The never-ending wheelchair saga

As you know we've been working of getting joseph his TiLite wheelchair most of the year.

When we finally got all of the paperwork in and the prescription written exactly 100% correctly, we had to wait. Wait a month for someone to come to the house to do another evaluation,and evaluation & measuring checking to make sure the he can indeed use a wheelchair. Which was supposed to be the final step in the long list of things we had to do in order for medicare to pay for the chair…nope that didn't happen.

Once everything went through we were ready to finalize the order when we were informed that we would have to pay 100% up front, the opposite of what we had been told the multiple times that we asked. The reason that we were going through the headache of all the paperwork and hoop jumping, was because we can't afford to pay for the pay on our own. Then Medicare decided that they no longer covered chairs coded k0009 only k0005, we scrambled to put together the paperwork for the correctly coded chair and then as we submitted that paperwork we were told that Medicare no longer covered TiLite chairs at all. 

So as Joseph's old chair deteriorated and our options for getting his chair were falling apart…we bought the 2nd choice chair at 1/4 the price. It's identical to the chair he wanted except that it's made of aluminum instead of titanium. And being that we didn't have the cash on hand we put it on the credit card. As delighted as I am that we got the chair FINALLY!!! I'm equally frustrated that after everything we went through to get the chair (paperwork, appointments, evaluations, prescription revisions & many many phone calls) we ended up simply buying it!

Oh, it doesn't end there…..just wait. We were preparing to travel to Idaho for Grandpa Oswald's funeral & his chair was supposed to arrive the same day. We decided we didn't want to wait until 3-5 pm. So we called UPS, got on with the supervisor, then the dispatcher, and the driver of the truck it was on and arranged a pick up in transit. I didn't know exactly where that location was, luckily my little sister did, so we hurriedly jumped into the car and sped off. We made it and met the driver and loaded up the box, it took up my entire rear seat!

We got it home and assembled it, meaning that we put the wheels and the brakes on.

Rylee tried out the pad first

Taking it out for a spin before we packed it into the trunk for our trip to Idaho.

More updates coming!

Take that DSHS!

(Department of Social and Health Services)


We loathe you!  You have been nothing but a HUGE pain in our behinds. We have been fighting you for over a year now! And all we want us basic health insurance for Joseph. We really don't want to need government insurance, but we have no other choice. You've denied us multiple times and the first time we were approved, you wanted us to prove over $5,000 "spend down". which would have been possible  if you allowed us to use his $3,000 a month medication against spend down. Then come to find out you thought we were making $1,200 more a month than we do, (if we did we wouldn't be applying for state insurance!)  and instead of fixing YOUR mistake you made us re-apply. (for the 4th time)

Finally you got it right, but we still had to prove spend down of $1,277, over a specified time period. This was a difficult job, because at the same time we were trying to avoid debt, so we worked with the doctors offices and pharmisuedical companies to get services and medications subsidized or get discounts for paying up front. Which while smart for us finacially,  it did not help to us fight you.

Luckily for us we found our loop hole: we can use the medical expenses of anyone who lives with us. We live with family, so they were all included every single time we applied and we got to use their bills with ours. These last few months we've compiled all the bills that our family has incurred over the last 6 months, bills that include dates of service and cost incurred . This last week we copied them and wrote Joseph's name and DSHS number on each and every paper we were preparing to send them to you. And just to be sure you wouldn't misunderstand,  or over look them, I also highlighted the charges on each bill. By the time we were done the pile of bills wouldn't fit into the postage paid envelope you supplied us with. So I folded everything and stuffed it into a Manila envelope and taped your tiny one on top. Taped the whole thing closed and prayed that the mailman wouldn't send it back.

Just so you know, and just to be thorough, I didn't stop when we reached $1,277. I wasn't sure you'd accept all our proof. We've never been so happy to get bills in the mail, but because we were going to use them to prove spend down, they were welcome.  Our grand total came to $3,644.91  oh yea, take that, and I hope you have fun going through that stack of papers.


P.S. I do have more that I can dig up, so watch out!
P.P.S I have been drafting a letter to send to our congressmen and congress lady, with great detail of our fight with you and how you are part of a broken system. How an other wise very healthy young man who has MS, and is legally blind  is denied multiple times for state insurance. However, if his wife was to quit her job, and get pregnant we could all be on state insurance, that is wrong! 


In other words the war is on, I am going to win and you are going down, I will be heard!