Day 35: Administrative Details

Good news! I now have to go to a "date calculator" website to find out how many days its been since my surgery. It seems like it was so long ago,  but really it's just almost 5 weeks.

The incision site is still open, and after some (careful) further inspection last night involving a chopstick and a flashlight, it is really open. Like, I can definitely see the plate with my inexperienced eye. Then it made me a little sick to my stomach, so I stopped looking, but it's good to know what I'm dealing with. I want to hope for the best, especially with my (heretofore) miraculous powers of healing, but practically, I can feel the plate in my jaw constantly on the left and I can't feel it at all on the right, so I'm thinking it's going to have to come out.

The good news is that I had previously believed that my health insurance plan, which is through a school district, ran September-September, and since my surgery was in August, I maxed out my deductible for that year, but then I started over in September. Imagine my surprise when my insurance copayment (usually around $40-$50 - I have a HDHP) was 0$! I emailed the BCBSTX people to make sure, and the year is January-January! Yay! So if Dr. Voorhees does have to go back in and fix something, hopefully a lot of it will be covered.

I've started receiving EOBs (explanations of benefits for those not in the very fortunate crowd of having to deal with health insurance on a sometimes daily basis...) for all the surgery stuff. At first, when they told me they'd be paying for only 1.7% of the surgeon's fees, I kind of threw a fit and said "I don't care, I'm sick of dealing with it, I'm not going to do it, I'm not. I'm just not." Jared, in his infinite patience, responded "You don't have to deal with it now, give yourself a week or two, but then you need to call, you know that, right?" Me: "Hmph"

So, I wrote it in my planner for today last week, and actually followed through, so today I called & got everything as fixed up as it can be, so now they're paying 11% of the fees, and he still has to correct the assistant surgeon's fees, which he'll do Wednesday (apparently, there's a 5 day waiting period), so there might even be a little bit more coming my way. Like I said, once everything is nice and settled in my banking account, I'll post a full disclosure of the fees, and a little commentary to go with, which I know everyone always loves. Right now, not including the braces, it's about half and half what the insurance paid and what we're paying. I'm pretty happy with that, considering we decided to go out of network.

No pics from 9/16, here's one from 9/29

I guess I'll go ahead and clear that up now, too. It's costing a significant amount more to go out of network with Dr. Voorhees (even though we got an in-network exception, we still have to pay the difference between the "allowable amount" from BCBS and what Dr. Voorhees charges), but Jared & I talked about it and we both came to the conclusion that we liked Dr. Voorhees and his staff so much that we would continue with him. When somebody is cutting open your face, it's important that you not only trust them, but that you are comfortable being around them. Especially for me. For sure there are different doctor styles, and these fit different patients differently, and Dr. Voorhees is just an excellent fit for me. Plus, he's been practicing at this office since Jared was born, so that's some good experience! And even the surgery techs and medical assistants are all super friendly and helpful, and even nice about helping to calm me down if I start to get a little freaked out.

Normally, Jared & I don't "upgrade" because we're usually fine with the bare bones option. We even have pay by the minute/text phone plans (old school). But, we decided to do go all out on this, and we did the same thing with Jared's LASIK - what could be important than your health and comfort?

So, moving right along with the progress. I see my orthodontist tomorrow, and I'm sure I'll have a small update after that.