Sunday had only Taize\u2019 in the evening; Monday SAIL exercise; Tuesday, started the morning by attending the final project presentations for Intermediate GIS, a class I used to teach.\u00a0 Will do the same for the rest of the week.\u00a0 This is the last week of classes for Winter Quarter, with finals next week and then Spring Break.\u00a0 It snowed some this morning, but was all clear by the time I got out of class, so I came home and got John and we went back to town for lunch and to Yakima to pick up a package sent from Arkansas to the Wal*Mart store there.\u00a0 It is a neat inverter to provide an electrical outlet \u00a0(AC) from the cigarette lighter (DC) in the car.\u00a0 It was about half the price anywhere else.\u00a0 While there we put a few gallons of gas in the Subaru, and took a run through Costco.\u00a0 There is always something there new and interesting.\u00a0 That\u2019s part of Costco\u2019s business plan \u2013 they want you to go often so you don\u2019t miss special things and they hope you will buy other stuff while there.\u00a0 They may only have an item once and when sold out it is never seen again.\u00a0 John found a small bag of \u201cfingerling\u201d potatoes from Colorado. There are several colors and they are about the size of medium dog-do.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.mvproduce.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n I have been frustratingly busy the rest of the afternoon dealing with billings from medical providers, Medicare, and the insurance company.\u00a0 This is a constant struggle.\u00a0 It raised my blood pressure this afternoon trying to figure why the same service is charged at different rates ( John and me) at the eye doctor and at the Heart Center (me on two occasions for an identical service).\u00a0 Makes NO sense.\u00a0 The deductibles are a challenge too.\u00a0 One time last month I was told the Group Health deductibles started Oct 1 instead of Jan 1.\u00a0 Today that was reversed by a different agent.\u00a0 Medicare pays some things and Group Health picks up some, sometimes, and not others.\u00a0 Go figure.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m still confused, frustrated, and ticked off.\u00a0 I will check tomorrow with the actual doctor\u2019s office accountant and then call back Medicare and Group Health for interpretations. \u00a0For us, the medical care providers (doctors, nurses, and technicians) have been fantastic.\u00a0 The government is involved so the billing, paying, and paper work is unbelievably cumbersome.\u00a0 It reminds one of the saying \u201cI\u2019m from the government, and I\u2019m here to help.\u201d\u00a0 This was one of Ronald Reagan\u2019s favorite sayings.<\/p>\n http:\/\/politicalhumor.about.com\/cs\/quotethis\/a\/reaganquotes.htm<\/a><\/p>\n Tonight was playing & singing music with The Connections (a religious group) at Hearthstone.\u00a0 Now I\u2019m coming home at 8:00 p.m. to eat and to head to bed sooner than normal because of another early morning at CWU.<\/p>\n Wednesday.\u00a0 Today is our neighbor\u2019s 85th<\/sup> birthday so tonight we are going to a party. First, there is the class at school, and then SAIL exercise at 1:30, too bad I don\u2019t have something at noon.\u00a0 Actually I came home and worked on talking to the insurance company about conflicting things with my medical bills.\u00a0 Most of it revolved around required deductibles needing met ($250 for each of us).\u00a0 Yesterday I had actually found an error with one of the bills and will be refunded $17.39.\u00a0 After my exercise class I stayed with two other gals and played 4 games of pool.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t played pool in over 40 years.\u00a0 It was fun and we will be doing that again, I\u2019m sure.\u00a0 Came on home and spent the time on the phone again before going to the party about another bill for me for my care in 2010.\u00a0 One thing I found and still cannot explain is an $80 charge that I owe nothing on but for which Medicare paid $142.\u00a0 That sounds fishy and strange and no one could explain it.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t received an accounting from Medicare yet for that, so will wait to see.\u00a0 Then I questioned a June 2010 time at the hospital for my ICD implant.\u00a0 The total paid was over $10,000 for everything from the surgery to using the surgery room, the recovery room, pharmacy, and supplies.\u00a0 All were paid except for two pharmacy charges.\u00a0 The response was that those are drugs (self-administered) that Medicare won\u2019t cover.\u00a0 Well, nothing can be self-administered in a hospital, and so I cannot imagine what it might be.\u00a0 It is over $130 that I owe, and it is not covered by my supplemental insurance either.\u00a0 Gee whiz; WHY?\u00a0 So I noticed that Medicare had paid the bill and Group Health had paid nothing.\u00a0 I called to ask and was told to pay the bill from the hospital and then get on line and download a form to fill in and submit for their review of the meds that were not covered, and that \u201cpossibly\u201d Group Health would reconsider and pay.\u00a0 Okay– I\u2019ll play the game, but WHY?\u00a0 What\u2019s the sense of having supplementary insurance if they don\u2019t pick up a small part that Medicare doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 $130 is a pittance when you consider the $10,000 Medicare paid.\u00a0 This whole system is crazy, but I will continue to question.\u00a0 It pays off often enough to make it worthwhile.<\/p>\n Another thing I found out this morning was that my eye doctor billed Medicare for $142.00 for the same thing John had done for $30, on the same day with the same doctor.\u00a0 Also, they charged a separate $44.00 for \u201crefraction\u201d which neither Medicare nor Group Health would pay.\u00a0 Turns out that means a charge for providing a prescription for glasses, neither of us needed.\u00a0 I don\u2019t because I have intraocular lens giving me 20\/20 vision, and John\u2019s current glasses were fine.\u00a0 The \u201crefraction\u201d part was tacked on without discussion \u2013 apparently it always has been, and been paid for when Group Health was the primary payer.\u00a0 Now they are \u201csecondary\u201d and Medicare is \u201cprimary\u201d and nobody pays.\u00a0 Go figure!\u00a0 So it seems to us this is a \u201cstealth\u201d charge in the eye exam.\u00a0 John\u2019s was accidentally left off, but mine was there.\u00a0 Attention to detail?\u00a0 Something is not right with this picture!\u00a0 We have decided NOT to have a refraction done next time we have an eye exam if it will be charged above the exam fee (already $154), and I have also decided I\u2019m not going in for an eye exam until I have some concern with my eyesight.<\/p>\n Friday.\u00a0 John got up early and checked for news via the Internet and learned of the earthquake in Japan — awful news.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have a working antenna for the TV so we watched live \u201cfeeds\u201d on the BBC on the Internet.\u00a0 I left early for two hours of final presentations for Intermediate GIS.\u00a0 There were 23 reports starting Tuesday this week, and I enjoyed being a part of it–more so this year than last when I was still very weak, using a walker and John had to drive me.\u00a0 Both other events for the day were cancelled, so I have the afternoon free to catch up on bill paying and organizing.\u00a0 Thus far half the afternoon is gone and I have been emailing the entire time.\u00a0\u00a0 John got a nap, so that\u2019s good.\u00a0 \u00a0I never did.\u00a0 He fixed us a great dinner, and I did complete some of the things on my list of to-dos.\u00a0 Now I\u2019m tired, and ready for bed, but it\u2019s only 8:00 p.m.\u00a0 Thank goodness tomorrow is not an early start day.<\/p>\n Saturday.\u00a0 Today is only playing music at Briarwood Retirement Community, but, they will feed us something at the end at 3:00 p.m. — strange time and one that matters at home for both lunch and supper, but that\u2019s the schedule.\u00a0 We play from a little before 2:00 till 3:00.<\/p>\n Saturday.\u00a0 We have spent about an hour so far this morning following the events in Japan from the earthquakes and tsunami. Most folks are unaware that a similar event is possible along our Washington State coast although the WA coast is less populated.\u00a0 There was a 9.1 quake (the Japan one is said to be 8.9) on January 26, 1700 at about 9 p.m. that shows up here in the physical landscape and was documented by written reports of a tsunami (then of unknown origin) in Japan. A summary is here:<\/p>\n http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1700_Cascadia_earthquake<\/a><\/p>\n Longer materials are here:<\/p>\n http:\/\/pubs.usgs.gov\/pp\/pp1707\/<\/a><\/p>\n This is called \u201cthe Orphan Tsunami\u201d and the materials are very large files so don\u2019t click on any of the downloads unless you have a broadband connection.\u00a0 The link above shows the cover illustration and lists all the parts of the book.\u00a0 Part 3, near the bottom of the listed items is most relevant to the evidence from WA\u2019s coast.<\/p>\n The National Geographic folks have produced a television episode about this to be shown this Sunday:<\/p>\n http:\/\/channel.nationalgeographic.com\/episode\/mega-quake-5563\/Overview<\/a><\/p>\n Maybe we can find someone to visit where we can watch.<\/p>\n Suppose I will stop this now and give to John to put on the blog.<\/p>\n Hope you all have a good week.<\/p>\n Best regards from Nancy & John and all the critters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sunday had only Taize\u2019 in the evening; Monday SAIL exercise; Tuesday, started the morning by attending the final project presentations for Intermediate GIS, a class I used to teach.\u00a0 Will do the same for the rest of the week.\u00a0 This is the last week of classes for Winter Quarter, with finals next week and then … Continue reading “SATURDAY — Navigating the billing maze”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p72iNf-c3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=747"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":749,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions\/749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}