February 18, 2009

Insurance Woes--Denied Again

My sweet little Cameron has been denied insurance by yet another company. The fourth now. And the state CHiP wouldn't take us either because we apparently make too much money. There is the other state program we can apply for but that will run us $300 something a month.
(In July we had to apply for private insurance because we are now self-employed).


Why was he denied? Because of a birthmark on his face. Okay, so it is a large birthmark. It is known as a port wine stain. And if you want the technical jargon it is a hemangioma along the trimengial nerve on the left side of his face and his chin and part of his neck. But it is a birthmark. A birthmark is concentrated and dilated capillaries near the surface of the skin. The doctors have told us that there is no medical concern. When he was 16 months old the dermatologist at Primary Children's Medical Center recommended that we get an MRI on him to make sure that it is cosmetic only. We did. The MRI said that there are no underlying vessels in the tissue and that everything looks normal. Yet in hindsight, had we never gotten the MRI the insurance companies would not have know about the port wine stain.

I worry about this not just for now, but as he gets older. Will he ever be able to be insured? Is he going to end up having to pay enourmous premiums just to get covered? He will eventually have laser surgery to remove or lighten the mark. Maybe after that we can get insurance for him. But that won't be for two or three years. In the mean time I guess we need to keep in from being an active 2 year old who likes to climb and run and jump! Yeah, right!

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