April 2nd March Madness

. . . ends in April

Work continues on the reconfiguration of the Big Brown Shed, as does pruning the wine grape vines over at White Heron. Thursday morning, we noticed “weeping” – – the first sign the vine is coming back to life.
The photo here (from the Web) is of an older cane – brown, rather than a cane from the last growth season – green interior. Not all cuts have produced weeping, but a few more warm afternoons should see that happen. We will also see buds start to enlarge and leaves start to emerge.
This early growth is pretty, and delicate – the pruning near them has to be done with care or they can snap off.

The wine from the 2021 harvest is still in large food-grade polyethylene tanks.
Some of the 2020 harvest has been bottled; most not yet.

Crazy medical stuff.
Last week I needed prescriptions filled.
The co-pays were:
$ 0.00;
$ 0.12;
$ 0.82;
$ 2.75

All the paper, little plastic bottles, and inserted drying agents likely cost as much as the co-pays. There is something odd about this but I can’t figure out exactly what.

Nancy and I each got an envelope of paper from the Medicare folks. These usually make no sense and these were true to form.
Near the top there is: THIS IS NOT A BILL

Then there is: Total you may be billed – – $17.79
This statement if for a visit to the University of Washington on March 11, 2019. Repeat: March 11, 2019.
By way of explanation, there is this:

Footnote E is “After your deductible and coinsurance were applied, the amount Medicare paid was reduced due to Federal, State, and local rules.”

In the end, there is no way to know exactly what was happening with this over the past 3 plus years.
However, they do include the statement: “You have now met your deductible for 2019.” There are 2 pages of stuff I don’t need, such as the a “rights’” statement in 12 different languages.

My statement looks like this:

This has the same sort of non-helpful information. It is for an annual “wellness visit” and a subsequent visit following a blood analysis. It mentions a personalized prevention plan of service (pps). If you can’t draw a clock or remember 3 words for 10 minutes, maybe something happens. I haven’t found out – yet!
I find it interesting that the Clinic (the facility) charged $258.00 while Medicare paid $303.78.
I guess someone in the Federal system thinks the service is worth more than do the folks that actually provided it.

The statement is called a Medicare Summary Notice (MSN).
I can switch from a paper MSN every 3 months to an electronic statement (eMSN) and have such information every month. That would be 4 times the garbage every year, and easier to ignore. Thrilling.

The wind blew in the Kittitas Valley this week, so while I was away pruning grape vines, and the building crew couldn’t go climb on someone’s roof — they came and worked on the Big Brown Shed.

In another work session, I’ll have to change the name.

From the Naneum Fan

John