Funding Medical Supplies

My son is 4 years old. He’s not potty trained and has some feeding issues. We supplement his meals with Pediasure just to make sure he’s getting enough calories. We’ve been purchasing these items on our own for the past few years—direct delivery from Amazon Prime for some and weekly trips to H-E-B for others.

But recently we decided to explore our insurance benefits to see if it would be possible to have them cover some of these costs. We talked to our provider and they connected us to a medical supply company. Sure enough, they had both diapers and Pediasure available. The next step was to get a prescription from our doctor, try out the supplies, and then take our first delivery.

About two months after we started this process, we came home to a HUGE box of diapers and Pediasure. Just sitting there waiting for us. It was like we had hit the lottery.

I know this might seem like old hand to many of you because you’ve been doing this for a while, but man, this was a great moment for my wife and me. Not so much for the financial support, although that helps a great deal, but also for the convenience factor of it all. I can’t count the number of times we’ve had to rush out to the grocery store because my son hadn’t eaten well that day and we miscounted the number of Pediasures we needed to get through that week. Now we have a month-long supply at hand.

The lesson for us here was that we needed to explore our benefits a little bit more and figure out things that could save us time and effort. We learned that there are people and agencies/companies out there that we can rely on. Maybe we don’t have to do this all on our own.

This week alone I’ve argued with two different billing offices and paid more than a thousand dollars in medical bills. That kind of stuff gets me pretty down. The truth is that it feels like I do this every single week of the year. So as silly as it sounds, it kind of feels good to let someone else take care of something and to know that I’m going to go home and knock two necessities off our shopping lists.

Who knew I’d get some sort of mental relief from a big box of diapers and Pediasure?

For more information, see Health Care Benefit Programs and Insurance for Children with Disabilities as well as the full range of information in the Insurance and Financial Help section.