WE DON'T WANT MONEY

Okay, so if any of you really know me, you know that I am very financially "frugal" and rarely turn down a money making opportunity or a chance for a great discount on something. I manage our finances with great exactness. I really wouldn't often say that I don't want money. But apparently that is almost impossible for the Social Security Administration to believe.

We are applying for a program called Adoption Assistance. It is run by the state and it will guarantee that Little E will be on MedicAid for the rest of her life. This means that she will have guaranteed health coverage, and we will not go bankrupt covering her health insurance. The pre-qualification for Adoption Assistance is she has to be classified as having a disability by Social Security. Once SSA (the social security administration) doctors review her case and declare her having a disability, then we are automatically approved for the Adoption Assistance. That seems pretty simple, right? All that SSA has to do is review her file and say whether she is disabled or not. Unfortunately, our caseworker had real problems grasping this.

K, our LDSFS caseworker, had called SSA before our meeting and was told that this would be no problem. They'd attach the case to my SS number since Little E doesn't have one yet, and then get the review of her case. Our SSA caseworker, D., could not grasp this. He kept saying, "I know how to do this if the mother doesn't have a ss number." I wanted to say, "Yes, I'm glad you know how to do that. This isn't that case." Little E doesn't have a SS number because she can't get one until she has her birth certificate and they won't issue a birth certificate until all the legal stuff with the adoption is finalized. We can't finalize that until after she has been put on Adoption Assistance. D. was getting extremely frustrated. He kept saying, "Well, we can't get you any payments until she has a ss number." We know! We don't want payments!! DH and I both said several times, that we didn't want money, we just needed her to be classified as disabled. Finally K had to speak up and emphasize again that we don't want money. At that point D. leaned forward and said - I kid you not - "Do you charge Little E rent?"

"RENT??"'

"Of course not!" I said. He lowered his voice more and said, "You really should charge her rent. You'll get more money if you do."

"She's 5 months old!!!"

"That doesn't matter. If you charge her for the rent and food, you can get more money."

"WE DON'T WANT MONEY!"

He just didn't get it. It was really frustrating, but we filled out tons of paperwork and left thinking that things would get done. Wrong.

Later he called K and said that he and his supervisor both agreed that they will refuse to even work on the case until we get a social security number for her. It's just too hard to do the work without a number so they won't even try until we get a number. So K found out that the hospital will issue a temporary "non-legal document" birth certificate that says "Baby Girl" for the name. SSA said that they would accept that document and issue a number to that. Seems simple, right? Wrong of course.

That very day I spent over 5 hours on the phone with the hospital. A number of mistakes were about to be made, I had to coordinate care between many different departments, and caught that they were going to sedate Little E the next day with a drug that could be life-threatening to her. It took awhile for them to acknowledge I was right, but they finally realized it. It was a frustrating nightmare day. When Little E was in the hospital someone heard that we were adoption her and that got around and suddenly the doctors cut us off from having access to Little E's records or making health decisions for her. It was a horrible nightmare trying to get everything fixed. They had to get all kinds of documents from LDS Family Services to prove that it was okay for us to be in charge of her care. When I found out that they were going to issue a birth certificate that SSA would use to get Little E's records I saw immediately the danger. The hospital would have to change her name on her records, and that right there is a situation rife with possible mistakes. Then communicating between departments would be dreadful. And when results came back for "Baby Girl" who is going to think, "Oh, we need to call the P family"? Not only that, when I call to get information about her I'll have to go through extensive HIPPA clearance. And frankly, this is they exact type of problem that could lead to a life-threatening mistake. I cannot advocate for her and keep her from being a statistical hospital mortality if departments won't let me talk to them and they don't get information to me. I've learned to read all of her medical records and tests so I can follow up with the doctors. In fact, last week her oncologist said, "You know, I don't ever worry about missing anything with Little E because I know you'll make sure that we know everything and you'll catch anything that is wrong." I was quite happy about that.

So I saw issuing a temporary birth certificate as possibly life-threatening to Little E. DH and I discussed it and agreed we'd rather go bankrupt. DH would have to quit his job because we have to make less than $10,000/year to keep her on MedicAid, so we'd become a burden to the state. But we'd rather lose everything than risk her health. I called K and explained our perspective and she agreed. I wasn't going to risk Little E's life just to make some guy's job easier.

K really went to bat for us. She called D. many times during the week and left 3 voicemails for him. He never called back. Finally, on Friday, the head supervisor for SSA called her. He said that he had bad news. They had spent the week doing a thorough review of SSA policy and held many meetings about this case, but it just was going to be against policy to issue a social security number in the generic name "Baby Girl." I think K almost hit the roof. "We don't want to get a social security number in that name!" She said. Then he, very patiently, told her that without a social security number they couldn't give any payments. "WE DON'T WANT MONEY!" she said. (She was extremely frustrated by this point.) The supervisor said, "You don't? Oh, well then there's no problem. The doctors are already reviewing her case and you should have an answer in 60-90 days."

K explained that we have told people at SSA over and over again that we don't want money. Nobody would believe us. They guy just brushed that off and said, "Well, now that we know, everything is in place and will be fine."

It's a sad commentary on society that they can't believe we don't want to take advantage of the government dole. And an even sadder fact that people are charging their infants rent so that they can get more of my tax dollars. And a pathetic fact that social security workers encourage that. No wonder we have such a huge deficit!

But her case is in for review. Cross your fingers everyone.