Hubby gets a new health plan starting Feb. 1st. We have two to decide from. The first one is an HMO and has no deductible or out-of-pocket-max. and costs $32/week, which is what we are paying now for his current health plan. The second is a HMO + PPO, where you can decide which to use, depending on what the doctor or hospital takes. The HMO side has no deductible or out-of-pocket-max. but the PPO side has a $2250 deductible and $18,000 out-of-pocket-max. It also cost $64/week, which is $32 more a week out of his paycheck, and that =$1664 more a year. Also, if we use the ppo side we still have to pay 20% of everything after we meet the deductible but the hmo covers everything. We have always had PPO and am not sure how hmo is. Does anyone have an hmo plan, and how do you like it? Would it be worth the extra money every week to get the option of having both? We are all very healthy and only plan to have routine check ups, but we do have two babies to think of.

Well after talking to the insurance companies and reprossessing some claims it looks like I met my $6000 deductible. With my husbands job, if you meet your deductible, then they refund you the money which means I can now use that money to pay the medical bills as they come in and I don't have to use any money out of our savings. This is such a relief and a huge weight off my shoulders.

Last week I said I would try and not eat out at all until I went on vacation next month but I didn't make it. We went to my in-laws on Saturday, and my father-in-law got laid off about six months ago so their living off of unemployment, and they told us they didn't have much food in the house. So we went out and got food for all of us. However, that was the only time we ate out all weekend, which is much better than usual.

We did get hubby's quarterly bonus check on Friday which was $646.13. We used $100 towards getting our transmission flushed and an oil change and will use another $100 for our extra large electric bill and the rest will be added to our vacation.

I got another unexpected medical bill from when I was pregnant and the medical claim said we still owe $504.00. I am so glad we have a savings but all these bills are going to take a big bite out of it. We are thinking of cashing in my hubbys second week of vacation to help with some of the bills but were not sure if thats the best idea because it might be nice for him to have another week off later in the year.

On the bright side, when I talked to my mom, she told me she bought us a box of diapers and box of wipes from costco! That will get us through almost a whole month. Yay for mom!

So I got a claim from my secondary insurance for an ultrasound I had in May saying I still owed $109.75. However, I had the same exact claim from February that they had paid in full. I called to ask why I had to pay this one and they told me that someone had processed that first claim wrong and now I am responsible for paying for both. So I now have two $109.75 bills instead of just one. They also said that most of my other bills(i.e. hospital delivery, amnio test, doctor bill for delivery) won't be covered until I pay my outrageous $6000 deductible. They have paid for all my lab work though before I started paying my deductible so I don't know how they figure out what they pay and what they don't. With my first son I had they same primary insurance but a different secondary but everything was paid in FULL without usse having to pay so much as a penny.