Attempting to Contact Maryland Medicaid

I just want to speak to a real person about my account. That's all I've wanted since July of this year--nearly five months ago. Since July, I have been into the Glen Burnie Social Services Office no less than once a month and left several voice mails that were never returned. I cannot get a single person to give me a phone number to call or the name of a person who can sit down and talk to me. At all. The office in Glen Burnie claims that they don't handle processing, nobody there answers the phone, and when the Annapolis office is contacted, they simply transfer me to the unresponsive Glen Burnie office. If they don't transfer me, they refuse to give out phone numbers, simply stating that "someone will call" me.

Here's the reason I need to talk to someone (written November 17th, 2011):

I was in the middle of applying for a state medical assistance program for pregnant women when I went into labor and had Joey. I didn't try for anything else until after school closed because according to the charts online, I made "too much money" to qualify. Imagine that, a Catholic school teacher making too much money for anything. In June, after the school officially closed, I applied for regular Medical Assistance (hereafter referred to as Medicaid) and at first I was rejected, again because of "too much money." However, if I could show them more than $1,200 of medical bills, I could qualify. I could show them significantly more than that between the delivery (which, after insurance, cost $2,000ish) and the surgery for my cyst (also in the $2,000ish range, after insurance) so I submitted the necessary paperwork. I received a letter from the Medicaid office stating that not only did I qualify, and my coverage would be from 06/11 to 11/11, but I would be responsible for:

"paying $0 of your medical bills for 06/01/11 and all medical bills prior to this date."

Direct quote. This is important.

Joey was born on 05/15/11
My first ER visit was on 05/21/11
My second ER visit and surgery was on 06/03/11

I submitted all my bills related to the delivery and the cyst. I got the letter, and assumed that responsible for $0 of bills for 06/01 and all bills prior means that the first ER trip and delivery would be included in what Medicaid was going to cover. Either this really means "we're going to take our sweet time paying the bills" or it means "we're only going cover some of them but not tell you which ones", I can't really tell. The people in the Medicaid office will only speak to me if I take a number, wait in line, and have bills to submit. If I want to ask a question, I can fill out a "Request for Contact" form, where I leave my contact info, explain why I want to be contacted (supposedly so they can look up my account info ahead of time), and they'll respond in the order in which requests are received. Still. No. Contact.

When I got my Medicaid card in the mail, I called everyone to give them my number so they could bill Medicaid directly. For the most part, the number was accepted and I never heard anything else. For several of the bills, the accounts department couldn't accept my Medicaid number because the dates of eligibility were after the dates of services rendered. Meaning: somewhere in the computer system, it does not say that my Medicaid coverage is retroactive. Ok.

More attempts to get straight answers from the Medicaid office. More nothing.

Then the bills prior to 06/01 get sent to collections. I receive a letter for each bill, 3 different collections agencies total. I call each one and explain the situation, I even fax them over a copy of the Medicaid letter stating the supposed retroactiveness. That was more than two weeks ago. Today, I got a phone call from one of the collection agencies saying that Medicaid had been billed (even though the last time I talked to them I was told they couldn't send the bill) and the claim was denied because of the dates of eligibility. Now, in order to avoid whatever the next step in the collections process is (I really don't want to find out), I have to make payments to the collection agency until I can get this whole mess sorted out. They wanted me to make monthly payments of $100 and I nearly laughed and said something smart but I kept my cool and simply said that I could do $25 a month and that was it. I am making other monthly payments to keep other bills from going to collections, which I said also. She didn't like the $25 and said that's fine but we would "re-evaluate" in three months to see if that could be increased. I highly doubt it. That's just one collection agency, I haven't heard from the other ones, we'll see if they say anything.

I sent a letter to my County Councilman to see if there's anything he can do or if there's anything I'm not doing that I should be doing. I'm sick and tired of not talking to a real person at the Medicaid office and I have a feeling if I had just had ONE conversation (even over the phone) with SOMEONE, this whole thing could be resolved. I told the councilman that if I was responsible for those bills sent to collections then fine, but I need to be informed that I am responsible. Don't tell me I'm responsible then tell the collections agencies that I am actually responsible. That's just wrong.


Latest update:

I received a reply on November 29th, 2011 from the Councilman's Legislative Assistent, Nancy Schrum. She suggested that I contact Social Services in Annapolis and ask for Marcia Kennai (who I Googled and found out that she's the Director of AACo. Social Services). My first call to the number Ms. Schrum provided--which is also the number found on Maryland.gov's telephone listing--resulted in speaking with someone other than Ms. Kennai. I explained my situation and why I needed to speak to Ms. Kennai and I was told that she was unavailable but someone would look into my account and give me a call.

The resulting voice mail (which is a step in the right direction since someone ACTUALLY called me back) was not helpful. The voice was different than the person I had spoken in Ms. Kennai's office and simply stated what my dates of eligibility were for Medicaid coverage. That was it. Information I already had in writing and nothing related to my actual questions. Meanwhile, collection agencies are threatening to report my delinquent accounts to the credit bureau unless I pay either the full amount or make monthly installments.

Dan (my husband) called Ms. Kennai's office again on Monday (I was at work and don't always have access to a phone). He got the same run-around I had gotten before, Ms. Kennai was unavailable and someone would call back. He gave them my phone number, and I haven't had a call back yet. I called again first thing this morning (December 7th, 2011) and, again, was told that Ms. Kennai was unavailable. This time I asked when I could call back, I was put on hold while her schedule was checked, "tomorrow after 3pm" came the answer. I also asked about making an appointment and was given the same information as Dan and I got before. I thanked the woman and hung up, and promptly began composing this blog post, as well as several e-mails to local news stations and papers, AND letters to the collection agencies to stop contacting me and if they report me to the credit bureau I'll contact them too. I'm fed up with talking to a brick wall.

(*Update* Thursday, December 8th, 2011: I called Ms. Kennai's office today after the specified time and didn't even get a real person. I got a recorded voice mailbox message. I'm not surprised at all, but still ticked that I was told a specific time to call and it just lead to voice mail.)

I'm not too proud to say that we're on Medicaid, though if this is an example of how my tax dollars are working for me, then I am ashamed that this is the best we've got as a County and State. All I want is to make an appointment and sit down with someone to go over my case file. I'm not looking for more than I need. I'm not trying to get any of my other living expenses covered. I'm a hard-working, tax-paying, new mom who is trying to make ends meet in a rollar coaster economy.

Side Note: Turns out when I was calling the different places that had billed me to give them my Medicaid number, I missed one. I know this because I got a second-notice bill from them dated December 1st, 2011. I submitted that bill to Social Services on August 5th, 2011 and I have a receipt. So it's not just my pre-eligibility bills that remained unpaid, it's potentially all of them.