Medicaid vs BCBS

[roxzwmn]

What is the name of your state?undefinedWhat is the name of your state?Mississippi

I am a second wife. My husband has two children from a previous marriage. After our marriage, I added my husband and my two stepchildren to my BCBS family medical, vision, and dental plans. We informed his ex-wife of this change in coverage. She previously, and now concurrently, has the children enrolled on Medicaid. She constantly asks us for money for medical bills ( our pharmacist has told us Medicaid has paid the bills, she has not had to make cash payment). It's a big rigamarole..She instructed me that I needed to drop the kids from my insurance. I replied she needed to inform Medicaid of their BCBS coverage. According to the divorce decree, both parents are liable for 1/2 of the medical bills. Does not our BCBS coverage answer our obligation of payment for medical?

 

[LdiJ]

What is the name of your state?undefinedWhat is the name of your state?Mississippi

I am a second wife. My husband has two children from a previous marriage. After our marriage, I added my husband and my two stepchildren to my BCBS family medical, vision, and dental plans. We informed his ex-wife of this change in coverage. She previously, and now concurrently, has the children enrolled on Medicaid. She constantly asks us for money for medical bills ( our pharmacist has told us Medicaid has paid the bills, she has not had to make cash payment). It's a big rigamarole..She instructed me that I needed to drop the kids from my insurance. I replied she needed to inform Medicaid of their BCBS coverage. According to the divorce decree, both parents are liable for 1/2 of the medical bills. Does not our BCBS coverage answer our obligation of payment for medical?

You are misinterpreting the divorce decree. The 1/2 payment that each parent owes is 50% of unreimbursed medical expenses (those not paid by insurance). Since mom is using medicaid she doesn't HAVE any unreimbursed expenses, therefore she should be presenting no bills to you at all. Your husband was most likely ordered to provide the health insurance as a separate item.

However, she is also committing fraud by not reporting the children's health insurance to medicaid and for not using the children's health insurance as primary insurance.

 

[Phnx02]

The ex wife can have both private insurance and medicaid at the same time. She should have notified the state that the kids have private insurance. When she takes the kids to the doctor or has a prescription filled, the bills will be paid for by the private/primary insurance. Then, Medicaid will pay for any co-pays and what wasn't covered by the primary insurance. She should not have any unpaid medical bills, including co-pays doing it this way.