INDIANA – No Income Insurance/Caresource/Self Employed

Completely new to healthcare and have never been to the doctor as an adult but it’s time to start taking care of my health and I have the financial means to do so now but I’m having problems. When I moved to Indiana I was unemployed and was signed up for the CareSource HIP program due to $0 income. I worked a low income job for a year and then quit to work on starting my own small business this past year. The business is very small and I did not make a profit yet, nor do I expect to next year. I live with my boyfriend who supports me financially while I’m starting my business, but we’re not married and have no kids, and he is not claiming me as a dependent.

A few weeks ago I got Covid and am still feeling sick so I wanted to go to a doctor. On the CareSource website is a list of doctors that accept the HIP insurance so I started calling around and none of them accepted this insurance despite the listings saying they did. I ran into this same problem last year when looking for a dentist, none of the dentists listed took HIP.

I contacted CareSource and explained, they just sent me the same numbers I had already tried. Clearly they don’t update these listings at all. I found quite a few doctors that accepted CareSource Marketplace, but not the HIP. One doctors receptionist suggested I apply to get switched to the Marketplace insurance so I called and went through the whole application process, listing my income as $0, and was denied. The same doctors office offered Self Pay/No Insurance so I asked if I could just do that and pay out of pocket but they said No, it would be insurance fraud since I am already insured. Hours and hours of going around about this.

Finally the CareSource people were able to track down a single low income clinic on the other side of town that would take HIP but the earliest I can get in is in 10 days and it doesn’t seem like a decent place. I’m not majorly sick now but what if I was and had to wait 10 days to get seen for something serious or couldn’t get in at all because nobody will take this insurance? I also need vision insurance which HIP doesn’t have and I am in desperate need of getting extensive dental care done.

I’m able to pay for a decent plan if that’s what it takes just to get seen. I considered looking at insurance for self employed people on the Marketplace and filled out a new application but the links they had for self employed just sent me through the regular application process, which now says it falls under Medicaid and someone will contact me about it. I’m just at a loss as to where to go from here and how to find decent health insurance if the Marketplace keeps kicking me back onto Medicaid. Thanks for any advice.