Healthcare sliminess.

For some routine checkups that I have done yearly I had accidentally skipped a year and I started again this year like 3-4 months ago, but this time the billing seemed off, including a set of late bills that came in that insurance didn't chip in for that amounted to like $700.

So, I looked up the codes and it seemed right away like duplicate billing at least for the staff -- AMA guidelines say that you only bill out a second subordinate staffer like a nurse for their time if they spend a lot of time going over something different than the main subject of the appointment with the doctor, which was not the case at my appointment -- and my hunch was that the test was billed out twice, too, maybe from a different department.

And, I eventually got them to send me old copies of my bills from former appointments, too, only to find that at those 2 previous appointments there was 1 billing code for each thing, as opposed to the 2 per thing this time.

But, when I contacted the hospital, they were soooo slimy, pushing me to do stuff over the phone instead of email (no), saying that they never do fraudulent billing and that they did a "review" and the other bills were for like "facilities" (I think), later they said they did another review (again?) and the billing was for something like "different aspects of the same care" (you mean duplicate billing, I think?), and all the while they couldn't give me a straight answer for what the billing was actually for...  Just a scam, and I had to lay out for them twice that my options include contacting the insurer about potential health insurance fraud, as well as the state attorney general. I also had to tell them that it was astonishing that we had exchanged so many emails and they couldn't answer a simple question about what the bills were for, so the billing simply did not appear to be legitimate...  

The last I had heard they had said something about physically mailing me some result of some review, but when I responded to that email with a strongly worded email saying something like that their claims of "review" had appeared false so far and all the reasons that they had provided so far were generalities that made no sense and explained nothing and so the billing did not appear to be legitimate according to the evidence that I had provided, I got a notice in my email a few days later saying I had yet another message in my hospital messaging account from them. But, I didn't check it right away because I was busy and because this is all just so draining, and instead I decided that I'd look at it when something finally showed up in the mail (it didn't - I'm still waiting).

So, maybe they cancelled out the bills and never mailed me what they said they'd mail me, or maybe I misremembered what they said they'd do?

This is just such a timesuck, it's like they're trying to wear you down and make you accept the legitimacy of the billing and pay it to get rid of it instead of spending the time and energy and mental space fighting it.

Just such a scam, and so slimy.

It's finally on my to-do list to go open that message they sent me, and to see whatever they said.

I really hope that I don't have to write the state attorney general. 

I would also add that I don't remember companies doing stuff like this, years ago, but now I've run into billing and fraudulent stuff everywhere -- the hospital, an interstate bus service that I used, a rental car company...

It's like all of them are hostile rackets that are out to get you, instead of businesses operating in reasonably good faith that occasionally make mistakes sometimes, as happens in life.

A life-changing discovery:

You can refrigerate avocados.

HOA.

Like a month ago at work at the one (Irish-y) burger joint on the first floor of a historic hotel that I now work at, we had a reservation for a rather large group of up to 35 people that turned out to be a home owner's association.

And, when I found out what it was before any of them arrived, I started just going off on HOAs.

"If you want big tips," I was like, "Just talk to the other servers about how much you hate property taxes, so they can overhear you. There's nothing home owners love more than b*tching about property taxes."

And, I put on a home owner's voice and was like, "This governor, all he does is tax tax tax tax tax. Now cutting your taxes, *that* would be a change, but does he try something different? No."

And, "Now I support a new school as much as anyone, but we just had a mileage!"

And, I then moved out into other areas, like, "And did you see what they want to do with that nice cornfield at the edge of the subdivision? They want to put in solar! Think of the glare, and the dust. And they say it's only for twenty or thirty years, but once you put that in, it will be there forever."

- and -

"And these pronouns, whatever happened to just being a tomboy?".

And, after the one (white) (young) (gay-ish) (ponytailed) coworker says he doesn't like home owner's associations and I ask him why and he holds out his arm and he points to his skin -- he's like a quarter black, I found out recently -- I was like, "Maybe, but don't overthink it, you could be southern Italian."

And, I was then like, "And these new neighbors, with their family reunions! Imagine if they went late."

And, he joined in and was like, "They're so urban."

And, in my most popular bit of all, I referenced the banned-a-while-ago (Native American) mascot from the local university, and I was like, "And [the mascot name], we're not making fun of Native Americans, we're *honoring* them."

Then, as the (rather old) (white) people began to trickle in and the first arrivals of the organizers began going around to all of the tables and setting up party favors and little mugs with candy in them, some of those mugs not only had on them the logo of the local university in town, but also a picture of the old, banned-a-while-ago (Native American) mascot.

And, as soon as I saw that, I ran out front to go tell all of my coworkers.

"I called it!", I was like.

"You did," they were like. 

A day at work like over a month ago...

...at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, where I now work at:

1) The one (quiet) (Asian-American) guy who does hosting says that he was leaving work the other day and was walking home and there was a bus stopped in the middle of the intersection because there was a homeless guy there standing in front of it, just right there in the middle of the road, and when he walked by, the guy threw a shoe at him.

2) Two (early 50s) (upper-middle class) (white) townie women are in and catching up and trying out cocktails, and when the one re-orders something she enjoys, she's like, "I could drink this out of a shoe!".

When I ask her what she likes so much about it, she says how it starts off sweet but then ends bitter.

"Just like all my relationships," I'm like.

Home maintenance:

1) I'm standing by my kitchen counter doing something and a mosquito buzzes by my ear, but when I go to kill it, it's too late and it's gone.

Then, just a very little while later, it's directly in front of me, so I kill it.

2) I go outside and I air out my woven fiber rug from my living room, and I spray it down with vinegar to kill any residual mildew on its underside, only I use the spray bottle that I had put essential oils like peppermint in eons ago as a non-toxic anti-ant solution that didn't really work, and it's only after I catch a whiff of the like vingear-and-peppermint smell a few times that's emanating off the rug and that seems familiar to me that I realize what it is, it's like kombucha, the smell is almost exactly like kombucha.

A day at work...

...a few weeks ago, at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, where I now work at:

*) Before work I'm off the bus and dawdling around the back of the building talking with my parents on the phone because I only start work in like ten or twelve minutes, and I look across the (busy) street and there's a squirrel crawling on the top of the front tire of a parked truck, like moving back and forth and looking upwards like it's looking for a place to ascend more, but it can't find any, so it finally scampers down the side of the tire and off towards the sidewalk somewhere.

1) I brought in my potter-made ceramic mug from home to put through the barside dishwasher along with my portable coffee mug, since they're so stained inside and I don't have a dishwasher at home and they really need to be cleaned.

And, they came out slightly better, but with still a lot of black gunk inside.

So, imagine all of that inside of me.

2) The one (quiet) (Asian-American) guy who does hosting came up to me and said he'd watched Blue Velvet, since we were talking TV the previous week and I had asked him if he'd ever watched Twin Peaks.

And, after that conversation, I realized that I should have told him to go and watch Blue Velvet, and what happened, but lo and behold, he found his way to it anyways somehow.

"Fuck Heineken," he was like. 

And, I asked him where he grew up and it was in a rather large city in the state, but not the largest.

"Because small towns are all like that," I was like, referring to Blue Velvet.

3) The one (quiet) (introverted) (tatted) (white) manager is there but not managing, so she's in a logoed old black t-shirt from the restaurant, instead of her simple and elegant black trousers and like soft knit sweaters and stuff that she usually wears.

And, the one (young) (taller) (macho) (Guatemalan) cook popped in after getting back from his vacation to Mexico, and he was sitting at the bar in his civvies eating a burger and having a soda and what appeared to be a glass of red wine.

"What is happening here?!", I was like, referring to them both being in non-normal clothes. "I feel so disoriented!"

4) As we're almost closing and I'm spot-sweeping, the one (big personality) (redheaded) (Irish-American) owner calls me over to a table where she's sitting with a couple regulars, and she asks me to get her a glass of rose, since she's drinking what they're drinking.

"Should I put it on your tab?", I was like.

"Yeah, put it on my tab," she says, raising her eyebrows theatrically.

And, after I get the wine from my one (affable) coworker who was in the (military), I ask him if I should tell her that he reminded her that if she doesn't close out her tab by the end of the night, we're taking it out of her paycheck.

"Yeah, go for it," he's like, and I do.

(That's a semi-regular reminder from her, when people aren't paying their tabs.)

5) When it's almost close, I get the broccoli, cheese, and mushroom soup and I put it in a new container to cool down, but the one (straggly-bearded) (thin) (white) (stoner) cook sees me doing that and says I did it right, only we're throwing that soup out tonight, we're not saving it, and he apologizes to me for my doing that extra work.

"Then wait," I was like, moving towards the door to go get a to-go cup to dump some soup into, "If we're doing that, I'll grab some to go."

And, he's immediately like, "I would do that at your own risk, it's a week old and the broccoli was already starting to go when we made it...", so I'm like, "Never mind," and I give up on that food in a way that's quite unlike me. 

6) At that same table of regulars after the owner leaves, I ask the (shrunken) (old) (white) lady who's a regular and who always leisurely downs a bottle of wine or two with a friend for hours if she wants to use "tap to pay," and automatically she's just like, "What do I have to do, dance?!"

(She was joking. And, great pun.) 

*) I get home and I crack open a (small) (orange-fleshed) heirloom watermelon that I had in my fridge from the farmer's market, only to discover that it appeared to be going bad, like a slight hiss escaped when I cut it open, and it seemed inside almost like it had been frozen and then thawed out again, like from sitting too close to the back wall of my refrigerator when the temperature went wonky.

Cat behavior.

The aging cat of the one (lesbian) sister of my one former (assisted living) client with (disabilities) has cancer, and his medications have been making him act all off, to the point where they even found him using the kitchen sink as a toilet and they had to put some tin foil in it to keep him from using it.

"Like number one or number two?", I asked her.

"Both," she was like.

"Was there like a lot of dirty dishes and food and stuff in there that he tried to use to cover it?", I was like.

. . .

(At the vet's appointment that I took her to, I recognized the [short] [young] [blonde] [female] receptionist, since she sometimes comes into the one [Thai] restaurant that I used to work at. You can't go anywhere...)