cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

I changed health insurance back in May when the Evil Empire decided not to continue with the HMO that I'd had since I moved to Mad-town. I was able to keep my same primary care provider and my prescription co-pay actually went down by $10/month, so that was also a good thing.

The not-so-good thing was that my psychiatrist's clinic needed to get an authorization from the new HMO saying that I could continue care with them. I've been a patient at this clinic since October 2002, went through lots of individual and group therapy, and I have a good relationship with the doctor currently assigned my file. In short, I didn't want to change and go to a place where they don't understand my version of crazy.

When I called up the billing folks to talk to them about this, they said that in 90% of the cases, the new HMO prefers to treat patients within their network unless there's a specialist or someone specific to my old clinic. My version of crazy doesn't require a specialist. I think I'm special, but I'm pretty much run of the mill standard recurring major depressive with anxiety issues.

I asked my new HMO to let me stay at my clinic. They said they'd have to bring it to a committee and they'd let me know their decision.

I got the decision today. I can stay!

WOOT!