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Coffee Break: Studio Market Tote

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black suede tote bag with curved outer pocket

Ooh: Everlane's new tote looks fabulous.

I think this is in the same line as their Studio Tote, which has been around for a few years (and looks great if you want a North/South hobo/tote) — that one comes in suede as well as calf leather, so I'd guess a regular leather version of this Studio Market Tote (pictured) will be available before too long.

In the meantime, though, the suede versions look fabulous. I'm surprised by how much is added by the little detail of the curved outer pocket — I like the single pleat.

The bag has an interior wristlet, a magnetic closure, and “a secondary pocket zipper” — the bag also is soft enough that you can tuck the sides of the bag in so it has more of a rectangular rather than trapezoidal appearance.

The bag is $425 and comes in three colors: Sycamore (pictured), Russet, and Navy.

(Psst: if you're hunting for a lightweight backpack, I've been really happy with the Renew Transit backpack!)

Sales of note for 8/21/25:

  • Ann Taylor – $20 sale types (select styles), 25% off tops and sweaters, and extra 50% off sale
  • Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
  • Boden – 10% off new womenswear styles with code
  • Dermstore – 20% off the Anniversary Edit
  • Eloquii – Extra 50% off all sale
  • J.Crew – Up to 50% off late summer styles, plus extra 50% off all sale styles
  • J.Crew Factory – Up to 60% off everything and extra 15% off $100+
  • M.M.LaFleur – Up to 70% off new markdowns – try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off.
  • Neiman Marcus – Last call designer sale! Spend $200, get a $50 gift card (up to $2000+ spend with $500 gift card)
  • Nordstrom – 9,800+ new women's markdowns
  • Rothy's – Ooh: limited edition T-strap flats / Mary Janes
  • Spanx – End of summer sale
  • Talbots – 25% off your regular price purchase, also, end-of-season clearance
  • Tuckernuck – Sample sale, prices up to 70% off! (Including lots of this bestselling work dress marked to under $75)

166 Comments

  1. My employer (high ed) has been struggling financially, and the federal turmoil made it much worse. Admin just announced there will be layoffs coming. I’m selfishly upset about this; this is my dream job, but it’s in a smaller city and higher ed in general is not hiring right now. If I got laid off, I would likely have to move, and I just bought a house last year. I’ll spend some time polishing my resume and assembling a list of employers to target, but this just sucks. I was finally feeling secure, able to take on a mortgage and put down roots, and lean into a niche expertise!

    1. Fed here and this has pushed back me owning a house for at least 4 years. It sucks.

      1. Have you lost your job or are you anticipating it? It’s so hard to make decisions like this with uncertainty. We want to buy but in a VHCOL area, I don’t see that as a safe bet now.

      2. Former fed here. I was super lucky to land on my feet with my state government, but I started a new probationary period and that pushes my home purchase timeline back a year. I will never look at a probationary period the same after what Trump and his ghouls did.

    2. Are we at the same institution? (Probably not, a lot of us are in the same situation, which sucks.) Stability is one of the reasons I’ve stayed this long, and I am not feeling good about where things are headed. I haven’t been happy in my job for quite a long time and I can’t see an end in sight.

      1. Unfortunately “financial struggles” and “coming layoffs” is characteristic of at least three institutions I have contacts at, so it’s possible but not definitive! But the mood is the same at all three.

        Thanks for commiserating, y’all. I’m sad and scared and saying it to a bunch of strangers on the internet didn’t make me feel better but it’s good to hear that I’m not a terrible person for worrying about my ability to pay my mortgage and buy groceries as soon as I heard the news. None of this was necessary! None of this had to happen! People chose to make this happen!

        1. I have zero idea why being worried, scared, and angry would mean that you’re being selfish or make you a terrible person! Seriously, that does not compute at all.

          I’ve been laid off (no fault of the feds), and it sucks, and it made me angry (I’d gone above and beyond for that job.

        2. Higher ed is 10-15 years away from total collapse, with or without Donald Trump. The overhead is too expensive and the size of college-age students (both American-born and international) is shrinking every year.

          The current crop of would-be freshmen were born around 2007; there were 4.32 million births that year. In 2022, there were 3.67 million births, and in 2023, 3.596 million.

          1. That’s not total collapse, that’s a 17% decrease in American born students, which could potentially be mediated by international students and increasing the number of students who go to college. Obviously Trump has made it much less desirable for international students to come here and it’s highly debatable whether we should be pushing more students to get 4 year or graduate degrees, but the point remains that the number of students who attend college isn’t completely fixed. This also doesn’t recognize the extent to which most universities are really primarily hospitals and research institutions and athletic facilities rather than educational institutions. I’d be the first person to admit that higher ed has a lot of problems (and the fact that it’s not really about education is one of them), but I don’t think it’s on the verge of collapse, or at least it wasn’t until Trump came along.

          2. “Overhead” meaning climbing walls, gourmet dining halls, fourteen layers of administration… They did it to themselves.

          3. Anon at 4:28 pm, that’s simply not reality.

            Foreign-born students are also not in huge supply. Birth rates are dropping internationally as well.

            Furthermore, schools have already done all they can to increase enrollment, from outreach to non-traditional students to increasing graduate offerings, certificates, etc.

            As a final fun thought, the generations that spent 20 years paying their own student loans aren’t saving as much for their kids’ educations.

            Source: I go to trustee meetings for my college.

            You are wishing and hoping. I have data.

          4. Anon at 4:29: it’s the fourteen layers of administration that are being cut now, and that’s what all the screaming is about in this post.

          6. Yeah, I agree that there are a lot of schools that even pre-Trump were in a lot of trouble, and the number of students clearly will decrease some, I just wouldn’t say that the entire higher ed sector was ready for a “total collapse.” Small private schools and smaller public schools, especially in rural areas and states with aging populations are particularly badly off. Geography matters a lot.

            And to 5:17 and 5:28, I agree with 5:28- most of the admin is either hard money or legally mandated, so it’s not getting cut very much. The stuff that will be lost will mostly be funding for research and student support.

          7. Even assuming no increasing in foreign-born students, a ~20% contraction is hardly “total collapse.” The industry will change, sure, but “total collapse” makes it sound like it won’t survive at all.

    4. I totally hear you. The capricious and cruel budget cuts are affecting so many people who just want to live normal lives doing good work. I’m at risk of a layoff too and a lot of people at my husband’s work are as well, although his team may be spared. We have no idea if we should try to buy a house or not. We would love to and could afford it IF we can keep our jobs. Neither industry is safe so we can’t just easily hop to other companies.

    5. Another higher ed person here. Things are very grim. I have lived through some hard budget years, but nothing like this. And the impact of the recent BBB has not yet been felt and won’t be until after the mid-term elections.

      1. Same. This is on a different level than I’ve ever experienced in my 20 years in higher ed. I used to love it.

    6. i’m in higher ed too. my institution was offering some kind of buyout package for older employees. i love my job and didn’t qualify anyway. federal government and higher ed used to be considered “secure” industries. idk what is secure anymore. idk what your role is, but at least at my institution, most (but not all) of the layoffs have been in grant dependent departments.

      1. This is because the overhead on the grants goes to support the entire administrative infrastructure for the whole university.

          1. Grant overhead is 40% of my R1 university’s entire operating budget. So yeah basically it covers all the admin stuff.

          2. Stop being pedantic. It supports administrative structures and operating costs. To what degree depends on the institution. But it’s usually quite a bit of it.

          3. Not 100% of that budget, but part of the budget for the whole university. The department does not get all of the overhead.

    8. For those in higher ed who have been laid off, what are your jobs? Are you academics / teachers / researchers who have lost funding from NIH/NSF? Or from other Federal Department defunding?

      It is helpful to let people know so that people appreciate the breath of the impact.

      1. At the universities I know (not the Ivies), there are hiring freezes, but layoffs so far have been relatively minimal, mostly people on the grants that were cut for DEI reasons (most of which had nothing to do with DEI in the way most people think of it- many of them were just for training or supporting students). A lot of the people whose funding was cut were students, so the university has been able to find other ways to support them in the short term (TAing or other grants or funding). That won’t last forever, though, and they’ll either have to take out loans, find a way to graduate faster with a worse dissertation, or drop out. Faculty that lost funding don’t get summer salary, so effectively a pay cut. Some postdocs and other grant funded people did lose their jobs. There are also a lot of other people who should have been hired on new grants that just never got them, because the federal funding agencies have been slow walking new funding, effectively giving huge cuts to NIH and NSF. Those don’t count as layoffs, but it’s tons of young scientists who never get jobs and will likely end up leaving the country or leaving the field. There will also be a virtual shut down in graduate admissions, completely stopping the pipeline of new scientists.

        In a few more months, once the new federal budget comes through and the likely big cuts to research funding are made official, there will be real layoffs, which will affect pretty much every part of the university. Grants directly fund a lot of our student support in addition to scientific research, and overhead pays for a significant portion of the research infrastructure, which is huge at a research university.

        1. similar at my org. We have mostly received the funding that was expected for this year, but with many delays and huge uncertainty about next year. We have drastically reduced hiring, and are bleeding staff to industry and other countries.

    9. Solidarity from another higher ed staffer. My institution has not done general layoffs yet (just targeted stuff related to DEI, etc.) but I’m sure it’s coming.

  2. How far do you think ‘other duties as assigned’ in a job description goes? Do you feel entitled to all skills your employee has? If for example you find out an admin can code would you expect them to do small website updates?

    1. Sure–why not? I’m in local government so this phrase stretches as far as it goes.

      Ideally, through other duties as assigned, the admin will make themselves more useful, learn more parts of the business, and move to a better job in the org.

    2. I think “other duties” still need to align with the pay. So for your example, no, since presumably whoever else codes there makes a higher wage.

        1. Or the admin moves on. Which is a fine outcome. Their job is to fill 8 hours of work based on their skill level.

      2. agree with this.
        For your specific example: updating the content of a website usually requires no coding skills, and I also would want an admin to handle minor updates that are similar to formatting a word document.

    3. *Do you feel entitled to all skills your employee has?*
      No.

      I expect everybody to have lots of random skills. I happen to be really good at cleaning windows, and that is a skill that does not belong to my employer, even though *somebody* has to clean the windows for the org.

      I think other duties has to be connected to the overall purpose of the organisation, as in this year we will focus on teapot glazing, and some people who previously did admin for coffee pot glazing will be doing admin for teapots this year.

      If your admin put coding on their resume, has talked about wanting to get into coding in their career, has offered to help out with coding, sure. If you found out that they have a hobby or a random course skill they do not use professionally, no.

      1. I mean, going way back in time, I was tasked with doing our office’s webpage when it was discovered that I knew how facebook worked. Not even remotely related, but I wanted to be useful and I figured it out. Not every additional task requires additional compensation if it fits within the average work week.

      2. I mean, it’s kind of an interesting thought experiment. Presumably you might be interested in being overpaid to be a window washer. It’s skills that are worth more than your time that you should object to.

        1. I might* be interested in being overpaid to be window washer if and only if the company guaranteed me a job for life with set raises! Otherwise, I’m significantly at risk of struggling to find my next job with my current skill set

    4. I think it goes pretty far – not every single possible skill, but anything within, say, 2 standard deviations of the role description – especially for admin, where “Facilitating stuff gets done” is basically the job. It would have to be something WAY unrelated to the job description, eg. “I hired this person as an admin; I found out they umpire little league games for extra cash on weekends and we want them to umpire for the office softball league now”

      For me personally, I push back if I am spending a lot of time on work that is below my skill level and role description; I have never pushed back on doing higher level work that wasn’t technically required for my role. (and yes, sometimes that’s coding).

    5. I would expect an admin to do small website updates in that situation, for sure. If the “other duties as assigned” wind up being a significant percentage of the admin’s time (eg more than a quarter of their work hours), then maybe a pay or title change is necessary.

  3. When I was growing up, my mom was pretty traditional and set out rules about what makeup was ok to wear at what age. Light lip gloss and blush was ok for special occasions when I was younger, and I was allowed to graduate to eyebrow pencil (my brows are invisible), eyeshadow, mascara, blush, and lipstick by 9th grade. (All neutral colors.)

    Is this still a thing for moms to set limits on childhood makeup? I remember very much an overtone of morality – the idea that only fast girls wore full makeup, but nice girls wore a little bit done tastefully, and if you wore makeup too young, your mom didn’t care. A friend posted a photo of her 7th grade daughter wearing false eyelashes, and that struck me as something I’ve never seen before.

    1. My mom set those limits on me and I think it’s really harmful to attribute morality to aesthetic choices.

        1. It took me a while to sort out my own belief system and I ended up with a lot of baggage when I unfortunately adopted a few of her crummy bigoted views and some internalized s3xism until I unpacked it in university.

    2. My mom restricted my use of eyeliner as a teenager and let me tell you, all it did was make me want to wear it more. I put it on/took it off on the bus in early high school and ultimately in my car when I started driving.

      1. That kinda sounds like a good thing to rebel against. Which every teen needs – some friction to push against and declare themselves. Mine was clove cigarettes once in awhile and wearing thrift clothes my mom hated.

    3. A big difference between when we grew up with and what our daughters are experiencing now is that makeup tutorials are literally everywhere. I’m kinda blown away by the skill level even young tweens have, lol. I see very little middle ground. Either you wear all the makeup, or you wear none of it. I don’t see it tied up with morality, which is a very good thing. I do get concerned about unrealistic beauty standards, however.

    4. I know people who restrict the brands/types of makeup for their kids to reduce exposure to chemicals (and yes, I am using that as convenient shorthand and you know what I mean). I don’t have a daughter but I likely would if I did – I know some lipsticks have insane amounts of lead.

        1. Cosmetics are very under regulated, so I assume she means ingredients that we would never encounter anywhere but cosmetics that could potentially have harmful effects since no one ever studied their safety in children.

          1. Don’t bother. It’s just those weird obtuse commenters on this one issue. I could set my watch by them.

          2. Or maybe we are not f**ed and this is all fearmongering. I’d love to see a link to evidence of harmful levels of lead in lipsticks sold in the US. And I don’t mean what someone said on youtube.

          3. lol, I love how some commenters love to assign homework to others instead of Googling.

    5. I thought my mom set a good tone on this. Granted, I was not super into makeup and there was no social media to influence my aesthetic choices. That said, there was never an element of morality assigned to makeup (ex. “too much makeup makes you look trashy”). Instead, she emphasized my natural beauty and entertained makeup requests (for lip gloss, glitter eye shadow, etc.) as part of a general education on responsible shopping (ex. you don’t need every new product your friends have, it’s better to use up one eyeshadow before buying another one). I didn’t push the limits much, but I remember her gently steering me towards things like glitter eye shadow is fine for a school dance but not dinner with your grandparents, etc. There was also less tolerance for lots of makeup at school, but again part of that was that I was too lazy to wake up earlier and there was no tolerance for running late because of a beauty routine.

      To be candid, I think this is probably a lot harder with the speed of trends and consumption culture around makeup today.

      1. I try so hard to send a similar message. My 7 year old watches me put on make up a lot and she asks why. My answer is typically a benign because I like it… or because it makes me feel good, or “I want to be fancy today!” the same way we sometimes wear fancy clothes. I also make a point somedays (most weekends tbh) to say “nah I don’t think I’ll wear any today” in front of her, and then that prompts, “why mom?” and I get the chance to tell her that sometimes I just don’t want to/it doesn’t feel important to me that day… AKA, I don’t need this every day, and I’m doing it according to how I feel and not anyone else.

        No idea if I’m doing it the “right” way or if I’m giving her a lot of content for her therapist later in life. It’s hard. I try not to judge others because it’s …just really hard.

    6. There are plenty of reasons to limit makeup use (cost, toxins, aesthetics), but morality is not one of them. The fast girls/nice girls terminology is just gross.

    7. maybe i’m remembering wrong, but i’m pretty sure no one at my high school wore makeup to school back in the day. most people were up too late doing HW to want to wake up earlier to do makeup. i have two elmentary age daugthers. right now they can play with makeup at home, or wear it out to dinner. at their age though putting on makeup tends to look more like putting on face paint, unless i do it for them. honestly, one of the main reasons i dont like them wearing it, is bc i dont trust them not to get it all over the furniture.

    8. My mom didn’t allow me to wear makeup before 9th grade either and there was also the morality undertone (she is of WASP New England background, so that also played into it!). As a result I haven’t set any limits on my kids – my older one waited until HS on her own and my younger one only wears mascara (rising 8th grader).

    9. Many young girls watch youtube makeup influencers and play at making their own tutorials. A 7th grader wearing false eyelashes isn’t out of the norm. Though even when I was growing up, the only person I knew who wasn’t allowed to wear makeup had an unusually religious family for our area. By middle school, most of us all had a caboodle filled with those tiny mary kay and avon lipstick samples.

    10. A seventh grade in false eyelashes would certainly catch my attention. My mother did not allow me
      makeup until I was 16 (I am old; It was the ’70’s) but there was no morality attached to it. It was simply put as old enough vs not old enough. The bargaining chip was that when I turned 16 she would take me to the department store cosmetics counter of my choice, buy it all, and continue buying high quality makeup for me, within reason.

      With a child in the current era, I think I would start younger and do it in stages, but with the same bargaining chip of funding it within reason.

    11. I was gradually allowed to wear more makeup as I got older, but my mother did not bring any morality into at all. Just what was “age appropriate,” so I got clear mascara and blush around 5th grade, and a “light hand” makeup lesson and products at the Clinique counter around age 13. More dramatic looks for dances, prom, etc came along in high school.

      1. This is what I did with my own teen daughter, except that the tutorial was at Sephora. I actually wanted her to have time to practice and to develop her taste over time.

      2. Clinique was my mom’s preferred counter too. And age appropriate was the term she used as well. The only morality message was that my skin would look better (fewer zits/blemishes) if I didn’t cover it with make up. She was also a former hippie/flower child and had no clue how to wear makeup herself. Did it for the office, but not skillfully.

    13. Ha! My mother would have LOVED for me to show any interest in anything feminine. “You look so much better with a little color in your cheeks”. “Just a bit of lipstick”. She wasn’t wrong, but every time she tried I dug my heels in a bit more. I grew out of the tomboy phase over the course of my 20s, and I’ll put basic make up on for an in person meeting now (blush, mascara and lipstick) and maybe some lipstick for day to day, but I still have a minimal beauty routine. And honestly, she was right. I have a lovely consumptive pallor most of the time and I do look better with blush! I just still can’t be bothered.

    14. I see a difference between restricting its use at school and restricting its use period. I don’t really care if little girls play with makeup at home, it doesn’t seem that different than other forms of pretend play like dressing up in costumes. I don’t think I’d allow my daughter to wear makeup to school before middle school and even then perhaps setting some limits on what can be worn.
      Although I’m a third generation non-user of makeup and so far it seems like my tween daughter is headed towards being the fourth generation.

    15. My mom set those limits for me, but always phrased them as “appropriate for your age” rather than morality. And I set them for my daughter for two reasons: (1) she was not great about washing her face and I did not want her to destroy her skin, and (2) I feel strongly that children should look like children and should dress and present themselves as children. A 12-year-old girl who looks like a 15-year-old is going to attract attention from boys who reasonably think she is older and will not know how to deal with it.

      My daughter still remembers the time she wanted to wear a particular outfit and I said no. I told her that when she was old enough to understand why I did not want her to wear it, she would be old enough to actually wear it. When she was about 18 and she suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence about some guy who was hitting on her and said, “OOOH – now I get it.”

      It used to be we had clear societal markers for when a girl was “old enough”. We have lost that. And while some men are just super sketchy and gross, there are plenty who are just acting on the assumption that the girl who looks like she is over 18 actually is. But agree that framing it is terms of morality is ridiculous.

    16. Beyond the “fast girls/nice girls” nonsense, the idea of “tasteful” makeup is also intensely class-based.

        1. Right, obviously all of those things are class-coded (and culturally coded). I guess my point was that there’s a particularly close relationship to wealth/status and the moral claim of being a “nice girl,” as registered by “tasteful” makeup.

        1. We also live in a sexist society. The idea that being “a nice girl” is a consequence of wealth is pretty awful.

    17. No limits at all. Are you in the south? Always think the bible belt has that fear of “ fast” girls.

    18. I thought I’d be more conservative about my daughter wearing makeup but when the time came, it was a big shrug. She enjoys it, she’s great at it (so many tutorials!) and our conversation was that makeup is another outlet for creativity and self-expression and low-stakes. Don’t like it? Wash it off! But it should never feel like an obligation, or a crutch. Otherwise, if you enjoy it and want to wear it, go for it.

    19. I don’t know anyone in my daughter’s (nerdy) friend group whose mom or dad tied it to ages or ideas about what “nice girls” did at particular ages. FWIW, I probably would have put my foot down at fake eyelashes before about 16, but my kid isn’t big into makeup.

  4. Just a vent. I’m getting a small tattoo in a somewhat unusual place and my sister is doing her best to try to change my mind. She’s driving me nuts. She is “worried” about me and when that didn’t work, she brought up cost (another way for her to put me down as I don’t make as much as her). I can afford it, I already booked it, no I am not getting a gang sign tattooed on my forehead, and I’m sick of hearing about it from her, to be frank. I gave courteous but firm responses to all of her pleas and now she’s giving me the silent treatment.

      1. It always surprises me how much people share with their families of origin and how much people care what their families of origin think.

        1. Really? I love sharing with my family of origin and they share with me. And we treat each other respectfully and support each other. My husband’s family is similar and my sister’s in-laws are too. It is very possible and makes me very grateful.

          1. This is my family of origin also. But I have enough friends to know that we are not the norm.

            This vent reminds me of why many peoplel don’t share a baby’s name until after the baby is born and named.

            I’m amazed by the unsolicited advice and feedback that people feel entitled to share. If I ask for an opinion, please give it. Otherwise, do not.

    2. Best to share this kind of news after the tattoo is in place. She would have little to say then.

      Is it in some very obvious place or something? I’m sure she’s just being a drama queen. And I am sure it is annoying to deal with.

      1. Why share the news at all? If it’s in a visible place wait for her to notice it. If it’s not in a visible place then you didn’t want people to know about it anyway so don’t mention it.

      1. This is what I was going to say!

        Also, I would bet good money that the sister in question is older than the OP.

    4. This sounds remarkably similar to the makeup by age limits discussed above, just more permanent and you are older and have independence.

      Interesting!
      Now do piercings!

    5. You’re not wrong – it seems like she is being very controlling about your outward appearance.

    6. Sounds like it all worked out — you’re getting your tattoo, and she’s being silent about it. Just because she’s using silence as a passive-aggressive punishment doesn’t mean you have to accept it as such. Do your thing, and let her have your feelings about it away from you.

    7. My mom is like this and honestly, it just makes me avoid telling her anything until after it happened. I love my mom, but she always knows best and is like a dog with a bone if she doesn’t agree about something.

  5. What are your favorite things to do with leftover rotisserie chicken carcass? Do you make bone broth or chicken stock?

    1. Uh, are people doing anything other than making broth with a chicken carcass? Maybe I don’t want to know.

      1. Yeah, this is the only way to use the carcass. But you can decide how to season the stock and incorporate it into other dishes. You could make basic chicken noodle soup or you could cook risotto, freeze it into cubes and throw into random dishes for extra flavor, make an Asian style soup with ginger and wontons…

    3. I don’t bother to make broth. By the time you put in all the vegetables and herbs, it’s less expensive just to buy a box of decent organic low-sodium broth. The homemade stuff is always weak and icky no matter how much seasoning you put in and how long you simmer it, unless you make it with actual meat and not just bones.

      1. Keep a big ziploc bag in your freezer and throw your vegetable scraps in there. Carrots, leeks, scallions, onions, squash, potatoes, parmesan rinds, whatever. When it’s full you can make flavorful stock. I’ve never bought veggies specifically for stock.

      2. What are you talking about? The homemade stuff actually gels, unlike whatever comes in a box.

        1. Yes, I would absolutely buy a container of legitimate gelled chicken stock but have only ever seen this for sale at places like butcher shops, never at a grocery store.

    5. With chicken thigh bones or carcasses I make chicken stock. I make closer to a bone broth from hens.

      Where I live, one of the free range, organic egg producers sell their hens as stock hens (instead of destroying them), when they no longer lay. I first simmer the hen for a couple of hours, then I remove most of the meat, and put the rest of of the carcass, meat and skin back in the pot to simmer for 10 or more hours for a stronger broth. The bone broth from cattle bones are in a different league, but you can get a good broth from hens as well.

    6. With the meat, enchiladas, pot pie, or chicken and dumplings. Stock from the bones, which becomes knoephla or if i haven’t used all the meat up, chicken corn soup. I can stretch one bird a long, long way.

    7. That is trash. If you want to make bone broth don’t use a rotisserie carcass, it won’t have any flavor. You need to use uncooked bones.

  6. Does anyone know how it works with Medicaid. Coverage was stopped because it was reported to the state my family were registered in two states. I supplied the documentation which was initially rejected and then upon appeal accepted. Three weeks later and the coverage is still not active.

    I have a disabled child who has shared he is suicidal. The other child without coverage has complex ptsd. Their care plans are on hold while this is being processed. I have called my assemblyman weekly, emailed his office daily and called the state department daily. No one picks up. No one responds to my emails.

    What am I missing? How do I get this processed so I can get the medical care for my family that they need. I can’t keep going to the ER and I can’t keep chasing my tail because it’s not solving the problem!

    1. It sounds like may you have yet to try your representative or senators? I believe they are supposed to assist their constituents. I’m sorry, this sounds awful.

      1. Yes, call your representative and see if your county or region has patient navigators or case workers available.

      2. the state senator has been on the ‘to’ of the emails. No reply. I’m in a blue state, so I’m frustrated it’s this bad here.

        1. Do you mean your state-level senator or your state’s Us Senator? Call your federal elected MOC and Senators’s district offices (not DC offices) and ask to speak with a constituent caseworker.

      3. I’d try another elected representative and make a specific request. Some are great at helping constituents, others not so much.

    2. I think going forward it’s supposed to be intentionally difficult w a high failure rate. I’m so sorry. Good luck.

    3. Can you go in person to the Medicaid office? I’d say this is the time to take a day off work. Not sure that your assemblyman or state department can help with this.

      Do your kids have a social worker who can help?

      I know for new people who are signed up for Medicaid after already being hospitalized, the Medicaid applies retroactively. Do you have a doctor willing to wait for reimbursement?

      1. None of the physicians will wait for reimbursement. I have to pay and wait to be reimbursed.

        Their social worker hasn’t told me of alternative ways to get this processed.

      2. +1 to this. Go to the office in person and explain the urgency I have seen apps get processed faster that way

    5. I would get the care now and sort the insurance out later in that circumstance.

        1. To be clear, I’m suggesting you refuse to pay the bill on the other side and seek to participate in a hospital’s charity program or declare bankruptcy instead.

    6. If their care primarily takes place in a hospital system, contact the hospital and ask to be connected with social work or patient financial advocacy. Large health systems generally have people trained to assist with Medicaid applications and who may have direct contacts to facilitate.

      1. It’s through a behavioral healthcare center and Performcare. The care manager with Performcare has asked me to provide a pay slip which I provided, only for his manager to say we need to wait for coverage to be effective.

        The hospital ER social worker referred me to Performcare…

      1. +1 to this

        also I think there are medicaid reps, consultants. Oh man I was just reading a mom who said she had to spend a lot of time and money paying to get the family or her son covered and it’s saved them so much… I’ll try to remember where I read that.

    8. Where are you located? I have one mom friend who keeps having to take her autistic teens to the psych ward and she will drive 4 hours to a specific hospital near us because it’s the best in her experience (it’s in Cincinatti, I forget which exact one but can look if that’s near you). But ask locally because there may be differences that you only hear about in the grapevine.

      If your child has another disability like 22Q, the foundation can be incredibly helpful for getting stuff done.

    9. I work for a state Medicaid program. I’m sorry you are going through this. Have you called your state’s Medicaid enrollment number or visited your local Medicaid enrollment office? If you have tried that avenue and are not getting anywhere then I would call your state’s Medicaid enrollment senator as someone else suggested. These issues from legislators about their constituents are treated with urgency at our agency.

      1. I have called the state Medicaid enrollment number daily. It rings for an hour and I have to hang up to return to work. In 2 weeks of calling daily no one has picked up.

        I work Monday to Friday and do not have any PTO left to be able to take a day or fractional day to go to the office in person without risking my employment. I’m already on very thin ice for being out of the office so much and dealing with my children during working hours.

        Thank you for the suggestion of calling my states Medicaid enrollment senator. Not sure who it is so I’ll contact all of them.

        1. Sorry I meant to say “state senator”. There’s no Medicaid enrollment senator.

    10. To get help from a member of Congress, you don’t email. You go to their website (ending at house.gov or senate.gov) and find the link for “constituent services.” They generally will at least send a threatening email if you do that, or they might do more/less. It depends on your particular member. (You said “state senator,” and it wasn’t clear to me if you meant your state-level senator or your federal-level senator.)

      1. State level senator is who I have been messaging. Do I now go to federal level?

        I am an immigrant who has never had to claim anything before. This is all new and honestly it’s overwhelming.

        2. Yes, and it’s fairly common. Your federal representative will likely have a form for you to fill out in their website. Sorry you are going through this and good luck

    11. I’d try another elected representative and make a specific request. Some are great at helping constituents, others not so much.

      1. One more thought – the school district may be able to help, especially if your kids are enrolled already in a public school.

    12. I’m so sorry that you’re going through this. I’m not an expert on the Medicaid application process but I am a physician who has had patients in this situation. You may want to consider taking your son with suicidal thoughts to a behavioral health ER. The ER will often have social work resources that can help with the Medicaid application. If Medicaid is pending, it should be retroactively cover ER visit once it is approved. This may be the best way to get your son help and get help with your insurance. In addition to hopefully being generally caring, the hospital would have an active interest in helping you get insurance since they will also want to get paid.

    1. Yes, I have tried and really like both their mascaras (Cloud and Lash Lift) and their eyelash growth serum, which has been working well for me. I like the blush as well, but the colors I have (Lucky and Cheeky) lean a bit more coral/peach and less pink than I’d like.

  8. Thanks to whomever recommended Everything is Tuberculosis — it is fascinating. And also short. I will need a new book tomorrow maybe. Anything similar in the pop science but with a medical angle genre?

    1. Stiff: The curious life of human cadavers by Mary Roach is really interesting

    3. sounds fascinating!
      I enjoyed The Light Eaters (but not medical because it’s about plants)

      I also have read a LOT of diet books over the years, and How Not to Diet had a lot of new interesting info to me. YMMV though.

    5. Get Well Soon: History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
      Anything by Lindsay Fitzharris

      More serious:
      The Emperor of All Maladies
      Five Days at Memorial

    6. +1 to all the Mary Roach books.
      Not science, but for engaging nonfiction, I really enjoyed both of Elie Mystal’s books (Allow Me to Retort and Bad Law) recently

    9. All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women’s Bodies and Why It Matters Today, by Elizabeth Comen.

      Really, really good.

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