A quick count shows me that of the last dozen posts, ten have been at least partially about the new house. Well. It’s understandable. Which doesn’t mean it’s not a little boring.
So today I will talk about the OLD house. Ha ha! A little joke there. Except I really am going to go on to say something about our old/current house, which is that the bathroom fan stopped working, and then the dishwasher started making a weird buzzing noise, and then the box fan we were using as a stand-in for the bathroom fan ALSO broke, and then the kitchen sink started dripping, and now the OTHER bathroom fan is getting loud, and what in tarnation is going on here? Does the old house know we’re leaving? Is there a house ghost, and is it displeased? Listen, you can come with us to the new house, house ghost. In fact, we’d love it if you would. Please let us know your transportation container of choice. My first thought was cat carrier, but that seems a little too well-ventilated for someone of a vaporeal nature. Mason jar? Those are very hip right now, and nicely sealed.
Today’s plan is nothing to look forward to: grocery shopping, dentist appointment, and three phone calls to health insurance and doctors’ offices to straighten out several issues. We have new health insurance because we always seem to have new health insurance. We currently pay twice as much per month for our health insurance as we paid for our two-bedroom two-bathroom apartment (with balcony, and walk-in closet, and free cable, and access to pool and exercise center; safe quiet neighborhood but easy walking distance to grocery store, drug store, pizza place, frozen-yogurt place, video rental store, Subway, Goodwill, and bus stop) (why oh why did we ever leave) back when Rob was born. I know better than to compare old money to new money, but it seems to happen automatically as I age. And anyway I just used an inflation calculator, and putting everything in 2018 dollars we are paying approximately two hundred 2018 dollars more per month for our current health insurance than we paid for that apartment.
Anyway, our current policy is a nice one, as it jolly well should be for this price, and the customer service representatives are just lovely: so friendly and helpful and so good at fixing things. And the reason I know they are so lovely and so good at fixing things is that I already have extensive experience calling them and asking them to fix things. More than once a month, I get an explanation of benefits in which our insurance company explains that we didn’t acquire the necessary referral, or else I get a bill from a doctor saying our insurance wouldn’t pay for something they absolutely ought to be paying for. Most recently, I got a bill saying we didn’t obtain a necessary referral—even though I had a carbon copy of that referral in my hand, AND when I called the billing-doctor’s office (thinking maybe they accidentally failed to submit it) they said they could see on their computer a scan of it submitted along with the claim, and also they had a confirmation number from the insurance company for the submission of that referral, and they were unable to take my suggested solution of “can it be resubmitted?” because the system will not let them re-submit a duplicate of something that has already been successfully received and confirmed by the insurance company. So I had to call the insurance company BACK and say the doctor says she can’t submit something she has already submitted, and would this confirmation number be useful? And OH, they were so friendly and helpful and they fixed it all up.
Today I have to call about a co-pay charged to me twice; a bill for the scoliosis brace that is almost exactly twice the amount they told us ahead of time it would be; and a check from the insurance company that arrived, apparently for us to use for the brace. (This has never happened before; the insurance has always paid the provider directly.) With the check is a form, and on the form there is the FAQ “Why am I receiving this?” The answer to this question is: “This is not a bill. If you owe money, your provider will bill you directly.” Good talk.