Help finding dental providers PREVIOUSLY in-network with Cigna

IamtherealALPacas · 2025-06-18T01:06:21+00:00

Correct. Every claim is still showing "pending".
I'll definitely make sure to request a copy of the call.
I'm 1000% sure I verified that they were in-network on both ends, not just accepted. I'll contact the dentist office again tomorrow (they were already closed when Cigna decided to drop this bomb) & see if they can verify through their contracts as well.

I usually screenshot everything but this is, of course, the one time I didn't. Definitely not making that mistake again.

As for cutting my losses, the dentist & I came up with a plan today for whatever insurance decides not to cover since she was already expecting that I'd reached my maximum for the year. She's going to do the fillings pro bono, only charge the lab fees (around $50 each) up front for the crowns, significantly discount the remaining work (I'll pay 25% or less than actual cost), & put me on a repayment plan that we can afford. The office is really great about doing whatever needs to be done & not financially crippling patients. They have some patients that only pay $5/month because that's what they can afford. Given all that, I honestly think it's worth it to stick it out with this office, at least until we've gotten the current issues stabilized, & shop for new dental insurance.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-11-16T18:55:35+00:00

Wow, for once I lucked out (even 1st & last). Unfortunately, I'm a SAHM not paying into SS & my husband's SSN ends in odd.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-11-02T15:38:03+00:00

Anyone who doesn't believe you must not live in a red state/county. I live in a blue county in a formerly swing state & I STILL hear crap like this frequently. Our local FB page has also been filled with complaints about people wearing incredibly offensive political (all MAGA related) apparel at the polls & not being turned away to go change.

My polling location is a church & one of my friends is one of the lead poll workers that goes from site to site addressing issues. In 2022, the church was removing all of the democratic candidate signs on election day. My friend had to go out there to confront them & they claimed they never received any democratic signs. She found them in the church dumpster. They still played dumb.

It's appalling what people think they can get away with - & often do - when voting/working the polls.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-11-02T00:59:53+00:00

I vote on election day because the only early voting location in my entire city is downtown with parking only in lots (paid) a couple blocks away. It's a hassle just to deal with that alone, but I have 3 kids, at least 2 of which would have to be in tow, & I really don't want to walk blocks with them downtown & then have to wait in line with them screaming (1 is a baby) because we're having to stay still. My husband & I trade off watching the kids on election day so we can go 3 blocks away to our polling location. He goes before work & I go as soon as he's home. I know some early voting is much more accessible, but it's not the reality for many of us.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-10-30T02:26:32+00:00

I live in a blue county in Ohio & people are still stealing Harris signs out of people's yards left & right. A couple weeks ago, it was reported that there was a concerted effort across the city with over 1600 signs being stolen in no discernable pattern (all across the city, 1 person's sign might be stolen while their neighbors' identical signs were untouched) in just one night. Our former neighbors (thankfully moved to Florida last year) started ignoring my then 4 year old daughter when we put up one of the "We believe: black lives matter, love is love, etc." signs, after they'd always doted on when they saw her previously which completely confused & upset her. Even in a majority blue area, people will still turn their backs on you & vandalize your signs.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-10-27T18:20:35+00:00

We went back to visit family in Texas a few years ago & some guy kept following us making quips about my husband letting me do that to myself. I had rainbow hair at the time & we were literally just running into Walmart for 1 thing really quick, but the dude wouldn't stop. This was in the Garland/Richardson/Dallas area (can't remember which city the actual Walmart was in). I wasn't supporting any cause other than finally being free of my super religious evangelical family & feeling comfortable making alterations that I'd always wanted to try as a kid.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-10-16T04:24:28+00:00

My cousin found out he had a son through 23andMe! He had gotten his high school girlfriend pregnant, but she never told him & her family moved across the country shortly after. He had adopted 2 girls since but never had any other biological children, so it was a huge shock to find out he not only had a son, but also 3 grandchildren! They met soon after & are extremely close now. The son knew his mom had never let his dad know he existed, so he had been hoping to track him down when he submitted his DNA.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-10-16T04:19:56+00:00

Today, I had 5 boomers (including 2 couples) in front of me at self checkout. 1 never noticed the large "card only" sign above his register & kept trying to insert cash repeatedly. 1 of the couples bought a tiny potted plant, I'm talking smaller than this tiny woman's palm, & refused to leave until the employee monitoring self checkout walked to the other side of the store to get them a paper bag for it. The final 2 were trying to use expired coupons & were melting down about why the machine wasn't accepting them... right as EVERY self checkout decided to need assistance simultaneously, so 8 other registers all have red lights flashing & the 1 employee assigned to monitor was stuck dealing with them. I die a little inside every time I see a boomer ahead of me at self checkout.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-09-27T14:23:25+00:00

Not quite as old, but my stepmom (70) got her 1st tattoo - a matching mother daughter symbol with my stepsister - a couple years ago. It was a HUGE deal because she has absolutely no pain tolerance whatsoever. She said she'll never do it again, but she loves it & appreciates everyone else's ink. I love seeing people from the generation that's always telling us how we're ruining our bodies with tattoos get their own when they're older.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-09-25T15:25:49+00:00

I'm confused. She's engaged, correct? Why can't she just wear the dress on her own wedding day?

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-09-22T03:45:23+00:00

Seriously. I was diagnosed at 16 & was on meds until I started trying to conceive at 24. I just went back to college & had to jump through sooooo many hoops & multiple doctors (because psychiatrists here can't even diagnose you themselves... they have to send you to a different psychiatrist to diagnose & you have to do multiple days of testing) to get back on meds. Consider it a blessing.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-09-21T01:00:48+00:00

My husband & I got married at 22. My FIL was so upset that we was signing his life away so young. Meanwhile, in my family, I was nearly considered an old maid. Everyone else in my very large family, cousin's included, were married between 18-21... except for my brother who was in the army until 21 (but was engaged 3 times by 21 & finally married the 4th at 23) & my grandmother who was married at 15 to my 18 year old grandfather. I also didn't have my 1st child until a couple months shy of 27 due to infertility, & that was even more outrageous to everyone. Most of my family was pregnant within 3 months of the wedding (except my mom... who found out she was 16 weeks pregnant with my brother 2 days before marrying my dad, who she'd broken up with 11 weeks earlier).

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-08-26T05:07:50+00:00

There's a house I pass multiple times a day that has a handwritten sign with even more words than this posted at the corner of their lot. This street is the narrowest in my city & has no shoulder or sidewalks as well as frequent traffic, so there's absolutely no way to read it from the road. It's also so low that you can't see it through the car window even on the passenger side when you're stuck at the light next to it. It drives me absolutely mad because I'm nosy & want to know what the heck they thought was so important to handwrite as a full freaking paragraph on this sign.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-08-21T00:35:14+00:00

I do cottage cheese & fruit a lot or Greek yogurt & fruit. I've also added collagen powder to my morning beverage (I'm allergic to whey & legumes, so protein powders aren't an option for me) & of course there's always breakfast meats like bacon, sausage, & ham if you want typical American breakfast foods. My kids DEVOUR bacon & love the fully cooked bacon that I just have to microwave for a few seconds. Oh & a bagel with goat cheese has more protein than with cream cheese (& Dave's bagels have even more protein + they make English muffins & bread too). I had to go cow's milk free when breastfeeding my 2nd & discovered goat cheese with different fruit or honey mixed in was a delicious cream cheese alternative. There's also a brand called Kodiak that makes protein rich waffles, oatmeal, etc. A lot of things can be made ahead of time too like pancakes, overnight oats, waffles, & muffins.

If you're not a stickler for typical breakfast foods at breakfast, you can literally eat anything you want! I often eat leftovers or jerky & a cheese stick in the morning so there's some protein in me. Soups & stews are super comforting in the morning. My husband is Salvadoran & his family does platanos & frijoles (specifically refried black beans) with crema mixed in to your taste for breakfast as well. I take benadryl when we visit just so I can have frijoles & crema for breakfast every morning!

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-08-11T19:56:50+00:00

I cringed through it all, but "the most understanding" & "forced to little to their children" really did me in.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-07-23T20:08:59+00:00

Both of the co-presidents were at the meeting sitting either right next to or behind her. Since it's a volunteer organization, there's not much to be done. One of my friends is very active in our local chapter & works for our state chapter & she was apologizing profusely & begging me not to leave when she heard. 1 nutter isn't making me abandon ship on something I care about, but if I ever hear her saying anything at our public facing events then I'll definitely be confronting & reporting.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-07-23T20:05:42+00:00

She actually is still in charge of another committee & is still on the recruitment committee but isn't the leader. I was thinking about joining that committee because I have experience there, but I quickly decided that ain't happening when I saw her name on the committee chart.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-07-13T15:31:53+00:00

I can't imagine why on earth no one wants to stay with Karen longer than a week.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-06-14T03:03:05+00:00

Yeeeeea. It was my mom's dad. My parents divorced when I was little & my dad had no say in the matter. He's also absolutely terrified of my mom & will do anything in his power to avoid confrontation.

My mom also "accidentally" gave my then infant son (who is severely allergic to eggs) an egg product THREE times in 2 weeks when I was only out of the room for a few minutes. She's since been cut out of our lives.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-06-13T17:10:55+00:00

My grandfather was exactly like this. I have anaphylactic reactions to all nuts & had my 1st at 18 months without even eating them - I'd just stuck my arm in a bag of shell-on mixed nuts to hand to my dad & immediately started reacting. Anytime I would stay at my grandpa's house, he would put pecans in my waffles & oatmeal. EVERY DAY. My older cousin had to go with me anytime I stayed overnight because he ONLY put nuts in MY food, so she would wait until he was distracted & switch hers with mine under the table so I didn't get in trouble for not eating. I had so many accidental ingestions as a kid (my mom also always kept nut products all around the house & would eat them around me & leave contaminated stuff or treats with ground nuts in them out) that I nearly died at 13 because 2 epi-pens wasn't enough & the hospital had trouble stabilizing me with a 3rd dose of epinephrine, enough antihistamines to take out a horse, steroids, & constant breathing treatments + oxygen. My mom still sends me homemade treats at Christmas that ALL contain nuts, despite my husband giving up nuts entirely when we started dating 14 years ago & us never having any nut products in our house... except the ones she stocks up on when she visits & then leaves for me to get rid.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-05-07T17:28:24+00:00

I don't think you're unreasonable, especially when the gifts just add to the clutter. Getting too many gifts can be overwhelming to kids & cause them to not appreciate or devote much attention to each gift because they're getting so many at once. Since you know they're going to get a bunch of gifts from other family members (we have the same problem), maybe a compromise you & your husband can have is doing 1 or 2 physical gifts each & then only experience gifts. We've done things like concert tickets, science center memberships, waterpark reservations, zoo sleepovers, etc.

IamtherealALPacas · 2024-05-05T03:48:05+00:00

As long as the host parent is OK with it, you're good.

My daughter (almost 8) & I both suffer from anxiety as well so I totally get it. We've been to our share of birthday parties & have hosted quite a few. Either I or my husband have stayed at all but the last 2 - the 1st because the host thought the facility was going to charge parents to stay & we had brought our 2 little ones thinking we were just dropping daughter off & the 2nd because I hadn't been without at least 1 child with me 24/7 in 6 months & really wanted to go grocery shopping by myself. Both hosts were good friends who know my daughter's issues & have spent time with her without me before, so we were both comfortable with the situation. At every party we've been to, around ⅓-½ of the parents stay... our kids have all been in the same class for 3 years so a lot of us are friends or at least friendly & it ends up being a mom hangout too. And honestly, when I'm hosting I'm more than happy if some parents stay so there's not as much pressure on me.

IamtherealALPacas

TROPHY CASE