As promised, I'm back with an update on the current status of the medical bills from my son's recent four-day hospital stay and our strategy for paying them off. First and most importantly, he's doing really, really well since his Type 1 diabetes diagnosis! He's consistently stayed on top of his blood glucose monitoring, carb counting, and insulin injections, and his blood sugar readings have mostly been in his target range for the past two weeks. He's regained his energy and is back to his old self. He even managed to knock out two AP exams right after he got out of the hospital. Pretty impressive for a teenager who's been living with this condition for only a month! Predictably, at this point the medical bills are starting to roll in. Our current grand total for diabetes-related expenses is $48,818. This includes the hospital stay, labs, and prescriptions as well as bills for some of the specific ER, PICU, and peds doctors who managed his care while he was a
Healthcare insurance update: I misunderstood my schedule of benefits (by "misunderstood," I mean that I gave the benefits summary nothing more than a cursory glance when I selected our plan at the end of last year because hey, we're healthy, we eat our veggies, we probably won't even USE this insurance, so I don't need to read this document! Haaaaaahahahahaha.) Lo and behold, it turns out that although we haven't met our family deductible, we have met my son's individual $5000 deductible, and as a result, all of his medical expenses -- including his prescriptions! -- should be 100% covered for the remainder of 2022. I'm not sure I've EVER had an insurance plan that covers 100% of in-network and pharmacy expenses once the deductible is met. Talk about a healthcare unicorn! This means that: 1. we can continue to pay down the student loan in big chunks. (I want it goooooone) 2. much of the $600/month I'm putting into my HSA can be used to me