Stroger Hospital: Day 2 and Filing for Unemployment

Filing for Unemployment

Yesterday, (Wednesday), after much procrastination and sleepiness, my husband and I went to the Unemployment Office that’s located near us.

All told, we were there for two and a half hours. Not that bad for government bureaucracy. However, we thought we were going to merely sign an affidavit saying we weren’t working and then walk out. This proved to be quite wrong and was yet another example of everyone giving a different and often contradictory answer to the same question.

When my husband called Stroger’s financial services, they told him that we had to prove we were unemployed and did not have income if we wanted the limited liability insurance, and we had to do this through the unemployment office.

We figured that we could just certify that we’re unemployed either by signing something under oath or that they could just look up our social security information. Instead, they said we had to apply for unemployment and then be rejected. Worse, we’d have to apply to the state we moved from, as we had only worked there and not in Illinois. This wouldn’t have been so bad if it didn’t take almost two hours to be told this and only when we insisted on talking to the office supervisor.

In the end, the proper answer seems to be that you can file for unemployment online. You DO NOT have to file it online, and if you worked in a state other than Illinois, there is no point in filing out any forms for the state of Illinois to review. Supposedly, the state you last worked in will see if you’re eligible in that state, and then check to see if you’re eligible in Illinois. It also seems like we did NOT have to sit through the class on how to file for unemployment (which they had us do before they were willing to even talk to us).

Thankfully, the supervisor provided a lot of clarity on this nonsense and seemed sympathetic. I can only hope that she’ll retrain her staff.

Overall, beyond incompetent staff, the main problem appeared to be that there had been a great deal of fraud committed by people who were either still working for another state or were receiving unemployment from another state while trying to get benefits from Illinois as well. This is why there were so many steps to simply prove that we weren’t working. If we had been receiving unemployment benefits, this would of course prove that we’re unemployed, but as stated before, we’re not.

Strangely, the supervisor told my husband that he might actually be eligible for unemployment benefits even though he voluntarily left his job. As she said, it doesn’t hurt to try, but it’s still something we didn’t think of.

Unfortunately, my husband being required to file for unemployment means he won’t be able to file for the limited liability insurance for at least four weeks. *sigh*

Stroger Hospital Pharmacy

When we got to the pharmacy, we found that we had to wait to be able to drop off our prescriptions. At least this time, we just had to take a number, letting us easily keep an eye on when we were likely to be called. It took an hour for our number to come up, but considering there were 140+ people ahead of us (if you assume that the slips were numbered sequentially), things were moving at a pretty good clip.

At the booth, we were informed that we wouldn’t be getting our medications the same day, even if we had shown up early. The woman basically said that depending on when you drop off your scripts, you’ll be waiting 20-24 hours to pick up your medications. Thankfully, she wrote down what time we could come back. Also, the person at the cashier booth told me that they’ll hold filled prescriptions for 10 business days. From the window, I could see large bags dated back to June 22nd.

You cannot pay by credit card but we were told there’s an ATM in a nearby building. We were also given a form that gave prices for the medications. Thankfully, the prices for medications has remained consistent. The max an individual has to pay for medications is $10, and it still appeared that even if you get rejected for financial help, they won’t charge you more. However, the person who took our prescriptions said she didn’t think there was a way to get the $10 back should you later receive financial help. Since we each paid $5.75 for a day pass, I sure hope we can afford $10 each for medication. At least with medication, I know I’ll be getting my money’s worth.

Financial Services Office

We were told that financial services office was closed by the time we dropped off our prescriptions. However, we were told that they stopped accepting people at 3:30pm, a time we hadn’t been told before.

Our plan is to go Monday morning to the office and then to the pharmacy. Today (Thursday) we felt too tired to go to Stroger again and the pharmacy doesn’t reopen until Monday.

More wishes of luck and emotional endurance would be greatly appreciated, especially since Springfield has failed to pass a budget by the deadline of July 1st. :-/