What to do about Medical Misbehavior?

[missmyson]

How can I protect myself from exorbitant out-of-pocket medical bills?

I am going into mediation soon, and if this fails, I guess we go to trial.  We were not married, she split shortly after my son's birth (FL).  I am trying to have as much involvement in my son's life as possible, and have been voluntarily paying support while we await a court order.  The Ex has been absolutely unreasonable about every aspect of this process.  She tried to put a restraining order on me for going to her house one time to try and see my son, but it was thrown out.  I haven't seen him for 4 months.  She is not well.

       She already has thousands of dollars in medical bills coming to her house because she runs to the hospital for a headache, and doesn't follow proper proceedures regarding insurance.  She has been using her first child's (from previous relation) medicaid to get perscriptions for her whole family for years.  The doctor participates in the fraud by billing the visits and medication to the state under her daughter's name.  Sometimes they overlap, and the pharmacy tells her she has to pay full price.  I am afraid I will be on the hook for these costs when her scams don't work out because the judge may order me to pay 100% of out-of-pocket expenses.  Her doctor can say its my son's expense, and I'll have to pay for it.  Besides that, she'll take our son to the hospital or doctor every chance she gets. This is what she does.  Insurance only pays for so much.  I'll be stuck with the rest, go broke, lose my home, and not have a place for visitation.  

         What can I do to protect myself ?  How can I get a judge to see the problem?  She doesn't work, so that's why I'm afraid I'll have to pay most of the out-of-pocket.

PLEASE HELP !  I have a lawyer, but she is very busy and mediation is coming soon.

[Ref]

allow for a reduction in child support if there are extraordinary medical costs that you have to cover.

http://www.flcourts.org/gen_public/family/forms_rules/943.pdf

Have you been reimbursing her for these medical costs so far?

When you go to mediation make sure that you have the term "reasonable and necessary medical expenses" to determine how much you will be responsible for. That way, if she takes son to the Dr. for something and doesn't use insurance, you can say it was not reasonable for her to not use the insurance.

What are you going to mediation for visitation and child support?

What county are you in? Dh was in Escambia.

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[missmyson]

Do you mean that if I found myself with bills totaling 2-3000 dollars that would be enough to get a modification?  I thought modifications were if things changed by 20%.

Would I have to first pay for all of the bills, then go to court, and 6 months later get an answer?  By then the car and home could be gone.

I am afraid to have to keep going back to courts that tend not to favor the father.  I was hoping that there was a more secure proceedur to prevent someone from draining the NCP.  She would do it out of spite.

She has done everything she can to give me a terrible time so far.  I am afraid her problem is only going to get worse, and her behavior will get worse too.

[Ref]

I believe modification for Florida requires , if the last mod was longer than 3 years ago, 10% or $25 a month change (whichever amount is greater),OR if less than 3 years since last mod, 15% or $50.

Anyway, this really shouldn't apply.

When you go to mediation, bring a parenting plan that you drafted up. There are several good ones on this site that you can alter. I recommend keeping as close to the county's standard as you can (It will more likely be approved. You can post it on this site too to get some opinions. Anyway, put in there that all reasonable and necessary medical and dental costs will be split 50/50 between you and your ex. If she has no job, paying half of rediculous expenses should be enough to keep you off the hook. I think that this is fairly common wording, so it shouldn't be rejected.

Also, if you think that the Dr. is doing these illegal things, I suggest you report him. I hate to think my taxpayer money is going towards this abuse.

Ask your lawyer if it is common to split medical costs 50/50 in your area. She should know for sure what the judge would go for. Also, like I said before, put in the wording "reasonable and necessary" medical expenses. If you think they are unreasonable, don't pay them.

BM was taking Sd to a shrink for a while. She asked that DH pay $20 co-pay to her in cash, upfront every month ($100/month). Something smelled fishy. Up to that point BM took Sd there 3 times with several weeks between and now she was saying SD was going to go every week. He said no and that he didn't think it was reasonable or necessary or medical. She flipped out, but sucked it up. Funny thing though. It apparently wasn't too necessary because SD stopped going at that point (BM couldn't cough up the $20 co-pay apparently). Later on we found out that the place Sd was going for therapy was where BM was working. I even doubt SD went to appointments.

BM was also spiteful and unemployed and lived off of SD's support for 10 years. Eventhough she is a therapist now, she still uses the $ to pay her student loans and leaves Sd to do without. Shoot she told Dh she moved from PA to FL just to take his daughter away from him. I feel your pain.

Also, if she is taking the child to a Dr too much, I would recommend that you get all medical records copied to your family doctor. Check in regularly with her doctor and make sure the child has not been seen and if she had, have the records sent to your doctor. If something long-lasting shows up, take your child to your doctor for a second opinion. Ask you Dr. to tell you if the child is seeing the Dr. too much. You may be able to reverse custody (assuming that you are not going for primary right now) if you can show that she is talking your child to the doctors way too much (I think its  called Munchousen's Syndrome by Proxy). Don't count on it though. That would take a good amount of proof including some expert testimony.

Right now it sounds like you are realy stressed and thinking about the "what if's" too much. You need to build a strategy and implement it. First you need to put down everything you NEED with regards to custody. Then you need to put down everything you WANT in custody. Spell out everything as much as you can. Pick-up dates, times and locations. Who picks up and drops off. I like the idea of non-custodial picking up for visitation and custodial picking-up to bring home. That way if someone messes up and is late, it is their time. The other way around, your ex could refuse to make the trip because she was too tired, or in her case, sick and you wouldn't get to see the kid unless you drove out. If she refuses the way I propose, she doesn't get the kid back.

There are a lot of clauses that many of us wish were in our agreement or that we got put in our agreements that are really helpful. Draft something up and post it and we will help you.

Have you calculated your support on your own yet? If you have her financial affidavit you can do it easily. Here is a helpful link.

http://www.alllaw.com/calculators/Childsupport/florida/

Go into your mediation as well prepared as you can. Think of her arguements and be prepared to rebuff them. You can't depend on any lawyer to know your case as good as you do yourself and it sounds like yours insn't very involved.

Best Wishes (and keep asking questions)
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