Dear Insurance

Dear Insurance Companies,

I am disabled. What does that mean? That means that the government has ruled me to be too sick to work a job. I have gone through a strict process and filed many, many, many documents and medical files proving my illness. I am dependent on others to care for me and I rely on many different medications to keep me alive. I know I am sick and therefore I carry THREE medical insurance policies.

I am on Medicare. I pay $104 a month for that premium. That’s great and covers most things IF I AM HOSPITALIZED.

I am on Medical Assistance. I make very little monthly via my social security disability check and therefore receive assistance through the state of Minnesota. I pay $57 a month for this and it SHOULD cover everything that Medicare does not…

BUT it doesn’t. So, I pay another $154 a month for HealthPartners additional insurance so that I can see my same doctors and get my medications. BUT YET, I don’t get them.

I am so sick that I cannot take regular medications any more. I need my medications “compounded.” Meaning I need my medications to simply be the actual medicine mixed with sterile water. I cannot take a regular pill because the pill has many different things in it; they call them incipients or fillers and dyes. I am allergic to those and they make me go anaphylactic.

I am on the cusp of being hospitalized and given a PICC line so that I can get my medication given to me via that route but my medical team (of about 10 doctors) wants to try and see if I can stay out of the hospital by using these “compounded” medications.

THE PROBLEM IS: None of my insurance covers them. I am disabled because I am so sick, yet the medications that could keep me out of an incredibly expensive hospital stay are not covered by any of the three insurances that I have.

I have gotten 5 prescriptions this week. All not covered by insurance. Two of them are not even compounded medications! One prescription is lidocane patches because I fell down the stairs and hurt my back but cannot take any sort of pain medicine without dramatic consequence. I am STILL waiting for my insurance to give me those. They would be happy to fill a prescription for narcotic pain pills (in which we have a major epidemic of abuse in our world) but will not cover my lidocane patches! So, I lay here in extreme pain.

The other prescription denied is for my gastrocrom, which prevents the mast cells in my colon from going crazy. This allows me to eat SOME food. I understand that this medication is not the cheapest however, if a doctor deems it medically necessary for a patient to have a medicine how can insurance company decide “NOPE.”

I now will have to pay a crazy additional amount to cover all these medications that if I were able to take the real “pills” would be covered. I do not understand how an insurance company can leave the sickest of the sick out in the rain like this. I do not have a stockpile of cash...I am disabled! I cannot pay $2400+ each month for medications when I am already paying THREE insurance premiums monthly.

I know I am not the only one out in this world that this is happening to and that is

what breaks my heart. It sucks enough that I have to struggle to simply stay alive each day, insurance should not make this even harder. I am exhausted from having to email doctors and try to write appeals. I am tired of having to “try a different medication” that insurance will cover instead, it always leads to anaphylaxis.

I want to give up, but I cant. I just don’t know what to do. So INSURANCE COMPANIES BOO to you. BOO to you ALL for taking all my extra energy today. BOO to you for taking any possible extra spending cash for my month and BOO to you for the credit card debt I will acquire just to try to stay out of the hospital and darnit BOO to you for the pain I am in laying here. The part that is most ridiculous to me is that if I were in the hospital you’d pay the hundreds of thousands and cover all those costs. #frustrated.

Signed painfully,

Elle K.