Looking Forward

986 Days

As you all know, when the non custodial parent is required to pay part of the children’s medical expenses, usually the state’s department of human services has a protocol they wish for you to follow.

The protocol for my state is that I must include copies of all paid bills, and an itemized list of them, calculating the total amount owed. I must send this to the non custodial parent, and if I do not get paid, or come to a reasonable resolution regarding this debt in 30 days, I send it all along to the state. At which time they will review it, and create a  notice of debt for the non custodial parent.

I send them to Dummy every 6 months or so. I have sent three of these so far. The first two were paid in full with the tax returns the state intercepted and sent to me, and when he sold his house to his girlfriend and the lien that was on the house encompassed all the additional arrears owed to me.

I sent the third one at the end of August. On September 26th I received a letter from him. For a split second I thought “Could this be a check for his portion!?”

No.

Don’t be crazy.

It was a full page letter. The first half was him talking about how he was sure he’s already paid his portion for braces. He also “was not aware” that I was receiving insurance reimbursements. I guess the spreadsheet I send with the column labeled “Insurance reimbursements” was confusing to him. I guess he was also perplexed at how the “Total paid out of pocket” column seemed to be the ‘Paid” column minus the “insurance reimbursement” column. But I think the thing that was the most confusing for him must  be how I send all the EOBs from the insurance company with my reimbursement request..

He stated that I may not be aware that his portion of the medical payments should be calculated using the AFTER insurance reimbursement amounts.

The letter said that he was working with the department of human services to determine the amount of the discrepancy and possible over payment.

I’ll just note here that he has quit his job and is NOT currently paying child support. At all. Nothing. So yes, he should definitely contact the department of human services about how he thinks he’s paid me too much.

He asked that I send along “true and accurate” insurance benefit information for D.

The second half of the letter mentioned that he found out that I changed D’s primary doctor without consulting him. Which, I did, over a year ago. The last time I tried to coordinate providers with him we spent 8 months arguing about it, then, I spent 4 months taking D to a therapist he hated and having to pay for it myself.  So, if he doesn’t like it, I guess he can take me to court and tattle on me there.

Then he got to the point – it was about D’s medication. It’s too expensive. He has no idea why it costs so much and everyone that he has  talked to said there are cheaper ADHD medications available. “So the question presently is why are you not insisting on a lower cost medication?”  He also said that he doesn’t understand why he didn’t start getting charged for it until the beginning of this year. I guess he’s never heard of an insurance deductible before.

After reading this letter a number of times, I couldn’t get past the first few sentences without being REALLY FUCKING ANGRY. It had been a long time since I’d had to deal with this out of the blue crazy, and I think I was out of practice. I stayed angry a lot longer than I should have.

I started writing my response. I typed some stuff out. After an hour or so, I read the letter again. I only need to respond to direct questions. I do not need to clarify shit he doesn’t understand unless he asks me to. Telling me that he was “unaware” that I was receiving insurance reimbursements, or is confused about why he wasn’t charged for meds before isn’t my concern. If you want an answer, ask a question. Otherwise, I don’t need to explain myself.

I printed D’s insurance benefit information for medical, pharmacy and dental. I attached it to this letter:

I have enclosed the insurance information that you requested.

D has been on his current medication for 3 years now. I do not see any reason to change medications at this time.

There are 986 days until D turns 18.

Then I won’t have to deal with this shit ever again.

18 going on 10

A quit his job and has been unemployed for a few weeks now. Since I got the back support payment from  lien on the sale of asshats house, A has asked me for money twice. Both times was because he wanted to eat out. Both times I said “no.”
Last night he said “I find it hard to believe that you don’t have 10 dollars. But don’t worry about it. Its not a big deal.”
Detecting a lot of snark in that comment, I replied “I didn’t say that I didn’t have 10 dollars. I’m just not interested in giving you money to eat out with when we all eat at home every night.”
And with that, he de-friended me on Facebook.

Since he quit his job I have sent him nearly 70 links to available jobs. He told me that he wasn’t looking very hard right now because he had money in savings. Plus, he had a friend who was starting a bakery and would pay him $750.00 to put together a website for her.

Silly me, thinking he should spend his own money on a luxury like eating out.

I want to be an adult! But I still want you to buy me shit! Yeah, I don’t think so.

Just because you’re mad, if you have bills you really can’t just up and quit your job without a plan. At least that’s my theory.

I’ve also come to the conclusion that no matter how much you try to make your kids different, they sometimes turn out just like the one person you wish they weren’t. In this case, his father.

I don’t know why A feels entitled to any of my money, other than the fact his father is telling him that he is. He is capable of working and earning his own money. He has his own place to live. He has his own responsibilities. This might be different if he was in school and couldn’t work 40 hours a week. But he’s not. I spent YEARS trying to prepare him for the real world, and still, he feels like its somehow my job to give him money for take-out? No. I don’t think so.

It makes me cranky how childish he is being. Rather than realizing its not my job to financially support him anymore, and having an adult view of things, he decides if I won’t pay for him to have Little Caesars pizza, then he is not going to be friends with me anymore! This is exactly how his father acts. Its like he’s 18 going on 10.