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For those of you who have Skids on your insurance...

msg1986's picture

Dh is adding Ss on our insurance thru Dh's job. Step son was on medicaid and Dh paid a portion to the state for that coverage but now that Dh's works for the state and has insurance, child support sent a letter saying Ss needs to be added-which is fine, it's about time IMO.

Anyway, My question is, for you those of you who cover Skids, who pays for Co-pays? and deductibles? Do we have give the card to Bm? Dh told bm yesterday during her biodad hate bash-fest that Ss will now be on his insurance not medicaid and she wigged out because she doesn't want to lose medicaid and also because our insurance is only accepted at the main hospital in our state, which bm does not use because she's on medicaid. Also, I'm sure she's concerned that she'll now have to pay when she takes Ss to the doctor. Our copays are pretty high. Bm is ALWAYS taking Ss to urgent care and while on medicaid, it's free, with our insurance the copay is 50$ and sched office visits are $25 and specialists are $40. We don't mind the high amnts because we don't really go to the doctor that often. We really only go for Dd's well child checks up and those don't cost anything. Also, if we have to cover with health insurance, does that also mean dental/vision as well?

What have you experienced with having to cover skid? Does child support usually give you credit so that it lowers CS? Anything to be weary of? I'm happy Dh is now going to cover Ss, as it is his responsibility however I'm also nervous of what's to come in regards Bm.

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msg1986's picture

omg, that terrifies me... Dh and Bm were never married and they never finished their parenting plan however Dh is going to be persuring that soon. Dh would never agree to that up front, is there any reason a court would force him to pay everything??

She_Sparkles's picture

It should be specified in the custody agreement how copays and deductibles are paid. Usually the copays and deductibles are split OR if one parent is paying 100% for the insurance plan for the child,the other parent is responsible for all copays and deductibles. The child really should have a decent dental plan. Vision plans are a waste of money,IMO.

I'd talk to a lawyer about it and see if having DH pay the insurance premiums lowers support at all. I'd also get something in writing for an agreement on how copays/ded are going to be handled.

Keep in mind,she can skip out on the bills at the offices bc she'll be providing your husband's name as the responsible party since he's the subscriber on the plan. They'll bill him and she's off the hook. That's why you want it in writing that she's agreeing to pay instead of having this crap billed to you guys.

In my office,we bill any remaining balance to whomever is responsible for the insurance unless the patient states it should be done another way.

msg1986's picture

This may be a dumb question but being that Dh is covering Ss on insurance thru his work, that means he's providing the 100% coverage right?

I've heard so many good and bad things about lawyers when it comes to CS/custody stuff, in your opinion is, is it worth retaining a lawyer?

She_Sparkles's picture

Sometimes the court will take into account whether the parent is paying for the plan or whether the employer is paying for the plan.My insurance is employer paid so therefore it would be more likely that I'd be expected to at least split copays and deductibles since I have no other insurance related expenses.

I think that if you get a good lawyer,one that is recommended highly by either family/friends or online you can get a fair assessment of what to do. There are lawyers out there who will hear your case and review it then give you their .02 without charging a massive consultation fee.

If BM is the type to fight you on splitting copays or the type to sneakily have the doctors bill your husband then yes,a lawyer is totally worth it to draw up a recorded documented of how the expenses will be handled. When those bills from doctors start rolling in,it will be the only leg you have to stand on to get out of paying it and pushing the bill back onto BM.

msg1986's picture

Dh pays like 115 bi weekly and of course the employers pays a portion but he actually pays a portion as well so I'm assuming that's him covering.

Thank you for the advice. I'm def going to look into lawyers because Bm is VERY sneaky and is she is always doing something at the doctors. Ss recently had a CT scan (he's 6) because bm insisted his appendix has burst... turned out he was constipated because bm is feeding him poorly. I def don't want to be responsible for something like that!!

CBCharlotte's picture

We split anything additional not covered by insurance 50/50 I think. All skids are on my SO's insurance. He is a bank executive and has good insurance with an extraordinarily high deductible....like $8,000. His daughter is a Type 1 Diabetic which is also expensive.

When we marry, we are thinking of maybe moving the skids to my insurance. I work for an insurance broker and medical malpractice insurance is my background. I have REALLY good insurance with low deductibles. Anyone ever done this? I think it will save us $

rahrah2019's picture

I put SS on my insurance for a while. We examine our prices/benefits every year (DH and I have similar insurance), and whichever works out best for us is what we go with. Why pay extra just to have DH's name on the card? I'm sure it killed BM to have to hand over a card with my name on it. And believe me, she definitely knows how to use it. I just kept a close eye on my insurance transactions to make sure she didn't try to slip in there and say she was me.

As for the cost of the co-pays, DH and BM split them 50/50. Whoever mentioned that BM can just say your DH is responsible for the bills is correct, my ex did this to me. I had full custody and covered insurance on my bios (even though he was supposed to), and I ended up with all the bills. But I never really pushed the issue, either.

Jsmom's picture

For us, the parent that takes to the doctor, pays the co-pay. We are kind of grateful we pay the insurance and the statements come here, so we know what BM is doing with SD. Otherwise, we would know nothing and we can also tell she is not taking her to therapy as she said she would.

DH covers the insurance and that was taken into acct when CS was figured out. All the other stuff he paid for and BM's high income, we have never had CS.

msg1986's picture

Yeah, that makes the most sense to me that whoever takes skid to doctor eats the bill... I'm just very concerned that she'll ask to be "billed" for copays and we'll get the bill.

You're lucky you've never had to deal with CS. Bm here is a loser and lives off of Cs and her fiance who works at grocery store.

GoodBye's picture

I don't really know how it works in the states...where I am visits to the hospital/doctor's office are free. Anything else such as dental/optometrist/chiropractor you have to pay for, along with prescriptions. BM has SD on her benefits plan through work, and DH also has her on his. So whatever one insurance company doesn't cover gets picked up by the other one. If there is any cost remaining it is split 50/50. And no, it doesn't effect CS in the slightest. CS is based solely off of annual income.

New second wife-step-mom's picture

We have SS on our insurance but all copays and deductibles are split 50/50. Most doctor's offices will not send out split bills for the copay and deductibles which is a real bummer. SS's doctor/dentist sends the bill to SS's residence.

misSTEP's picture

In our instance, my DH (NCP) had to pay for insurance for skids. He was given a credit for 2/5 the cost of insurance (2 skids out of 5 total people on insurance) on his CS.

BM was to pay the co-pays and then he paid 1/2 of the remaining medical costs that insurance didn't cover. She did slip a few in here and there but the lawyer advised us not to make a big deal about it in court because he would "look bad".

The thing I would advise, if you have to go back to court over it, is to have wording put in that your DH pays his 1/2 DIRECTLY TO THE PROVIDER rather than to BM. Who knows WHAT she'd used it for. You know?

The thing that really bothered me about how their CO was written was that she had 6 MONTHS to accumulate bills to submit to him but then he only had 30 DAYS to pay HIS half. For a person who would take them to the damn emergency room for a splinter, a half a year's bills were pretty damn expensive!!!

How far away is the main hospital in the state? Some insurance companies will have some kind of a waiver on those types of requirements in situations where the NCP is covering a child that lives some distance away.

We also covered dental and vision but were not required to. The cost of that was also factored into the CS.