I had to take medical bills for reimbursement to my private health and government health on Thursday. My PTSD really impacts me when it comes to doing paperwork, ironically what used to be one of my strengths. I used to pay all our bills up front and then submit the paperwork for reimbursement, but somewhere along the way over the last 5 years it's gotten harder and harder & where possible I've utilised the system where the provider (doctor /surgeon etc) submits the bill to Medicare or Medibank & we just pay the gap and get a receipt for the entire amount showing who has paid what. I confess I also began to get confused with terminology 2 way gap, in hospital gap, provider fee and for those invoices I received by mail I paid the amount in full knowing it needed to be claimed back, but I couldn't determine which invoice was to be sent to Medibank or to Medicare or both. I tried a few times to make an appointment to see Medibank as Im driven by destination and times, if I have no set time I find it hard. I find it hard to deal with loud noises, lots of people, car parks, shopping centres in particular. Most Medibank & Medicare offices are based within large shopping centres and they will not make exceptions and make appointments for people. So I have delayed and delayed.

Finally, I knew I had to be in the city for work on Thursday so I determined where the Medibank & Medicare offices were located in relation to where my work appt was & straight after the meeting finished I went to Medibank. I got there at 11.50 am, no one within the building and a lovely man greeted me at the door & took me to his desk. I tried to explain I suffer with PTSD & began to cry, I pulled out the bag of invoices for reimbursement and his face fell. I apologised profusely with there being probably 3 years of invoice paperwork to process. I said to him, let's create a 3 piles, what is for Medibank that you can action, what is for Medicare that I can take to Medicare and what has already been paid & claimed can be binned. As he worked through the papers I could feel agitation rising, on occasion he would say this would have been claimable but it's older than 2 years, I kept whispering to myself let it go, just breathe, let it go. I was there for about 30 minutes. The sense of panic continued to rise and tears were flowing. He asked a few times if I needed water, no just tissues. We reached the point where I had to sign 3 different slips of paper. A tide of panic consumed me and within seconds I was struggling to breathe & trying desperately to hold it together & not vomit. We concluded the transaction and he said the reimbursements will be in our bank within 10'days. He suggested to me to come back to him from now on for any invoices I have & he will help. As I left he said well we got through it, I said yes with the added bonus of me not throwing up. .. went to Medicare and went through it all over again, only as soon as I stepped inside and a woman greeted me, I burst into tears and the panic was overwhelming, she grabbed a chair & slid me into it as I began to faint. She got water, and did the same as the Medibank chap did, processed what could be done, what needed to be binned & 2 accounts although she can see they have been paid, the invoice needs to show a zero balance. I got home about 2.30pm bordering on hysteria.

Tried to explain to DB how bad it was, ended up taking a whole Xanax. I took photos of the 2 invoices and emailed the respective providers requesting zero balance receipts to be emailed back. Got one back on Friday, I'm back in the city on Monday for work, will take the invoice with me & get it actioned at Medicare.

I knew I was bad, but had no idea I was this bad, the feeling of utter despair and struggling to breathe was horrid. Crying of course made me feel like a washed out dish rag & I'm sure I was a sight in the city with all the suited & booted immaculately presented ladies & me waddling along with my walking stick & tears just flowing non stop down my face. I will work hard on not letting paperwork build up like that again. Now I've just got to do the same thing with our tax returns for 2015/16. Fortunately our tax agent has been dealing with us for 10 yrs and knows all about my PTSD, she helps me enormously by sitting with me helping sort what papers / invoices need to go into what pile for claiming.
Consider me overwhelmed I guess. I tried to say to DB if you had been there you would have been shocked to see just how bad a state I'm in.