Alternately, I would look into schools or instructional programs- is there a pathology school nearby? Ask around, ask your doctor, ask a doc in a box. Often you can get ‘a la carte’ services. BUT if you get something biopsied, there’s a problem, and THEN you end up w/ insurance they might not cover it (preexisting condition). Not sure where you are located, but there are also state programs for insurance that will insure adults sometimes.

My husband’s company was bought out by another organization. We are legally common-law, with a registration paper to prove it. The company that bought his group out is based in another state that doesn’t recognize common-law marriages, registered or not. Oddly, they DO recognize same-sex marriages, just not opposite-sex common-law. Thus, they dropped my insurance coverage, the coverage that I have had for years. They also threatened to charge my husband with “insurance fraud”, even though the previous company accepted our documents, and the insurance company approved us.

Long story short: I had been unable to afford my own insurance. My job didn’t offer any. I tried to apply for Medicaid, but didn’t qualify because our income was too much. I didn’t even qualify for the county “charity” plan.

Then hubby lost his job, and got COBRA coverage for 30 months. The employer is covering a large chunk of that. He’s covered, and all is well for him. Shortly after that, my boss committed suicide and I am out of work. Still, I didn’t qualify for Medicaid. Now I can’t even dream of affording any insurance and having been uninsured now for over 2 years, it will be nearly impossible to get affordable coverage. Even if I could afford the couple of hundred a month for insurance– the deductibles on those plans are as high as $10,000 for a single person! What’s the point?

So here I am, unable to afford insurance and I can’t seem to qualify for Medicaid because I have no children under 21 in my home. I guess I was dumb for having a hysterectomy; if I’d been spraying out kids like some skanky lawn sprinkler– no sweat, I’d be in like Flynn. But when my uterus got ripped out, my meal ticket went with it, I suppose.

Any ideas on how I can afford to get these lymph nodes biopsied?

I don’t think it’s snobbery to be able to visit a qualified care provider – on Medicaid, I can’t even see a doctor without the nurse practitioner giving me the OK, and it was hard to get an appt. with her. Do you think we should have two systems – private insurance providing top-quality care, and Medicaid providing substandard care?

When we had a PPO, we tried a doctor and he was definitely NOT a good fit. So I chose another doctor, whom we love. She really goes the extra mile for us (unfortunately, she doesn’t take Medicaid, so we can’t go to her now.) If we had single payer – and indeed, on Medicaid – it’s a very long process to change docs. I picked a doc out of their book who won’t see us, and I can’t even pick a new one for 45 days because the paperwork hasn’t been processed so there’s no way to change it! Fortunately, because the paperwork hasn’t been processed, I can go to a THSteps doc and don’t have to see my PCP (yet).

What is your husband’s specialty? The best doc I ever had was military trained, then went into family practice. (He also went to our church, we loved him!)

I also prefer American trained doctors. The regulation in medical college means that any American trained doctor is pretty darned good, there isn’t a big range between a Harvard trained grad and one from a 2nd tier school. That isn’t the case in other countries. To add to this we are currently undergoing an outsourcing shift in medicine. Radiology is one of the first specialties that sends a great deal of their work to India via email and Pathology is likely to be next. I don’t want my films or smears sent overseas, but to save money the big hospital systems are doing this.

I also agree that the costs to pay out of pocket are now out of control. A standard well baby check now costs over $300. I wish we could pay for health insurance in the same way we do auto insurance- all on an individual basis rather than it being through an employer. Tort reform and being able to buy out of state unsurance would reduce costs significantly. I feel for everyone who is stuck in this mess, but single payer is not the solution and Obamacare which wants to deny treatment for many to save money is certainly not the answer either.

I still prefer my doctors to be educated in a first world (is that the right word) country.

People want to blame doctors, insurance companies, and hospitals for everything that goes wrong, but curiously they don’t want to do without that doctor, insurance, or hospital when they get sick or injured. I’m NOT in favor of Obamacare or Medicare/Medicaid and have worked hard to get it defeated, but I’m a little tired of the indiscriminate trashing of all medical professionals.

I HATED the referral thing. I had an infection while pregnant with Miss C. My OB/GYN wouldn’t treat it, referred me to the internist. The internist wouldn’t treat it because I was pregnant, referred me to the OB/GYN. Finally, the OB called the internist, consulted, and got the internist to call in a prescription to the in-house pharmacy. Really? For a simple antibiotic? But the OB only did OB stuff and it was a UTI.

It was, in no uncertain terms, an unmitigated disaster that took lawyers to resolve.

And, this was an HMO through the ex’s employer.

The day they finally chucked that entire health care plan was one of the happiest days of my medical life. Really. HMO’s suck. Period. Government run or not. Of course, the government adds to the mess, but even without their hands in the pot, HMO’s need to be eliminated from existence.

I’m in the Houston area as well. Have you looked on mothering.com? They have lists of pediatricians that are no-vax friendly. One is at Texas Children’s clinic at Greenbriar and Shephard.

If Baby A is your only one under 1, she’ll be on her own card because she’s got a different type of Medicaid. Other kids 1-6 will be on their own, and then 7-18.

Our kids did lose coverage at one point after we thought things were sorted out with re-certification. We went without for three months until my husband was able to work enough hours to get three months of coverage, after which we paid the full premiums for about six more months before going back on Medicaid. Paying the full shot ate up almost all of our savings, but it was almost worth it not to have to deal with the workers!

Anyway, if you did have a doctor previously, maybe their office could offer some advice for getting your kids the specific care they need?