EditorialJoe.com | A Hack You Know and Love

Well, the insurance company paid for about $30 of my triple wisdom tooth extraction ($1080), leaving me with a $1050 bill. No, this isn’t an argument for the public option or for HC reform. Instead of commiserating with me about how evil and dastardly my insurer is, let’s look at exactly what I did wrong in my rush to get the procedure done.

• Failed to call the insurer and get the straight story.
  Oh, this is a HUGE no-no! Don’t go on what the doctor’s receptionists say. They’re looking at a payment chart that tells you what percentage the insurance will pay SHOULD they be bound to pay it. If your plan (which you should READ and READ carefully) has exceptions or waiting-time rules, it’s up to you to be aware of them. Unless a procedure is an absolute emergency, hammer out everything you can beforehand. NEVER assume they’re going to pay.
• Opted for general anesthetic ($300+ to the necessary procedure)
  About $300 of my $1050 bill was me making the conscious decision to include optional general anesthetic, which I knew WOULDN’T be covered by my insurer (local only). My logic was that since the insurer would pay for my extractions, I could pay a three-hundred-something bill by myself rather easily, and it was worth it to me to be zonked so that I didn’t have to “be there” when it happened. Oops. That bill could have been $750 instead of $1050, but once again, I didn’t cover all my bases.
• Failed to preempt what would later be a major problem
  This is the big one. I absolutely needed one of those teeth extracted–#32 (lower right third molar)–but I had a strong recommendation to remove all three. “Get a second opinion,” you might say. Actually, I’ve gotten three opinions over the past four years. The oral surgeon that removed my first wisdom tooth in 2004 warned me that while I was taking good care of them for the time being, the other three could yet become a problem later in life. He offered to remove all four (at that time I had incredible coverage that would have paid for all of it), but I opted not to. Oops.
  In 2005, when problems with #32 sprang up, I had a second recommendation to remove it and the remaining two. There was an insurance package offered at work, but I didn’t opt-in. Oops.
  Finally, in 2007, a recommendation from yet ANOTHER Dentist and ANOTHER Oral Surgeon. At this point I had terrible basic insurance, but I was being paid well at work, meaning I could’ve easily saved up the $1000 to get the procedure done even if my insurance covered none of it. I didn’t. Oops.

By late 2009, about half of #32’s crown had crumbled away. The interior of the tooth had actually been exposed since about 2007, but by the grace of Lady Fate it never abscessed (I have a pretty amazing natural resistance to infection, especially when you consider my refined-sugar diet throughout those years).

#32 was not a testament to our nation’s failing health care system; it was a testament to a half-decade of my own personal negligence. That’s not to say there aren’t problems with our health care system–not my point–but in my case, I knew better. Over and over. I threw caution to the wind, an amazingly stupid thing to do considering how close the tissue around the third molar is to other severely important things like the ears, sinuses, and eyes.

Well, in under 45 days I’ll have the bill paid off–by myself. The few who told me to “refuse to pay it” didn’t seem to understand that by refusing to pay, I wouldn’t be hurting the insurance company. I’d be cheating the oral surgeon’s office out of money they deserved for a job well done. My mouth is healthy again, and it’s thanks to them.

The second part of my post’s title is in regard to my once-defaulted loan from the US Dept. of Education. Thanks to the federal loan rehabilitation program, this loan will soon be sold to a private lender. This means that the default status is erased, and I pay the private lender directly, meaning I FINALLY build positive credit on the small remainder of the loan. (YAY!)

I’d been paying it back in fits and starts, but because of my disorganization and refusal to prioritize, I allowed my credit to sink me into the high-risk category. When it comes out of default in the next 2 months, I’ll only have about $1150 left to pay on it! (I know. Pitiful, right? Many Americans are having REAL problems with $10,000, $100,000, $500,000 dollars of default, and here I am, languishing on what was originally a $4,300 dollar loan. My position isn’t so bad after all.)

The turning point was my time in South Carolina (see 4/12/08) when I made next to nothing and still somehow scraped by. This was really the beginning of my wake-up call. Since I moved back north two years ago, I’ve been slowly building on those lessons.

It’s both a relief and pride-inspiring. After years of being half-on/half-off the grid, not budgeting myself, neglecting my own preventative care, and spending money on stupid unnecessaries, I’ve finally taken responsibility for my health, my financial obligations, and my future. I finally feel like a financial adult, minus–of course–the usual American irresponsibility.

I think back to my great-great-grandfather, David Anderson, who was 22-32 years old at the height of the Great Depression. In my family, Grandpa Anderson was an icon of smart savings, of sound investment, hard work and little waste. Not only had he raised a family–he was the rock, the cornerstone of the next three generations after him, the saint who helped all of us when times were bad.

I’d like to think that the dark clouds in our current economy were my great awakening. The lessons I’m learning from this environment are a type of parallel to Grandpa’s early adult years. Though certainly not as devastating as 1929–our fears and problems are of the same species. I’d like to think that years from now, thanks to these same lessons, I can become the cornerstone for the next three generations of my future family. This is just the beginning.