{"id":1550,"date":"2015-12-28T16:03:35","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T21:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/?p=1550"},"modified":"2015-12-28T16:03:35","modified_gmt":"2015-12-28T21:03:35","slug":"again-and-again-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/?p=1550","title":{"rendered":"Again and Again (really)?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The great health insurance debacle continues.<\/p>\n

I received a letter 2 days ago dated 12\/16 (last day of open enrollment for coverage starting 1\/1), that my health insurance application was rejected due to the form being “old”. \u00a0Yep. \u00a0I had questioned the insurance broker in reference to the date on the application and if there was a newer one (there was a discrepancy in one of the plan codes although not mine). \u00a0It’s a long story involving many emails and phone calls but I was assured by the broker that the MY plan name and number were the same so the application would still be processed. \u00a0Nope. \u00a0After cry-panicking, sending an angry email on Saturday night, followed by more crying, I had to pull myself together for a FaceTime call with one of my nephews.<\/p>\n

My nephew started by\u00a0asking me, “What’s happening?” so I scaled it back but explained that I was in a bit of a mess with health insurance and how crazy things were. \u00a0He repeated back to me “crazy”. \u00a0Indeed, crazy. I\u00a0spoke of how\u00a0the\u00a0options I had were not even close to what I\u00a0wanted and all were worse than my current coverage but now another wrench was thrown into the mix. \u00a0He said something I\u00a0didn’t quite\u00a0understand,\u00a0mentioned Lightning McQueen and talked about things that are “great”. \u00a0I told him the situation is\u00a0tricky and he kept saying “tricky” back to me. \u00a0He then said my name, followed by “Rocky run”, put his hands above his head and started running in circles. \u00a0Next he dropped to the floor and did his version of Rocky Balboa push-ups (looked more like an impression of a seal). \u00a0Did I mention my nephew is 2 years old? \u00a0And it made me\u00a0laugh and then think. \u00a0I have the privilege from time to time to speak to people about the evolution of T1D care and technologies, about progress and research, and the most important part… advocacy, I have spoken about the JDRF Ride program and why it is so very dear to me. I get to talk and talk and even tie things\u00a0into some of my own\u00a0personal philosophies and parallels with Rocky Balboa. \u00a0Eye of the Tiger, baby.<\/p>\n

\"Freedom

Freedom fog all around<\/p><\/div>\n

My nephew’s advice was solid. \u00a0This insurance mess is a mess for sure, but\u00a0I need to keep fighting. \u00a0This was another round, not the full fight. \u00a0It’s like athletic training. \u00a0You keep going and when you hit obstacles, you use your mind and experience to figure out multiple solutions.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0moved on to Plan B yesterday when I’d exhausted everything I could do in this debacle (it was Sunday), I took advantage of this Miami-esque weather we’re having in the North East,\u00a0put air in the Pinata bike tires, dressed in a costume of Spandex and started pedaling. \u00a0I worked on Plan E (I already had a rough outline of C and D before I reached the West Side. \u00a0There were so many tourists near the WTC memorial and most walking in the bike lane. \u00a0“ON YOUR RIGHT,” was unsuccessful with most people who were not speaking English and I may have sounded like\u00a0the teacher from Peanuts, “Wha-waaa-whhhha-WAAAAHH” so I\u00a0decided to take side streets back across the city. \u00a0What a gift. \u00a0I saw beautiful graffiti from some of my favorite street artists, cleared my head a bit, smiled.<\/p>\n

\"Wonder

Pinata Bike on a mission<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Mr

Hello Mr Robot<\/p><\/div>\n

\"IMG_7381\"

LOVE<\/p><\/div>\n

\"image\"

Wheatpaste girl<\/p><\/div>\n

This morning I started my follow-up calls to my health insurance broker after a night of emails and networking my D plan. \u00a0My “kill them with kindness rule” had to be shelved for a bit. \u00a0Emails unanswered, voicemail messages unreturned, cell phone calls and texts done (repeatedly). \u00a0Couldn’t get my hands on a carrier pigeon (damn those birds are fast). I called the broker company’s main number and then kept dialing extensions\u00a0of everyone else in that department. \u00a0Oops. \u00a0I’m sorry I dialed the wrong extension, I haven’t been able to get through, can you transfer me, I don’t mind waiting, thanks so much for your help. \u00a0I finished signing all the appropriate forms a few minutes later. \u00a0Will this situation resolve itself in enough time? \u00a0I don’t know. \u00a0Plan C is so close now I could lick it.<\/p>\n

Patient advocacy starts with us. \u00a0Always. \u00a0Now stick your hands in the air and Rocky Run.<\/p>\n

xo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The great health insurance debacle continues. I received a letter 2 days ago dated 12\/16 (last day of open enrollment for coverage starting 1\/1), that my health insurance application was rejected due to the form being “old”. \u00a0Yep. \u00a0I had … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[346,48,218],"tags":[515,203,568],"class_list":["post-1550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-diabetes-notes","category-t1d-2","tag-cycling","tag-health-insurance","tag-nyc-grafitti"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2tD0n-p0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1550"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1559,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions\/1559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.surfacefine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}