Yesterday was Jan's birthday. We didn't do a lot. She's not really thrilled with counting numbers. To me they are just numbers, one more doesn't mean that much as long as people don't treat me differently because they think I'm old!
For her birthday we did go to her church ice cream social with our daughter, her boyfriend, his two sisters and one of his cousins. The burgers were good and the ice cream was homemade. Lots of people and plenty of entertainment for the little ones.
In the last month, I've made three visits to funeral homes. My friend's father that was in an accident and put into a halo (the proper way) finally succumbed to his injuries. Next, my uncle of 91 went downhill quick and left us. Finally, Jan's second mother had become frail and passed away just before her birthday.
She is still going to physical therapy although I'm sure the insurance is about to kick her off. The physical therapist is a great guy and has never sent us a bill for any co-pay or anything. The lawyers want to wait until maximum medical improvement before they present the claim.
I just can't seem to put this behind me. I have blinding rage every single time I have to deal with anything related to Bilkmore. The reason is the bills, they keep coming in. Bilkmore does an even lousier job of managing their bills than they do with medical care. It turns out each visit is a new account number so the automatic payments I've been making are going to the wrong account. Not to mention the fact that we get four bills for each visit; one for the hospital/clinic, one for the doctor, one for the x-ray and one for the x-ray reader. Each of them gets a co-pay so we wind up paying nearly $100 each visit for the privilege of being frustrated to the point of screaming.
There can be only one solution: brainwashing to get it out of my head. While Jan was drugged and merely had to survive it, I was awake, sober and traumatized psychologically by the whole thing. I'm not squeamish in the least. I can dig into my own flesh to retrieve an impaled object but watching them treat her like that for 80 days is impossible to take without a lot of anger.
I called to find out why the account hasn't shown a posted payment in two months and I was informed the account had a hold on it while they attempted to move the funds to the proper account. Incredibly, the lady could not make the numbers she had match the ones displayed online. What were the odds? Based on previous experience, I was not surprised. She said she could send me a detailed statement but she would have to remove the hold and stop the money transfer. As a former computer programmer, that just goes all over me as being the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
We do not need socialized healthcare in this country or any form of single-payer. What we need in this country is a good system of billing and standardizing forms. Different accounts for each visit is BS. Paying a copay for four different things under the same roof is BS. Billing two different amounts, depending on the way it is paid is, you guessed it, BS. Maybe this should be an episode of Penn and Teller's BS show on Showtime.
For her birthday we did go to her church ice cream social with our daughter, her boyfriend, his two sisters and one of his cousins. The burgers were good and the ice cream was homemade. Lots of people and plenty of entertainment for the little ones.
In the last month, I've made three visits to funeral homes. My friend's father that was in an accident and put into a halo (the proper way) finally succumbed to his injuries. Next, my uncle of 91 went downhill quick and left us. Finally, Jan's second mother had become frail and passed away just before her birthday.
She is still going to physical therapy although I'm sure the insurance is about to kick her off. The physical therapist is a great guy and has never sent us a bill for any co-pay or anything. The lawyers want to wait until maximum medical improvement before they present the claim.
I just can't seem to put this behind me. I have blinding rage every single time I have to deal with anything related to Bilkmore. The reason is the bills, they keep coming in. Bilkmore does an even lousier job of managing their bills than they do with medical care. It turns out each visit is a new account number so the automatic payments I've been making are going to the wrong account. Not to mention the fact that we get four bills for each visit; one for the hospital/clinic, one for the doctor, one for the x-ray and one for the x-ray reader. Each of them gets a co-pay so we wind up paying nearly $100 each visit for the privilege of being frustrated to the point of screaming.
There can be only one solution: brainwashing to get it out of my head. While Jan was drugged and merely had to survive it, I was awake, sober and traumatized psychologically by the whole thing. I'm not squeamish in the least. I can dig into my own flesh to retrieve an impaled object but watching them treat her like that for 80 days is impossible to take without a lot of anger.
I called to find out why the account hasn't shown a posted payment in two months and I was informed the account had a hold on it while they attempted to move the funds to the proper account. Incredibly, the lady could not make the numbers she had match the ones displayed online. What were the odds? Based on previous experience, I was not surprised. She said she could send me a detailed statement but she would have to remove the hold and stop the money transfer. As a former computer programmer, that just goes all over me as being the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
We do not need socialized healthcare in this country or any form of single-payer. What we need in this country is a good system of billing and standardizing forms. Different accounts for each visit is BS. Paying a copay for four different things under the same roof is BS. Billing two different amounts, depending on the way it is paid is, you guessed it, BS. Maybe this should be an episode of Penn and Teller's BS show on Showtime.
