Stupid Policies / Massive Medical Insurance Price Hike
In continuing the crappy year that has been 2016 for my family, today my wife was sent home from her place of work and told not to come back until she can get an unrestricted medical release.
In accordance with that request; my wife called the doctors office, where she was yesterday for an appointment concerning the very issue she was sent home for. My wife has deformed feet and every now and then, she has a flare up and finds it hard to walk. However, she still does her job despite the pain while never complaining. However, on this occasion, she asked for help with delivering notices.
Sorry, got a little off track there, back to the doctor’s office; my wife called and they told her she would have to see a podiatrist for a medical release. Fine, but the earliest appointment was for December 21, that’s two weeks away. In the meantime, my wife’s employer won’t allow her to go back to work until she gets a medical release, that’s two whole weeks without any wages, that’s close to $800 in income lost.
I don’t know about you, but our income is not so high that we can afford to simply lose $800 in income. Obviously, this was not a viable option, so my wife called another podiatrist and lo and behold, they had an appointment tomorrow, December 7, two weeks earlier than the Via Christi podiatrist appointment.
I believe this company policy to be a stupid and inflexible one; how can you expect people to not have income for weeks? My response would be “I’m looking for another job”; I cannot sit idle because of petty company bureaucracy when my job is mostly sit down at a desk with maybe 10-15% up on my feet. They could have easily had my wife manning the office while the other staff member showed apartments.
Now, the concern is that this new podiatrist won’t give my wife a medical release with no restrictions as required by my wife’s employer. Which means the end of employment and ending 2016 like it started with my wife being unemployed. I get paid well for this city, but still not enough to absorb a $1,600 monthly income loss, especially with just having taken out a $24,000 loan to zero our credit card balances.
Now to the second part of the title; it’s time to renew my medical insurance and damn! my insurance premium has increased by 44.8%. The letter from my company CEO said it was a 12% increase, but an increase from $153.51 to $222.29 is definitely not 12%, just glancing at the difference tells you that much.
Not that I am complaining about the cost; $222/mo for what is very good insurance is a great value. However, I got a 3% salary increase while the medical insurance went up by nearly 45%, seems somewhat disproportionate, doesn’t it? How I wish that the DNC didn’t screw over Bernie Sanders in the primaries.
Day 2: My wife and I visited the podiatrist and he did some x-rays and the end result was that he said there is nothing he can do; which we’ve been told many times before by other doctors. However, he still gave my wife her work release… but my wife’s employer rejected it because it didn’t actually say the words “NO RESTRICTIONS”. If there were restrictions, the doctor would have written them down.
My wife still can not return to work so we will visit the same doctor to request that he write a new work release including the words “no restrictions”. Hopefully, this won’t be an issue, but it will be another day of wages lost as corporate will have to approve the release before my wife is allowed to return to work. I’m sick of this petty bullshit from this company, it’s beyond a joke, especially two weeks before Christmas.
Day 3: We got a second work release with”no restrictions” written on it, which my wife’s employer finally accepted and she can go back to work tomorrow. We also found out the reason for her medical suspension; a jackass called the corporate office saying that my wife refused to give him a property tour; which was 100% false as there is a visitor card with name, drivers license number etc in the office.
I’m pissed off because all this could have been avoided if the corporate office talked to my wife; she had evidence on her desk that this person was lying. So it’s piss poor communication that has cost us upwards of $300 including the doctor’s visit. My wife’s employer claims to “love” their employees; clearly not if a simple courtesy call could not be made when there’s an unsubstantiated claim of wrongdoing.