Gouging accepted by some insurance companies and telling people what they already know?

My tonight’s subtitle: “What, and OOPS?”
Now I am stepping out here on a bit of shaky ground and so without an attorney to advise me I will watch closely how I say what I need to say verbatim, ok?
A few days ago Hubby received documentation of the billing from the in home nurse who came to our home last December that was charged and paid for by them and so he had no reason to say anything, but… the option; “This is NOT a Bill. This statement details information on payment(s) --- Has made on your behalf. If you have questions or disagree with information contained in this statement, you may request that it be reviewed. Contact…”
When he saw the bill for $475, he and I were shocked the nurse was here for maybe an hour or two. And all she did was ask him some medical history questions and checked his vitals, temperature, blood pressure and pulse rate.
Now she happened to mentioned what company she was with and I said oh that is nice they are the ones who came to install my IV for steroids last June and showed me how to do the additional days for myself, all three, again.
But since I am not insured we were billed and we paid in full the bill that I had been quoted the price prior to the very necessary home visit and it was $125 for all that I received.
Now I do know that without insurance and no copays as I used to have even when insured and so they tell me I am paying what most on Medicare would be, now that seems so odd to me?
And why would they then, with Hubby being on an insurance program through Medicare be charged so differently? Curious and so he called his insurance company to dispute the amount of the charge as being excessive and told them that we had dealt, for me with the same company before. The women who was supposed to be a supervisor with some power to wield and that is why Hubby waited a day to hear back from his insurance company that neither of us can complain about since he is always treated very well and fair.
But she, this supervisor said that she could not do a thing about it, since they were under contract with them!
WHAT?
Does anyone but me see this as a gouging incident that is just a drop in the bucket of all the rest?
I am one of the ones that while insured questioned aspirin or pills being distributed, gauze etcetera in hospitals at over the top prices and I was known to go over any bills with a fine tooth comb, figuratively, people, and I was covered.
You, see they double charged for this and that’s, and thought we were totally unaware, but when caught they were forced to take several hundred dollars off of their bills!
Whew!
We as a world are in hard times financially and the last thing anyone needs is for their healthcare providers’ contractors to gouge them consequently all of us in the end!
Frustration is best served cold?
Nah, hot under the collar and we all should be!
Travesties are committed daily on all of us, and must we turn the other cheek and allow it to continue?
I sure hope not.
It is Hubby’s personal insurance and so I can not intervene with them, but I can show my distaste for the way it was handled; with a brick wall mentality!
PS they called this a free yearly service for their insurance company of a cost per patient, for even the non-bed-ridden ones, but of course they have more consistent weekly care I do believe for them as they well should.
Perhaps, they pay a flat rate for it all?
I don’t really know, but makes you wonder and question and we should never ever stop doing that, should we?
And so I won’t.

The other half of my tonight’s blog offering has to do with the wonderful positive postings I see all over the pages of Facebook that I subscribe to, my old town where I grew up, my current one and many others… but for some reason, now this could be just me, but I get insulted by some that still insist that I am a dummy!
This one in particular posted today on my old hometown by a former classmate that I am pretty darn sure that she believes that she is spreading the word, of, “DON’T LET ANYONE STEAL YOUR DREAMS!”
Now stop me if I am incorrect but if they are your dreams no one can touch them, by law or otherwise, or if just in your heart they are yours still, and we as a human race with a wonderful history of being FREE THINKERS! Therefore I would think for all of us that would be a moot point, hmm?
I sure hope so… allow me now to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share your overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

PS my dresses arrived with my cardigan Saturday, and today we received the Adventures of Tintin and the Descendents and our third one we were informed should be here soon too, My Week with Marilyn!

Apologies in big order here!

Welcome blog readership, and please forgive!
We, Hubby and I were out having a heck of time going here and there earlier today and then we ended up at a lovely meet and greet party at our neighbors across the canal, also a farewell for those going home from their winter respite.
We had hearty food for thought and many interesting conversations that we all enjoyed tremendously; there were only about a dozen people there.(Correction they were twenty!)But the weather was balmy and the music was island style with a smattering of oldies, and I am quite blissfully exhausted.
And so I will leave you all with a thought of warm tropical breezes and a familiar Jimmy Buffet song playing in the background…and soon all of you from all over the world will love to be here too, in this place that we call, paradise that is more than aptly named.

On that pleasant thought left in your memory, allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you to all count your blessings and share all your overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

Hugo review and than some...

Hanging on by the seat of your pants?
Sure you are.
And I bet you have bated breaths too?
Well, the time has come my friends to hear the words that tell you my opinion; what were you hoping for something good? This is as good as it gets, kidding, but another great movie!
But it is oh so good; there are four thumbs up for that très impossible garçon, nom est: HUGO!
The whole ordeal for thee petite boy of eleven ans; he is an orphan when his father an engineer of sorts with fixing things, who has found an automaton with the power to write, in storage at the museum he works at and brings it home for himself and Hugo to fix together. Sadly, Hugo’s father tragically dies in a fire, before they complete their mutually loving task of the mechanical man being repaired. And Hugo’s drunken uncle takes him away to live with him at the train station where he too fixes things, the train stations clocks, and he tells Hugo he will no longer go to school but learn how to fix clocks! This makes Hugo not happy!
Weeks go by and Hugo is all alone, no uncle around and he has quite an adventure trying to continue to fix the clocks so no one knows that his uncle is not there, and tries to fix mechanical man that he and his Father had started to work on together… he has a notebook of plans and even sneakily steals parts from a toy repair shop where…now if I told you the rest you wouldn’t want to see it; so that’s it friends!
It was a great movie with an interesting sub-plot too and so I do believe it is meant for any of you PG people out there, because there are some frightening parts for the too little ones, but an all round marvelous flick, that Hubby and I both agreed and that it was enjoyed tremendously! A Martin Scorsese directorial and production; what more can anyone want or need?
Coming to us while we wait in our armchairs once again this week is, The Adventures of Tintin, animated but a Stephen Spielberg offering and the Descendents with George Clooney, need I say more? What an eclectic taste we have in entertainment, don’t you think?

And so more of the good stuff to come reporting wise…

Hubby just brought more of our crop of tomatoes in, Romas again, in our not as bumper as our crop was at this time last year, but slowly coming in and we think, at least Hubby thinks that something is nibbling at them. Any-who, at least it is not those horrid tomato worms!
It looks that way to me too, but it looks more like a pecking, as if the crows are taking little nibbles. Surprising, even with our Whirligigs that Hubby made years ago, one’s of three dolphins in descending size, a family, swimming in tandem and the other is a lighthouse with a sailboat floating on waves, cute. I designed them with him but as usual he did all the wood work and wiring! What a team, though, hmm?

On that more than adequate something to chew on, allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you kindly count all your blessings and share your overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

TRAIN WRECK!

Gosh, sorry to scare any of you, but I am speaking metaphorically.
Have you ever seen a friend or family member going on to do something that consequently will cause them harm and I am speaking, emotional, physical, financial BIG MISTAKE?
And you felt in your heart of hearts that you wanted to scream with all you hold near dear, at the top of your lungs, “DON’T DO IT!”
But you held back knowing that they were an adult and you had no right to assume that you knew what was best for them, hmm? Since you all, as I do, know what ‘to assume’, truly means; refresher course for any newbies, “making an ass of you and me”!
Later, much later you regretted that after the dust cleared from their figurative crash-up and you felt just awful since you didn’t intervene?
Talk about being in between a rock and hard place, for you literals I am again referring metaphorically/figuratively to that concept, but that does give you a mental image of what that would be.
My family members that had that business failure well I heard back from one of their siblings today an older one of the female one, and she did try to tell them, but they would not listen!
Whew, glad I didn’t say anything, then.
I suppose not saying things sometimes is a better way to handle a problem, but you all know me that is not my way!
Fortunate, for them that the secrecy of them doing what they did set our estrangement in motion that time and so I had no real desire to say a word after that, good thing too.
Have any of you over the years had to argue with yourself on how to handle anything?
I don’t mean out loud, but weighing the pluses and minuses on how or why to do something?
Writing things down in two columns seem to work for me.
And when the pluses outweigh the minuses that’s when you should jump into the ‘whatever’ it is you are trying to decide, and no one should tell you either way.
So I answered my own question about the ‘TRAIN WRECK’, concept there is nothing anyone can do.
Oh sure with children we have to tell them, and the mentally handicapped, or people who may go broke and have to live on the street… well, I guess at times we should step in and up to the plate and interfere, but many would take it as just that meddling.
Fine lines and you thought they were just around your eyes, kidding!
Sure we have to approach such things with humor and care and respect of whom we are dealing with and try to be cautious and restraining in our verbiage of how we say what we want them to understand…oh darn!
Is it worth it?
They are just people we see every once and a while and it is their lives and we don’t have to care so much about them and what they do and if they want to screw it all up, do we?
In the end, I suppose we are our brother’s keepers, and sisters, husbands and wives, and mothers, and fathers and cousins, you get the idea…
But we all have the power to decide what is right for us and them too!
On that somewhat ridiculous idea of what a ‘TRAIN WRECK’ really means to me, allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all those overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?


PS I am not immune, since I too have had a few ‘TRAIN WRECKS’, metaphorically speaking that is…and so I know from whence I speak!
And perhaps I would have liked a meddler, or not?

Movies seen and my un-requested opinion, as well as other this and that's,

What the heck is that?
My idea of folk art once again!
The picture was taken indoors but the truth is it hangs on our front door for the first seventeen, maybe eighteen of this month of March and of Leprechauns, pots of gold and the fact that St. Patrick who freed the Emerald Isle from all snakes; it is the theory that he chased them away!
I have been quite prolific in these oddities of my un-artful production over the last few years of too much time on my hands, time, so they have covered most all holidays or seasons! They are meticulously kept in a box on a shelf in the garage!
On that not so true confession of time not so well spent… I shall continue.

I have been somewhat not forthcoming in the entertainment portion of this blog with my minutia of our armchair film critiques’ reviews, and so tonight I will rectify that.
Hubby and I are proud to announce, or perhaps ashamed that we have not been watching the basketball play offs of March madness, but instead have been watching a few flicks that were worth our and perhaps your attention?

The newest in the remakes of Three Musketeers circa 2011, was our pick for Thursday night and although they chose a very handsome cast it was too much action and not enough substance for me, but Hubby gave it his two thumbs up! See you have both a male and female take on these things!
The other one was last night Friday and it was the remake of Footloose circa 2011, with an enchanting cast of familiar characters, Denis Quaid, playing for him against type, as an uptight minister with a daughter, played by Julianne Hough of Dancing with the Stars and Grammy fame, who like most teens is slightly misdirected after her brother’s untimely death due to a horrendous car accident that kills him with four others of his classmates after leaving the senior dance three years previously and so the city led by her father ban dancing and instate strict curfews for all their teens…
In comes newcomer and interesting dancer, Ren McCormack played by Kenny Wormald who has been living up north in Boston and had moved down to be with his uncle after his Mom has died. He’s somewhat a rebel in this small Georgia town of Bomont, and gets himself accused of all sorts of things that he never did, not off to a very good start, but dancing means a lot to this young man and he does try hard to change things for this hole in a wall place that he has made as his home. In other words a good remake with even some of the old music that was in the original, and of course the title song…
Tonight we will be watching Hugo; I’ll get back to you on that, how about that another TRIFECTA!
More than likely many of you did see these films but if not you may want to try them with an open mind of your very own opinions; and write your own review?
Moving on…
We had our celebration of our own homemade corned-beef and cabbage tonight for Saint Paddy’s Day. We have a pressure cooker, and do cook in, and that is more often than not… I know lately it doesn’t seem that way, but seriously we do.

Any-who, I think I met my objections of tonight’s presumptions of what I wanted to accomplish, huh?
On that not too clear observation of mine with my own word trends, allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and to ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share your overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

Bad news sometimes travels slowly...but does that mean bad Karma too?

Who believes in Karma?
Well, if you don’t know what it is than how could you believe in it? But I bet you do, i.e. really know.

Karma is defined best as: “1. Hinduism & Buddhism The total effect of a person's actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person's existence, regarded as determining the person's destiny.
2. Fate; destiny.
3. Informal A distinctive aura, atmosphere, or feeling: There's bad karma around the house today.”
Thanks to the freedictionary.com

With that said, no one can wish bad Karma on anyone, since it doesn’t work that way; according to the above meanings it seems to tell us that it is a done deal from the moment we exist on this plane or perhaps the ones before and after and how we personally act causes bad or good to occur?

And so, when I saw the bad news of a family member and his wife that just so happened to also be estranged from us, not our younger son, by the way, but relatives too, and that their business of only less than a year and a half in existence had succumbed to failure, my heart skipped a beat.
Sadly, I wished in my heart of hearts that it was a shocking thing to see, but no, I sort of expected it.
They chose a business that they had no experience in what-so-ever and that at the time made me wonder why they would do it.
Both had been in the field of education with never ever deviating from their occupations and were happily retired.
And the only experience they had in the business that they opened was being a customer for those types and liked what that was. Believe me when I say starting a business even when you have been to business school and know all the ins and outs is not as easy as it looks, and this is from someone who has been in three different ones with my best always partner Hubby!
When you invest in one with strangers like I know they did, or new friends too, I think, sometimes you are asking for trouble from the get-go, in my opinion.
No one knows each other that well and trust is as much an issue in a business partnership as in a marriage one.
When you have any ownership with your name on it, it is your reputation on the line, so you have to proceed with caution.
It is true that many a divorce has come out of a failed business as many of those businesses have also made those marriages stronger, it’s up to you and you know who.

Any-who, that was what was on my mind today, the fact that such well educated people with tons of money, but the need to have more…(not from teaching money, but from inheritance)
They appeared to want to parley it into a larger amount, for what?
They have three beautiful homes, no mortgages, and travel whenever they want, art work out the wazoo, you name it…
Some people are never ever satiated, thus the need for abundance that the woman in this relationship insists she was deprived of as a child and needs more, more, more… Sadly, when do people in the later end of their sixties know when enough is enough?
I don’t get it.
My need for things perhaps is not the same as others that did not have them as children, some say I was spoiled as a child since I appeared to have whatever I wanted, all right then… perhaps that is why I know when enough is enough too, and more is too much and unnecessary!
Just another un-requested opinion from a life observer.
When you are empty of something you need to fill that space and I suspect that is why so many feel ‘things’ are the answer.
But, in my opinion they are not; for whatever that is worth.

So now instead of making that investment into a larger one, they are now in the other direction of where they didn’t want to be and as I read online about the business they have many angry customers that they owe money to and they are not answering their phone, good grief; could they be out of funds? Nah, they are more resourceful than that, sure they are solvent and they will pay everyone that they owe!

Back to the Karma concept, I myself think that mine was determined for me to be anything but good or bad at any one time in my life’s cycle, got that? It keeps me on my toes to try harder when down and pull myself up. Trying to see the brighter side of things, my cliché expression of making lemonade out of lemons…Why even yesterday’s ridiculous so-called, ‘ordeal’ of dealing with that jewelry store and owner; actually made me feel alive with getting my adrenalin going!

No, I am not of the faith that believes in Karma, but in some ways I do, ya know? Sure you do.
Many people have great Karma all of their lives and everything good appears to happen to them and sure we are all a bit jealous of them, but one day their Karma changes and OOPS they are like the rest of us!
Giggling is not polite in these situations, but go ahead if you too feel the need to do it; after all it is not that mean… and very natural to be that way.
Sort of like now they know how I feel slap in their face of reality!
It is about time…
On that, who was she referring to mysterious thought, allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and to ask you kindly to count all your blessings and share all your overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

PS no one was harmed or even belittled in the publishing of this blog tonight, only factual details were reported by this author’s personal knowledge.

Here's the word morning glory!

So okay, I skipped a day of newsworthy daily do’s and so today I am going to rectify that!
Yesterday, with determination I was going to do two important to me accomplishments.
Number one was to contact the store where we purchased our matching wedding bands when mine had to be cutoff last November due to me not knowing that it was only a temporary condition and having not yet being diagnosed with Hypothyroidism; which more than likely caused my fingers to be larger than ever before!
At first, since it had been quite some time I felt a wee bit guilty asking for the refund for the rings, but my Mother’s engagement ring and band fit back on my left hand, where my own had to be cut off, and sure enough when measured at the store back in November my slim size fives had gone up to sevens! But the ring we bought me, I suppose due to my medication working had my finger go down one size once again! So the one we bought, are you following this, but now was too big and so I wanted to return them, Hubby’s and mine we bought a matching set, and I did explain; we had kept the receipt and the box too!
The problem was that we were a month and six days past the allotted time for the return policy/agreement! (PS Walmart was the store, and thanks Assistant Manager Kevin for being so understanding.)
But kindly and considerably the assistant manager said that’s okay after I explained what had happened; he said sure bring them in!
And so we did for a full refund, I cleaned them well and they had no scratches at all and they could see that they were well cared for, and so all went well, hooray!
And so my number two accomplishment was with that refund that we received we were able to repair a whole bunch of jewelry, three rings and two necklaces that had been broken and the difference was only a little over fifty dollars more than what we paid for those other wedding bands, that were titanium and gold and not very expensive but unique in the fact that they looked like a gold and silver combo. Yesterday, though, we hit a glitch for after we decided to begin the return and repair project we called the jewelry store to make sure that the while you wait jeweler would be there to do the job. His wife said he was out but “should be back any minute” and that we should call before we come over, and so we went up to where the return was way up in the opposite direction and figured that we would call via cell phone every once in a while and the wife gave the same answer that “he should be there any minute!” This went on for about two hours and so we headed down there figuring that he “SHOULD BE THERE ANY MINUTE!” Hubby went in when we did arrive at their store and sure enough he wasn’t there but, “HE SHOULD BE THERE ANY MINUTE!”
So Hubby and I decided to find a lunch spot to wait and we did go over to one of our favorite delis in Punta Gorda, Hendrickson’s, an industrial stylized Irish deli.
So what do you order in an Irish deli, why, Cuban sandwiches of course, what are you crazy?
Kidding of course, but it is on their menu and so we did.
Killing time and when we got in the car before going the few blocks back to the jewelry store we called from our parking spot, PS not handicapped, to find out if the mysterious jeweler was in, and “he wasn’t coming in until tomorrow!”
Now most would have lost their cool by now and all I could bring myself to say to his wife was: well, that is not very nice, and continued on to say that we may have to find someone else to do our repairs, and I hung up.
What would you have done?
When we came home I called another one but their repair person was only in every other day and there were no guarantees that they wouldn’t have to send it out anyway…and so the only game in town/county that does fix jewelry while you wait had us in their presence after our lunch today. Hubby called and spoke with the jeweler who said that he was in and would be in all afternoon!
But………when we arrived, he wasn’t in at all, he was out!
But he had us, since his employee insisted he was only gone for a few minutes and would be right back!
Endurance and patience are my very often weaknesses these days especially and anger, used to give me a run for my money, but no, I was like a dog with a bone now… I wanted my jewelry fixed and he was going to do it by GOSH! If only in a few minutes or hours or days, what-have-you! He will, he will, he will!
And so now I sit here with all my old jewelry new once again, he even fixed Hubby’s original wedding band and the inscription on the inside that had been ruined when his had to be cut off due to him hurting his finger and it swelling, all fixed and all new looking and somehow worth the aggravation? I think not!
But in the end we got what we wanted and so did he, the jeweler that is, being the only game in county who fixes things as you wait…! And dare I say the name of that jewelry store was Star’s and they have been here forever…!

On that lesson of trying to be more than I can be patience wise but also proving that I am just as stubborn as many…allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and to ask you to kindly count all your blessings, share those overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

PS Happy Birthday old chum and she did have a good one, for that I am sure!