from this very site, contributed almost $800 into a Paypal account so I could set the preliminary legal help I badly needed.
I seems like Kharma alway keeps a balance sheet though as only a couple of months after I was relieved of all that debt, I was and am saddled now with tens of thousands of debt again dure to my two heart episodes.
I owe Blogcritics a lot, and those inidividuals who helped me the most (like my Christmases) don't want to be thanked.
All I can tell you is don't stop hoping, and try not to become so completely different because of your personal criseseseseseses that your friends don't recongnize you. That was my downfall-so learn from it.
I owe a lot of people here. Encouraging notes from Dawn and Eric, heartless but needed and appreciated from people like Mr. Nalle, and even Matt Sussman. Compassion from Ruvy from a third of the way around the world. and so many more. They're all here to make life a little more bearable.
Even Arch Conservative-who gets my dander up with his outrageous viewpoints, but makes my intellectual blood flow instead of lying stagnent feeling sorry for itself.
The big God, who is only noticed when he does something you don't agree with is Christopher Rose.
He is damnable in his habit of always being right... even when you refuse to admit it to yourself. His intelligence at times can be a blow to your ego, but you have to begrudge it too.
I have lost a lot of my faith in God, but as always, I still stop and say a little prayer for those more faithful amonng us who need one, and I'll say one for Dan Miller today.
Be at peace my friend.
This is a little too long to go back and edit, so please forgive my bad eyes and any typos...
Jet
9 - Jet in Columbus
that last comment had lots of typos, sorry gang, I can only read if it's exploded 300percent right now which lets maybe two ro three words on the screen when combined with the magnifyer program.
You know my heart was in it anyway...
10 - Jet in Columbus
Just when I thought I'd done it all, that loud clap of thunder last night was an earthquake about three hundred miles away. fortunately all that we experienced here was a loud rumbling noise.
I'm almost afraid to ask what next?
11 - Jet in Columbus
GB just called, (shock surprise) and they said they're trying to end this part of my ordeal... I'll believe it when I see it.
12 - Jet in Columbus
Sorry Doc, I know I promised you an artilce about my desk, I'm working on it, I promise :)
13 - Dr Dreadful
Working on what? The article, or putting the desk back together again after the earthquake?
:-)
14 - Jet in Columbus
The article about my desk that I'd promised. I'm far enough away from the epicenter that all I hear was a loud roar of what I thought was thunder like a lightening strike that came very close.
Scared the hell out of my cat Mischief though...
15 - Jet in Columbus
Doc, if you'd like to see some of the artwork that I used to do professionally click here and then scroll down to chapter one!
16 - Jet in Columbus
I've finished editing my personal diary blog for 2005-6 and hope to have Chapter 5 reconfigured by the end of the day... thanks for your patients, you can still use the link above in my previous comment to get there.
That way I don't have to leave notes here helter-skelter when someone wants to know how I am...
Jet
17 - Ruvy
Jet,
Even Job got some relief after all the hell he went through....
May G-d watch over you and give you relief from the torment you obviously suffer. May He bring you healing from the illnesses you've been stricken with. I can't send you money to help you. I don't have any to send. But I can at least send prayers on your behalf....
18 - Jet in Columbus
Thank you Ruvy, my friend. I'm proof positive that God exists, if he didn't I'd be dead by now by my own hand.
Today I'm going in for another eye exam at Ohio State. The unfortunate problem is they have to see into my eyes in order to ascertain how to fix them, which is inpossible until the blood clears up.
I've got five chapters on my person blog that I've worked on as sort of therapy.
19 - Jet in Columbus
I've been going back through the personal journals that my shrink has made me right in the last 4 years and culled details that even I've mercifully forgotten. That's why I've spent so much time editing and posting that las few days, and is the reason I posted this article.
Who knows, maybe after I finally give up, they'll make a movie of it and somebody else will become a millionaire on my story.
What's that quote?
"Someday, you'll tell my story to the world... and when you do......... be kind?
20 - Jet in Columbus
If you'd like to know what an external fixator sticking out of your foot looks like click on the link in comment 5 and scroll down to chapter 4... I just posted it.
21 - Jet in Columbus
Just when I thought nothing else could go wrong... I got a bill from the Columbus Fire Department to transporting me to the Hospital 7 and3 months ago.
$735 each.
It's unreal, I keep wondering "what next???"
Mayber I'm jinxing myself?
22 - Jet in Columbus
I just got home from the cardiolgist. I have a dead chamber in my heart, and apparently that silent heart attack I had was from a clot that hit the artery feeding that part of my heart.
He said there's nothing that can be done, and that I'll need to have a defibulater installed withing three months to a year. He wants me to put off any operations on my eyes or leg for that long.
I don't know how much more I can take.
I've been working on revamping my blog site on the above URL. I've found a lot of journals on my computer that I'd forgotten that I had, so I'm working from the most recent back, because the latest entries are always on top, and rather than make everyone read them from bottom to top, I'm doing it in reverse order the latest to the oldest news.
Crushed, disapointed, helpless, and there's not a damned thing they can do for me. the chamber is dead cells and the only thing they can do is try to keep me alive with an appliance incase my heart starts fibulating.
Honestly, I don't know how it is that I'm still standing, and I'm beginning to wonder how much longer I will be...
Don't worry, I'm too much of a coward to do that...
23 - Jet in Columbus
Doc D, since I'm still working on the article about my desk, I posted a photo of it on my blog in the 2007 chapter near the bottom. Just click my URL above...
soon... I promise
24 - Jet in Columbus
My Doctor just called to say he's taking me off of Coumadin-Damn no more rat poison?
25 - Dr Dreadful
Looks pretty nice, Jet. Did you squish the photo a bit to fit it on your blog? Everything looks a bit narrow...