The Arsenal

There’s been some questions about how much I really did exaggerate in my post yesterday, War has been declared. I offer you some evidence in the form of photos. After viewing the evidence, you can judge for yourself just how much truth bending occurred yesterday.

Here’s your first photo evidence. This is only part of their arsenal. See the books? I’d like to think my kids are super interested in their education, but those big heavy books make great anchors for their blanket/clothing forts. Also, if you look closely, you’ll catch a glimpse of our youngest soldier.

While not pictured, Kayla was the target.

I rest my case.

War has been declared

It all started here.

The younger boys exchanged their helicopters for nerf dart guns and it’s been WAR ever since.

One of the older boys decided he needed to get a nerf dart gun. Then the other older boy decided he needed one too, then another, then a nerf dart machine gun. THEN. The oldest boy (aka Jack, aka the father of all these boys) needed one too.

Furniture is being re-arranged. Darts fly across the house constantly. I find nerf darts in the sink, on my desk, in the heater vents, in our food, in the pantry, laundry room, kitchen, dining room, and stuck to any surface a nerf dart will stick. We have small nerf darts, and big nerf darts, and glow in the dark nerf darts.

The girls in this house? Well, all the boys managed to corrupt the youngest one so she’s joined their war, while Sissa and I just put up with it the best we can. Sure we can’t watch TV from the comfort of our couch because 9 times out of 10 the couch cushions are missing since they make great barricades. It wouldn’t matter anyway since there’s likely 58 darts stuck to the TV screen. Sometimes in patterns.

In my house, it’s now quite common to find a boy, or girl, or two boys and a fully grown man dramatically crawling across the carpet, combat style, telling everyone else to shush, while somewhere else in the house you’ll hear someone scream, “YOU’RE DEAD!! I SHOT YOU FAIR AND SQUARE! (…not in the face mom…)”.

If you want to visit us from now on, I must warn you: Come fully armored. You’ll likely be greeted by 67 nerf darts flying at you from all directions and the words, “Darn I thought you were dad” the second the door is opened.

If you don’t have good balance and quick reflexes, I advise you to not come over at all. In order to navigate my house, you must be ready to dodge while navigating chairs and any movable hard surface with pillows, blankets, and possible large clothing items covering them, most times blocking the entrance to, well… anywhere. That includes the bathroom. So make sure you “go” before you come over.

OK. Fine. I *might* be exaggerating. But only a little.

Medicaid Frustrations in Washington State

When our foster child came to live with us she was previously living in a bordering state to ours. She had medical coverage through a private medical insurance company via one of her paternal parents. The two states were confused as to who would be responsible for her supplemental medical coverage; the child’s new state of residence, or previous state (which is still managing every other aspect of her “case”.) In the end it was decided that our state (where she lives) would provide the supplemental coverage. This was our preference because if the originating state provided the coverage, all medical treatment would have to be performed in that state as well. That isn’t really feasible for our situation.

Our foster child has recently lost the private insurance coverage. This means the only thing left is the supplemental coverage through the state of WA. Unfortunately what we have from the state is an ‘open’ medical card. She’s not on any sort of coverage plan. She has some minor medical issues that require medication and prescriptions refills so I immediately got on the phone to the state (of WA) to find out what our options were. I had just established her with our family pediatrician last month, but since she no longer has the private insurance our pediatrician cannot see her anymore. She (and the clinic she works from) won’t take open medical cards unless there is additional private insurance coverage as well.

It turns out NO providers in our county accepts any ‘new patients’ with these open medical cards.

I started the calls yesterday to find out what I need to do. I was referred to someone, who referred me to someone, who referred me to an automated system that helpfully gave me instructions in three different languages (despite my choosing the option for instructions in English) for each menu item, which eventually connected me with a human, after being on hold for ten minutes, who told me to call the first person back that I was referred to originally. But they claimed it was so-and-so who claimed it was actually so-and-so, and back again that should help me.

Confused yet? Yeah. Me too. The only information I received for the day was the open cards pretty much only cover emergencies since hardly anyone takes them. I gave up for the day.

Today I tried again and after another round of calling all the wrong people (that the state workers were sending me to) I finally got connected with someone who knew what was going on. Our foster child can’t get on a coverage plan. Foster children in Washington are only eligible for open medical cards, according to her. She asked me what county we lived in and when I told her she explained it was practically impossible for us to find a provider who will accept the card in our county, but she gave me a list of providers who *might* accept her. I replied that it sucks I can’t get coverage for her.

Her reply was, “well she DOES have coverage”.

Fine. On paper she has “coverage” but in the real world she has diddly. But hey, I can take her to the ER anytime I want with this card.

That’s incredibly screwed up. There are thousands of children in foster care in this state. Some are in foster care for years. If all these children can get is a medical card that allows them to go to the ER for routine medical treatment, there’s something seriously wrong. We’d happily put her on our own private insurance but we can’t since she’s a foster child and not legally our child.

I started down the list of providers she gave me anyway. All of the providers very graciously declined to accept a new patient on an open medical card. One was pretty up front saying the state pays so little that they can only accept so many or they wouldn’t be able to pay their own bills. The seventh one I called gave me the name and number of a clinic who always accepts patients with state provided medical coverage. ALWAYS. I promptly called them and sure enough… I can take her there if needed and they will gladly accept the medical card. I now know what my (apparently only) option is.

Do you see the issue here?

Some random receptionist at some random clinic not associated with the state of Washington medicaid system was able to solve my issue in approximately three minutes. And the clinic she referred me to wasn’t even on the list the state worker gave me. FAIL!

AND THEN. A while later I get return call from a medical case worker in my city who explained that everything I have been told the last two days about our foster child’s medical eligibility may not be true. Our foster child is supposedly not “coded” as a foster child in their medical system because she comes from out of state. At that point I really just wanted to tell them I don’t care what’s true or not true and who’s doing what, when, why and how. It’s clear to me that no one in the state of Washington even knows where to direct a phone call (one of them tried to have me call the originating state explaining that they should be providing medical coverage) about this let alone figure out how this child should be ‘coded’ in their system or what coverage she is or isn’t eligible for. None of that is my concern at this point. What I did request was if they could figure out a way to get her on some sort of coverage plan instead of this open card, please do. (There IS a coverage plan through the state that providers will take, just not for foster kids I guess). Then we can keep her current doctor. I doubt that will happen, though.

I needed to be sure I had somewhere to take my foster child if she needs a prescription refilled, or needs any type of medical care besides making tax payers pay for an expensive ER trip. And a non-involved helpful receptionist at a private clinic gave me the information I needed. If only I had called her first.

Disclaimer: I do not mean any offense to the individual WA state case workers I spoke with in the last two days. But there is a clear breakdown in the system. Especially in the area of communication.

P.S. I haven’t even started researching the dental care yet. Wish me luck…

Randy

I’ve taken several photos with my new camera. I’ve stood across rooms and zoomed in on objects to see what it can do and I’m impressed. I’ll post some comparison shots later, but I wanted to share this one of Randy. He’s so full of expression in this picture and I’m amazed at how clear it turned out. I have a lot of pictures of Randy in our archives including close up shots taken with our old camera, and none of them are this clear and detailed. I’m in love with my new camera.

Costco Bait and Switch?

First post for 2009 and it’s a gripe about Costco, one of my favorite stores. *sigh*

On December 30th Jack and I received a coupon booklet for many household and electronic items for Costco. The coupons were valid from January 5, 2009 through January 25th, 2009. One item that caught my eye was a $50.00 off coupon for a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28 digital camera.

We’ve been looking into purchasing a new camera for some time now. We purchased our Kodak EasyShare several years ago and while it was a great camera at the time, it’s very out-dated by today’s standards and our needs have outgrown what this little camera can do. Nowadays cameras that cost 1/3 of the price we paid for our Kodak EasyShare are much more feature-packed and produce exponentially better quality photos. Despite this we have put off getting a new camera because ours still worked fine and it wasn’t at the top of our priorities.

Then our camera broke mysteriously after the kids borrowed it over Christmas break. It still takes pictures, but the battery compartment would not hold the batteries in anymore and it kept losing the date and settings. Jack crafted a tiny little pin to fix it and that works pretty good, but we still need to be careful with it. Still, it was a sign for us that it was time to retire this dinosaur of a camera and seriously look into getting a new one. Especially when the darn thing cannot even capture Kevin or Melissa during their choir concerts. It’s just not powerful enough to capture stage performances and/or sport shots. I’m finding more and more that I am not getting pictures of the kids and their milestones, events, etc. that I want. It’s so slow we couldn’t even capture the girls playing soccer unless we got really lucky (back when they played soccer).

After seeing the coupon for the Panasonic camera for Costco, I immediately got online to look up the average cost of this camera and read some reviews. Amazon has it listed for $324 and has glowing reviews and Google Product Search showed it ranges anywhere from $261 – $400.

I took a closer look at the Costco coupon and noticed it had a little blurb that the camera was also online at costco.com — so naturally I looked it up there. But my search showed it was out of stock and/or unavailable and the price was $299.99. The price sounded about right and with a $50.00 coupon even better. I figured it was unavailable online because the coupon effective date hadn’t arrived yet. So I waited.

UPDATE: Costco has removed the price from the web page now. See the screen shot below for what it looked like before they edited it.

Today I went back to costco.com and saw the same “Out of Stock” page and the price was still $299.99. I called our local Costco and asked if they had any in stock at the warehouse. They had 35. So on my lunch break I drove to Costco where I found this:

Take note of the price above the camera. See the ad? And where it says “Also available at costco.com”? I whipped out my iPhone and looked it up online to see if I missed something but there’s nothing. No disclaimer saying the $299.99 price was with a coupon or rebate, or that prices may vary. Just $299.99 and out of stock. Here’s a screen shot I took of the website:

I found a salesperson to ask why costco.com had the camera for $299.99 while in-store it was $349.99. He explained to me that costco.com and the costco warehouses were separate entities and that while sometimes costco.com was cheaper, after shipping and handling it usually worked out the same. I showed him the web page on my iPhone and pointed to where it said “Shipping and Handling included”. He stared at the page a minute, then said he was on my side and would go get a manager for me since he can’t override the price.

To make a long story short, two managers later, three (the salesman + managers) telling me the Costco Brick & Mortar and online stores were “separate entities”, as if I should have known that somehow, an hour of my time (I should have been in an out of there in 10 minutes), them making me stand around an wait while they ran off to make 3 different phone calls, I got the camera for $299.99 – $50 coupon = $249.99.

The situation was almost bait and switch and I was kinda ticked. I would not have drove down to the warehouse had I known it was going to be $50 more. We don’t exactly have it in our budget to get this camera so close to Christmas and the only reason we decided to go for it was the price they advertised online, the coupon on top of that, and room on our credit card.

The “separate entity” thing really irked me because average consumers would have no way of knowing that the online store and the warehouses were “separate”. Especially in this situation since both the coupon and the store ad give off the impression they are one in the same. I also told them I’ve never heard of a major store or chain that sells products online and via their brick and mortar locations not honoring the deals they have online *unless* the online deal specifically states “Online sales only”. (Which their site does not state either.)

After years of shopping at Costco, it was my first negative experience there (not counting the jerk shoppers we encounter sometimes, especially on busy days) and to me it’s a pretty big one. At least in the end they did the right thing.