Saturday, August 30, 2008

In The Headlines

Palin May Be Benefit or Bust for McCain's Campaign

Benefit or bust. Is there a third alternative here?

Wow. What insightful analysis. A real high risk prediction.

/sarcasm



Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Aaaak!

For reasons far too boring to explain... I happened to surf past the AOL home page. One news item caught my eye; the question of whether I could pass the U.S. citizenship test.

So I clicked over. Imagine my sheer annoyance to find that the linked page is almost entirely in Spanish--under a heading of "immigracion".

Apparently the fine fun folks over at AOL think anyone interested in this topic is a Spanish speaking immigrant.

At least the quiz itself is in English. Which makes me wonder what language the real live this-is-for-all-the-marbles citizenship test is administered in. Does anybody out there know?


Friday, August 22, 2008

Even More Unbelievable.

I found the "itemization" for the aforementioned hospital bill on the insurance company website.

Unfortunately for my curiosity, the itemization did not include procedure codes or descriptions or even categories of what each item belonged to. Just a list of dollar amounts:

























































227.00


230.00


109.00


378.00


117.00


288.00


210.00


162.00


2,730.00


2,745.00


103.00


1,152.00


70.00


234.80


243.00


258.40


________


9,257.20



Now here's the really scary part.

Keep in mind we are dealing with that infamous insurer, that denier-of-rightful-claims and canceler-of-policies that the press loves to hate: Blue F. Cross.

Well, guess what. Good ol' Blue F. Cross paid the above claim in full, at 100 percent. No deductions whatsoever. And no questioning of any items.

I guess I have a really, really good emergency care benefit.

And I wonder what the $70 was for. The cup of apple juice?


Friday, August 15, 2008

Holy Crap.

Literally.

I just logged onto my health insurance company's website to check up on the status of my medical claims--and saw a "pending" claim from the hospital, for last Saturday morning's four-hour extravaganza. Since the claim is pending I cannot view the itemized details, but the total amount billed?

$9,257.20.

Let's see... that would include four hours' rent on the gurney, a bevy of lab tests, one bag of IV fluid, one tablet of sublingual Zofran (anti-nausea), 1 milligram of IV Dilaudid (to make the runs stop), a CT scan, a brief examination by the ER doctor, and a cup of apple juice. The cup of coffee I had in the waiting room on the way out is not included in the bill. Neither, I expect, is the radiologist's fees for reading the CT scan.

As soon as the itemized version shows up I will post it. But gee... do you think I have finally met my annual deductible??


Monday, August 11, 2008

It Ain't Bragging If You Can Do It...

... but be sure you can do it before you brag, or you will end up looking very, very French.

If you have no idea what I am talking about, you haven't been watching the Olympics. Go look it up and figure it out for yourself. It's all over everybody else's blogs.

Picture stolen shamelessly from a certain television network's website. So there.

Go team USA!




Sunday, August 10, 2008

Not How I Wanted To Spend My Saturday.

Paul, if you're reading this... now you'll know why I wasn't home to take your phone call.

It started Friday night around midnight, and got progressively worse as the night went on. I'll spare you the gory details; just picture someone crawling up and down the hall all night long.

By 7:30 Saturday morning, when I had a long enough moment away from the porcelain fixtures, I was checking WebMD and it said that if I had these symptoms, I should call my doctor.

So I did, and he said go on up to the ER, and he'd meet me there in about 20 minutes. I got myself dressed, grabbed a handy piece of Tupperware (for emergencies) and got into the car. Fortunately, the hospital is less than 2 miles away.

Four hours, a large number of blood tests, a liter of IV fluids and a CT scan later, I had been ruled out for acute appendicitis and diagnosed with acute and severe viral gastroenteritis (that's the stomach flu, to you flatlanders). Sheer coincidence that the only part of my lower abdomen that actually hurt was the exact location of my appendix.

The ER doctor said appendicitis can sometimes fool you, and it was still possible I had very early appendicitis, so if I got worse instead of better, to come back in.

My own doctor, who is also my boss, concurred, and told me to call him late in the afternoon to let him know how I was doing.

The ER nurse who pulled my IV told me no driving. I didn't bother telling her I was going to disobey.

By now I was in the throes of a galloping caffeine-withdrawal headache, so on the way out, I drank a cup of the ER waiting room coffee. Might have been a mistake; but I didn't quite have to resort to the Tupperware on the way home. Once home, I sipped some tea, and went right to sleep. That was about noon. Around 4:30 I woke up long enough to call the boss and tell him I thought I was going to be okay, and the ER doctor had told me to come back and see him again Sunday morning, unless I was doing jumping-jacks. My boss said call me first.

After another long nap and some more tea, I knew I was going to be okay. I watched the Olympics and then went right back to sleep. This morning I feel like I've been run over by two trucks--but I don't feel sick. I called the boss and told him I'm better.

So I guess it wasn't the appendix after all. Thank heaven. Emergency surgery would have really ruined my weekend.


Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Some Things Require No Comment.



Hat tip: Wizbang, via Free Republic


 
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