July 2010 Archives
Camping
C and I just spent slightly over a week camping up the Oregon coast, and we’ve been back from almost a week. Not hardcore camping – we spent a couple of nights at hotels and did some good (and some bad) campgrounds. We drove down to Crescent City, CA after I got off of work last Thursday the 15th, and made our way up to Astoria on Friday the 23rd. Here’s a few thoughts on the trip:
- Mill Creek campground in the Redwoods is a gem of a campground. Private sites, not too busy, on a nice little creek – everything you could ask for. Tugman State Park great only if your idea of good camping is pitching your tent in the middle of a loud, busy subdivision in some crowded suburb. The Florence ranger station has great information about where you can go for dispersed camping – we spent a couple of very quiet, private nights at Mt. Popocatepetl.
- We had beautiful weather for the whole trip. However, wind is very tiring. There were many beaches where everything was absolutely perfect except for the fact that you can’t hear each other talk over the wind.
- I am terrified of heights. I still managed to do some pretty cool little side trips like climbing out to one of the Natural Bridges and up the Astoria Column, but they freaked me out more than I like to admit.
- David Sedaris makes for good listening on long car trips.
- Smores made with chocolate in place of the graham crackers aren’t a good idea. Too rich, too sugary.
- We lost a camera toward the beginning of the trip. It made us both very sad. I guess it’s better that it happened towards the beginning, because it means we lost fewer pictures. We spent the rest of the trip using our phones to take pictures, and managed not to lose our phones.
- The Oregon Coast is beautiful!
iPhone
C just got his new iPhone yesterday, and it’s very pretty. I originally signed up to be on the list to get one, too. However, the first thing that happened was that I waited a couple of weeks got the e-mail saying it was in, but after ~40 minutes in the Apple Store it turns out that the employee who put me on the list put me down for an iPhone 3Gs, not 4, so I ended up on the back of the list. Now I keep hearing negative stuff about the iPhone. Plus a new Android phone is coming out for AT&T, and I’ve been saying for months that I’d like to get an Android phone, but there aren’t any good ones from AT&T – now that’s changed, according to the reviews I’ve read.
So for the next week or two, I’ll observer C’s iPhone and see how he likes it. I’ll play with it (when he lets me) and see how I like it. Then I’ll go into an AT&T store and try out the Android phone. And maybe soon I’ll be an Android user instead of an iPhone user.
Random Futurama quotes
We have been back to watching Futurama every night as we go to sleep, after briefly switching to The Simpsons. Using a very conservative estimate, we have watched each and every one of the original 72 episodes approximately 15 times. 20 isn’t an unreasonable estimate, or 30 for C (since he takes a while to go to sleep and thus watches more episodes per night than I do.)
For no real reason, I decided to share two of my favorite quotes that have stuck out to me recently:
From “Fry and the Slurm Factory”, episode 13 of season 1, a parody of Willy Wonka:
The Professor: Who are those horrible orange men?
Glermo: Why, those are the Grunka-Lunkas! They work here in the Slurm factory.
The Professor: Tell them I hate them!
From “Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV”, episode 6 of season 4, during a clip from All My Circuits, a robot soap opera (and should be read in very dramatic voices):
Monique: Calculon! But I thought you were…
Calculon: Egyptian?!
The last line of each of these are new favorites of mine to throw into everyday conversation.
Health insurance: now it’s personal
I’ve heard the news stories on NPR about how ridiculous the private health care system is when it comes to insurance and billings. I’ve heard about how much time and money is spent just on getting billing figured out – teams of people at the doctors’ offices figuring out different billing codes to different insurances; more teams at the insurance companies to figure out different bills from different providers.
It never really meant a lot to me personally, because I’d been on Kaiser Permanente all my life – a private HMO. I was born at a Kaiser hospital, and was with Kaiser through my parents until I graduated from college. Then I got a job and stayed with Kaiser through my employer. You don’t worry about billing when you’re with Kaiser, because the doctors, billing and insurance are all part of the same entity. But at the end of last summer, I got married and switched jobs – so I needed to get health insurance through my husband’s job, which doesn’t provide Kaiser as an option. Instead, I’m now on CIGNA.
I needed to find a doctor fairly soon, since I could no longer get my birth control shots through Kaiser. So I went to the CIGNA website, found a recommended provider – a doctor at OHSU – and signed up for the standard introductory appointment. I had the appointment in January, and everything went fine. She gave me a prescription for Depo, got me an appointment at the office for my next shot, and everything was fine. Take note here that CIGNA recommended this doctors office as a partner on their site.
Fast forward to April, when I get my next Depo shot. I’ll just briefly mention that even though I had an appointment – the very first appointment of the day, so there was no one before me – they were still running 45 minutes late, so I had to wait 45 minutes to spend about 90 seconds in a room getting a shot.
Fast forward again to a couple of weeks ago. I get a bill from CIGNA saying that they won’t pay the $117 for the shot because I haven’t met my deductible yet. I also get a bill from OHSU saying the CIGNA hasn’t paid the $221 for the vist. So I call CIGNA, and ask why they’re saying I have to pay $117 for a Depo shot, instead of the $20 co-pay that it should be. They say that OHSU billed it incorrectly. So I call OHSU, and (after getting hung up on once) they say no, the billed it correctly, and I should have CIGNA call them. So I call CIGNA back, give them the number and they call OHSU. Then they tell me that OHSU refuses to change the billing, CIGNA refuses to pay for it, so I’m just out of luck.
At this point I give the phone to my husband, because he is very good at being aggressive in these situations – but in a constructive way, not in an “I’m really angry and going to shout at you” sort of way. He spends a while on the phone with CIGNA, without much luck, then spends another while on the phone with OHSU. The current state of things is that OHSU is going to try to work something out – but I still have no idea whether we are going to be expected to pay $221, $117 or the actual $20 deductible that our plan says a Depo shot should be.
Two of the most routine office visits possible, with a doctor that is a preferred provider for my insurance, and already I’ve spent more time working on straightening out payment than I ever did in 26 years with Kaiser. And the issue isn’t even resolved yet! So now this whole health insurance issue is personal to me. This system does not work. If this is how the private health insurance system works in what should be ideal circumstances, things are very, very broken.
In the mean time, I’m going to Planned Parenthood for my next Depo shot. They will charge me less than $221 (or $117, for that matter.) And the instant one of us gets a job that offers Kaiser as part of the benefits, we’re switching back.
