Currently the most asked question about Baby Dex- “is he back from Seattle yet?” Unfortunately the answer is still no. Dexter was flown out to Seattle the beginning of February to have surgery to repair the PDA (hole in his heart). Surgery took place on Feb. 6 and went well, with the hole being closed and Dexter recovering in Seattle Children’s Hospital. By Friday, Feb. 13, Dexter was medically cleared to be discharged back to the NICU at Benefis Hospital in Great Falls. Unfortunately, his Montana Medicaid was not yet complete and active, so a hold was put on his discharge until his insurance was taken care of.
If you have ever dealt with Montana Medicaid of Montana Department of Health and Human Services (DPHHS) you are aware of what a time-consuming and frustrating process this can be. In order for Dex’s application for Medicaid to be completed and approved they needed his social security number. His mother repeatedly tried calling the 1-800 number for Medicaid to update his case with this information for days in Seattle. Hours on hold, only to then have the call dropped before being able to speak to anyone, happened repeatedly. With money running low and Dexter’s dad needing to return to work, the couple made the heartbreaking decision to board the train back to Montana on Feb. 16. Once back in Shelby his mother continued to try to get ahold of Medicaid to update his file, with the same results she had in Seattle. She tried contacting the social worker at Benefis to update his Medicaid that way, as that is how she initially applied for it. That was not a viable solution. I tried to help out by obtaining access to a local DPHHS office number for the office in Great Falls. After talking to a number of people in different health departments in various counties it became very evident that local office numbers are not ever made available, to anyone.
His mother continued to call and hold, waiting to talk to someone at Medicaid. In the meantime this frustrated grandmother faxed a copy of his social security card to Medicaid and contacted State Representative Llew Jones by email and explained the situation in its entirety, pretty much begging for some help. Representative Jones did not disappoint, responding to the email within hours and forwarding it on to the head of the DPHHS department…