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Tag Archives: Insurance

What a Day!! :( Accidents Happen

02 Saturday Nov 2019

Posted by Tim Hughes Living with CML in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

accident, Band, Car, Damage, Football, Ford, Insurance, playoffs, trailer, Truck

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It’s going to quite around the house for the next few days because my wife is not speaking to me. She told me not to do something and I did it anyway.  I had an accident with the band trailer on my way to a football game tonight.  The route we took led us downtown Birmingham where they are currently working on the bridges that go through the center of town.  It’s 5 o’clock traffic, it’s bumper to bumper and along some narrow streets.  A lady and her brother were sitting at a traffic light in the left turn lane.  I’m next to her waiting to go straight.  The light changed, I move forward and I hear a long and loud horn blow.  The lady pulls up next to me and tells me that I hit her car.  Now, not only did not hear the crash, I didn’t see it either.  I was not about to stop in the middle of the street and call the police to come and do a police report. But there was nowhere to pull over either. I drove for several blocks trying to find a place and all the while the lady was beside me in the turn lane trying to get me to stop.  We finally stopped at a traffic light long enough for me to communicate to her that I was looking for a place to pull over.  I finally found a parking lot big enough for me to pull into so we could exchange insurance cards and get a police report.  Which we had to wait over forty-five minutes for the cop to show up.

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The school has insurance on the trailer so therefore the school’s insurance will take care of the car that I hit.  I was told that it would not go on my insurance but my wife does not believe this.  And this is where the rub comes in.  When I first sat down with these people to volunteer to haul the trailer, I signed a document stating that very same thing.  Plus, if anything happens to the trailer or any of the contents I would not be held responsible. My wife did not want me to volunteer for this.  In fact, she doesn’t want me to do anything outside the home since I retired.  She always has some excuse for why I shouldn’t do it.  I get paid $100 each time I haul the trailer no matter how short a run or how far. So far I’ve raised $800 and that’s pretty easy money.

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As you can see there wasn’t much damage to the car I hit but still, I hit a car.  My wife is worried that regardless of who pays for it, this will make our insurance costs go up.  I haven’t had an accident in over thirty years and I really doubt our insurance will go up but I can’t get that in my wife’s head.

Our team is in the playoffs and they won their game tonight.  Next week we travel again to another school but this time we don’t have to go through town to get there.  Originally, this was supposed to be my final night but because they’re in the playoff’s we have yet another game to go to.  This could be over an hour away so I’m not really looking forward to hauling the trailer that far. Is it a bad thing to hope they lose so next week would be their last?

3/16/2018 Oncologist Update

18 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by Tim Hughes Living with CML in Cancer, Family, Leukemia, Photography

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Bosulif, Cancer, CML, Doctor, Drug Card, Drugs, Family, Insurance, Medication, Prayers, Test

Oncologist Update: Because of some miscommunications with the insurance company, go figure, I have not been approved to be on my new medicine yet. I may end up walking the paperwork to the department myself if they keep losing it. Anyway, it’s been six weeks or more since I’ve had any CML meds and we, more so me than the doctor it seems, are starting to get a little concerned that my numbers might get a little high. If the insurance company approves the meds, it could take up to three weeks before my meds arrive. Nothing to do but wait. But, as luck would have it, the representative for the new drug was there in his office. He gave my doctor a card for a free 30 day supply which should arrive by Tuesday of next week. This should give my insurance company time to process my approval for this drug.

Bloodwork. It’s been six weeks since my last lab. My last one wasn’t good at all. Every one of my numbers was either very high or very low. Yesterday’s numbers were normal for the most part. This was in large part the effect of the drug I was on. The side effects just made my daily life impossible to deal with.

New Drug: Bosulif is the name of the new drug. Right now I’ve been on two of the most common and there are only a few left that is approved by the FDA. Thanks to Karen Davis-Hudson she eased my mind about some of the side effects that were mentioned in the insert. However, Karen, I think you mentioned that 1/10 developed fluid retention, my doctor said 4/10. Not that much of a difference. The other side effects I think I can handle.

The Good News: The doctor and I both agree that the fluid in my lungs is gone and we’re going to have a positive attitude that it will not return and that this medicine will be the last one I have to be on because this one will work. I can breathe, my color is back and most importantly, I feel good. So much so, that if the weather holds, I’m going to try to get my bicycle out one day this weekend.

This is all due to all the prayers that have been lifted up for me and my family. Thank you so much.

365 Day Photo Challenge 234/365 “Another Day Closer to Retirement”

20 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by Tim Hughes Living with CML in Photography

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

365 Day Photo Challenge, 401k, HDR, Insurance, Pension, Retirement

Pleasant Grove City Hall  Pleasant Grove, Alabama

Last year about this time I received an email from my employer stating that there were going to be some changes in our retirement plan.  It’s never good when a large corporation starts messing with your retirement.  For all new employees, the company is going to stop offering the pension plan.  In turn they are going to increase the amount of money the company would match to their 401k plans.  Another change was to increase the age of post retirement insurance from 55 to 62.  Here is where this benefitted me.  If you had already turned 50 before January 2015, which I had, and if your years of service was at least 25 years, which I had, then you could be grandfathered in and still be able to retire at 55 with full insurance.  There is really no way I can afford to retire but with my health the way it is and the fact that the environment at work is not the best in the world I’ve decided to retire at 55 and find something else that I enjoy doing with less stress.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 203/365 “Health Insurance; Love it/Hate it”

21 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by Tim Hughes Living with CML in Photography

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

365 Day Photo Challenge, Cancer, CML, Copay, CPAP, Deductible, Drugs, Gleevec, health, Insurance, Medications, Photography

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Health Insurance can be a love/hate relationship.  I am fortunate to work for an insurance company and I get my insurance at a discounted rate but it’s still very expensive. I still have copays and I still have deductibles that I have to meet before the insurance will pick up.  I fill sorry for those that have to fork out thousands of dollars each year for insurance.

Today I had to go pick up my new CPAP machine.  When the lady called me to tell me that I now qualified for a new machine I asked her how much I owed.  She checked her computer and said that my deductible had not been met and that my payment would be around $500.00.  I don’t have $500.00 to spend right now and told her that.

I have CML, a rare form of Leukemia.  My medication is very expensive.  It averages out to be around $600.00/pill.  I take one pill a day and my prescription is for a thirty day supply.  My insurance out-of-pocket yearly deductible is $2500.00 and my prescription costs $18,000.00 a month.  That means that I would have to pay $2500.00 for the first month and the insurance company would pay the remainder.  But first, and the most important thing is that I would have to come up with $2500.00 before I could get my first prescription.  Pocket change, right?  Not for me.  Who has $2500 just laying around?  Again, not me.

A little known fact is that some drug companies want you to take their drug.  So much so that they are willing to pay you to take it.  I am very fortunate to be on such a drug.  Gleevec is the manufacture of the drug that I’m on and they offer a financial assistance program to those that can’t afford the ridiculous prices of the medications. I first read about this on their website once I found out that I would be taking the drug.  At first I thought that it was only for those that didn’t have insurance but thankfully I was wrong.  I called them up and they paid all but $100.00 of the $2500.00 of my out-of-pocket deductible.  Wonderful news!!  I pay the pharmacy $100.00 at the beginning of the year and Gleevec pays the rest and I don’t pay a dime the rest of the year for this drug. That’s not the only good news that came out of this.  Remember the CPAP?  It seems that my CPAP was covered under the same plan.  Being that my deductible was indeed met I walked out with a new CPAP and a new mask for $00.00.

“Life Goes On!”

365 Day Photo Challenge 189/365 “Chaos”

07 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by Tim Hughes Living with CML in Photography

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

365 Day Photo Challenge, Appliance Repair, Chicago, Dryer, Insurance, Photography

Can I have a “Do Over” for today or can it just be over with.  It’s funny how you have everything planned out but the least little thing can change everything you have planned.

It started last night when I had made plans to go bike riding today when I got home from work.  I got everything ready last night before I went to bed so that once home I could change clothes and go.  Didn’t quite work that way.

Item 1.  At about 2pm I got a phone call from my wife telling me that the dryer had quit working.  Luckily I know a little about appliance repair so when I got home I immediately started trying to figure out what the problem was that was keeping my dryer from doing it’s main job.   Burnt wire on the thermostat plus the thermostat looks burnt.  I’ve got to call the supplyhouse in the morning to see if they have the parts if not I’ll have to order them online.

Item 2.  Once the dryer was looked at and all my tools were put away I looked at the clock and decided that I still had enough time to go for a ride but my wife had something she wanted to discuss with me.  It seems that my soon to be 22 year old son has been found to be driving reckless and driving too fast in and around the neighborhood.  He’s already had one speeding ticket and our insurance skyrocketed so we really can’t afford another rate hike.  My wife and I decided to tell our son that if he gets another ticket that he will be removed from our policy and he will have to pay for his own insurance.  At an estimated $1000/per six months, I don’t think he can afford that.  Maybe that will slow him down knowing that he may have to pay $150 a month to drive his car.

Item 3  After my meeting with the wife I had just enough time for a half loop.  That’s 15 miles.  It’s better than nothing so I go and start changing clothes.  The phone rings. The wife answers, “What’s Wrong”.  Two words that you don’t want to hear when all three of your kids are supposed to be on their way home from work. Keep in mind that all three of my kids work at the same water park. One daughter is upset from something that happened at work and now she’s quitting.  The other daughter says she’s going to quit if this superviser that made the first daughter so mad she’s going to quit is not fired.  Still with me?  Now my son arrives at home just as my wife is trying to tell me what is going on.  My wife stops in mid sentence and starts asking my son what happened.  Without going into great detail it seems that they have a problem with a supervisor and my son, who is about 4 years older than that of this supervisor, got caught in the middle. My son is supposed to see if he can talk to the supervisor’s boss in the morning to see if he can sort this whole mess out.  If not, someone will face the wrath of my wife tomorrow I can assure you.

Item 4 I quit looking at the clock at this point.  My girls come home.  We go over the entire events of the afternoon again with little to no resolve.  Again, my son says that he will talk to the boss in the morning when he gets to his training session.  If there is a solution my girls will go to work at 10 am as scheduled.  If no resolve, they will all quit I’m guessing.

I decided to take this opportunity to discuss the lead foot my son has with him.  I tell him of the $150 a month insurance plan, he’s not impressed with having to pay that amount.  Will it work, I doubt it. We shall see!

No riding for me today.  Going on vacation next week but will I have any money left to go after the repair work on my dryer?  This is only Tuesday and we still have three more days remaining in this week. The weekend can’t come soon enough.

“Life Goes On!”

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