Saturday, November 14, 2009

Medi-Cal! Finally! It's a Miracle!

I am so incredibly thrilled right now. On Thursday we had yet another intake application meeting with a social worker for Medi-CAl. This time the social worker was the one that Paul is friends with and she's very nice. She was great with the application, and the meeting went pretty quickly since they already had copies of pretty much every singe document that we have from the last two times around and everything was done in about forty five minutes. We thanked her for all of her help (especially for being so nice and helpful!) and went home to wait for the state to process the application. I was cautiously optimistic.

The RN at the health department had told me that it should only take about ten days, now that I'm pregnant, but I have to say that after 16 months of waiting, I was more than a tad bit skeptical. To be honest I was prepared for yet another disaster. I've gotten to the point where, no matter how good something looks when the paper work is being submitted, there's still a chance a number of things are going to go wrong. I think the comment a man who was in front of us on Thursday made, sums it up nicely.

He was a big grizzled mountain man who, if I had to guess, is probably a gold prospector from downriver. He had the accent quite a few people still have around this area, that sounded like he'd just stepped out of an old western. He'd just finished saying "ma'am could you give me that other form please" and he turned, looked at us and said "'cuz they'll screw you if they get the chance" before turning back around and saying "thank you kindly ma'am."

So you never know if you've really jumped through all the loops or if you've just forgot to dot an i or cross a t and its' going to come back to haunt you after hours of paper work and weeks of waiting.

Still, Paul's social worker friend, really seemed to want to help us, which was the first time we'd encountered that in the Health and Human Services office. I tried not to get to excited, but I felt like a weight had been lifted when we left the meeting with her.

Today (a mere two days later) when I went to the post office I saw two forms from Health and Human Services. I got a sick feeling in my stomach (which is pretty much standard these days with the morning sickness) and told myself that it was probably another rejection from our last application. After all, whenever the state sends us anything it seems to be in triplicate. We had received a rejection yesterday that said that while our income was under the requirement, the number of hours Paul worked was too much for a married couple (which just doesn't make any logical sense). That means that we could work less and make more and we would qualify, but because he works longer for less money, we didn't. However the hours have changed since the store changed over to CVS and now we qualify, even under the stupid state rules.

And that is what the letter said! All three of us now have full coverage! If I hadn't been in the car I would have jumped up and down and danced! It only took one day for the application to go through and one day for the acceptance letter to get here!

Thanks to everyone for the prayers! This is such a relief at the start of the pregnancy. My OB takes Medi-Cal, so I'll actually get to go to my own doctor. What a blessing!

6 comments:

  1. I'm so happy and relieved for you. Wonderful news. Evidently there still is the occasional competent and caring civil servant! So glad all finally worked out.

    Marie

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  2. Thanks Marie! I've been smiling all day!

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  3. God is so awesome! I am so happy for you and your family!

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  4. Thanks be to God for answered prayers. :) I'm relieved and very happy for you all.

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  5. After all that work and waiting...well done!

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  6. Very good! I am glad to read that it is finally settled!

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