Our family has a high deductible health insurance plan. We don’t have any chronic health problems, and we rarely go to the doctor. During a typical year, we save money with the high deductible policy. However, when things don’t go as planned, money starts flying out of our HSA.
Last February, our oldest son started experiencing heart palpitations. I took him to our family physician, who referred him to a pediatric cardiologist. Over the past few months, our son has worn various cardiac monitors, had numerous EKGs, and even had an extensive ultrasound of his heart. To our dismay, the doctor was unable to find a reason for the sudden onset of heart palpitations. Of course, that didn’t stop the insanely high bills from rolling in.
As you might have guessed, we met our deductible. The good news is that our son’s bills will be covered moving forward. The bad news is that our deductible resets in August. We get one measly month of covered health care expenses. The worst part is that we aren’t satisfied with our son’s cardiologist. I am strongly considering getting a second opinion. Unless I can fit all of the appointments and testing into one month, we’re most likely going to be meeting our deductible again in 2022.
Because we understand how important it is to save for unexpected health care costs, we have been fully funding our HSA the past few years. Although we have the money to cover our bills, and we’re using our HSA for it’s intended purpose, it’s still painful watching our account dwindle.
I wish healthcare wasn’t so damn expensive in our country.