School and Appointments

Trying to schedule yearly checkups (medical, dental, vision) is a huge pain this year. No one seems to care that if my daughters aren't scheduled after school, then they're likely going to miss at least a half day of school. I find it extremely frustrating that very few of our provides have family friendly hours.
When I scheduled our annual appointments with our pediatrician, I was told the latest I could bring all four of them in was 2pm. My other option? Take each of them in on different days. I'm already in need of more hours in a day, scheduling four different days of appointments isn't going to work. I tried to schedule the appointments on days they don't have school. The doctor doesn't see patients on Fridays (must be nice) and is off the entire week of Thanksgiving (not that I expected her to be available, but I was really trying to find a non-school day). 
One of my daughters has a followup appointment with her physical therapist. Since we're no longer seeing the therapist on a weekly basis, we were basically stuck with whatever was left. (I get it. The weekly appointments should take priority). However, once again this particular provider doesn't see patients on Fridays. The latest appointment they could find for her was 2pm, so I have to pull all four girls out of school by 1pm to get to the appointment.
I actually stopped scheduling appointments with our opthalmologist (Blogger is telling me I spelled that word wrong, but I looked it up, so I don't know what gives) for this very reason. Once my daughters were no longer considered high risk from their premature births, we were relegated to seeing the doctor's assistant. Not a big deal.... but she only saw patients two days a week and only in the mornings. Considering preschool was only three hours a day, I didn't feel it was fair to ask me to have them miss a day of school for a routine checkup. I asked if we could see the opthalmologist, since her schedule was more flexible. I was told they would "prefer" to have the doctor only see the "priority" cases. Um, ok. So my daughters are healthy and suddenly not a priority? I switched to a different practice that gladly offers after school appointments and we are seen by the doctor.
I know when I was in school I had to leave early every now and then to go to the orthodontist, dentist, etc. Heck, by high school I was purposely making my appointments so I would miss a little school. But when you consider that many parents are also trying to juggle work schedules around these appointments, it sure would be nice to feel like an effort is being made to accommodate everyone. Yes, doctors and their staff have families, too. Would it be so hard, though, to have one night a week of extended hours or one Saturday a month where you'll see patients? 

Fighting with the Insurance Company

I've discussed this issue before, yet it seems to be a recurring problem. Until my daughters were born I could count on one hand the number of times I needed to call my health insurance company to question/dispute a claim. Since their birth... well, I lost track of the number of calls I've made.
For the first month after my daughters' birth, the hospital billed all their claims as "Baby A," "Baby B," "Baby C," and "Baby D," even though I named the girls the day they were born. So I spent months sorting out all the denied claims I received, all the while trying to convince the hospital to resubmit the claims with the girls' actual names. It took me until they were 1 1/2 to stop receiving bills from their birth.
Then this past January Hubby's employer switched its insurance carrier. The benefits are the same, but the service leaves a lot to be desired. Sue-Sue has a weekly physical therapy appointment to help with low-muscle tone issues. She receives this therapy through our local children's hospital, which is considered "in-network" by the insurance company. Yet every month I receive an explanation of benefits (and then a bill from the hospital) for hundreds of dollars because the therapy is incorrectly applied to Sue-Sue's deductible, rather than the straight co-pay we should be charged (which I pay at each appointment). Every month I call the insurance company, it's corrected and no one can tell me what the problem is. Yesterday I called to sort out the claims from April. The customer service representative actually said "I see you call about claims for Sue-Sue every month. Why is that?" Since I knew she wasn't responsible for taking care of the claims I simply laughed and said "I don't know. You tell me." First she tried to tell me that the hospital bills the therapy as an "outpatient" service rather than an "office" service, so she didn't know if the claims adjusters would even reconsider the claim. (WHAT??) Then she looked at our benefit terms and realized it didn't matter "where" the service took place as long as it was an in-network provider. She immediately transferred me to a claims adjuster who took care of the issue. This person told me he has no idea why the claims are being filed incorrectly, and warned me I should be prepared to call again next month.
I've always wondered what happens to the less informed in these situations. Certainly there are people who either a) don't know how to read an explanation of benefits, b) believe there is no way to dispute the explanation of benefits or c) simply don't read the forms and just pay what they're told. Taking care of my daughters' medical needs has taught me to read each and every form I receive and file them away for future reference.