I had a busy morning yesterday. First, the blasted blog site wouldn’t let me get hooked up to upload my blog page for the day and I had to fight with that for almost an hour to get anything done. It took me most of the day to get everything uploaded and there is still a “trouble ticket” in their stupid system. I don’t expect to hear anything back from them any time soon.
It is also the end of the year and time to make decisions about our medical insurance. I don’t know why it is necessary to rearrange benefit options every year and then make us decide what we want to give up, trade or whatever. Invariably they give you the information on Monday and want you to decide within a week or so. My pension benefits for health care provides an HMO for the first time which has good coverage for office benefits, immunizations, etc. It would pay for most of the day-to-day medical stuff much better than the plan I have now that pays nothing for office visits. But there are other things about this plan we don’t like ... especially the maximum out of pocket cost being over twice as high per year. So if you did get real sick it would cost way more. I spent at least two hours on the phone getting transferred back and forth to get answers for my questions from people who were obviously clueless and trying to decipher plans and manuals they just received. I finally found somebody at the benefit office at the union hall who could answer most of them. After everything is said and done I think we will stick with what we have and let this new choice get tried out by others in the first year. I don’t have a lot of confidence in HMOs anyway because everything has to be “authorized” and all they have do is say NO.
Last but not least (and keeping with the medical theme) I got a fax from the doctor’s office telling me my blood sugar is too high and I need to make an appointment to come in and get started on insulin. Why I need to go in to the office for this is beyond me other than she gets another $70 to $90 for the visit. All I need is the prescription and the needles. The insulin pens come in pre-determined doses and about 2 minutes on the phone would be enough to explain what I need. But, NO, I have to go in and listen to another lecture, argue about my cholesterol, etc. and most of all ... pay her for the pleasure. My appointment isn’t until November 10th though so I have some time to get REALLY aggravated about it.
MjL 28 Oct 2008, 05:06 a.m.
I just finished my rant about doctors, their outrageous fees and practices ... then I found this toon. Just thought I should share it!
MjL 28 Oct 2008, 05:20 a.m.
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Border Disorder
