Generally what happens though, is this. The doctor's office has failed to keep up with changes in coding requirements. They'll bill with a diagnosis code that is one-digit-to-the-right-of-the-decimal short, or something silly like that. When the poor patient calls, he is told Service-X isn't covered on their policy for that diagnosis. Technically, that's true. But in reality, what is happening is the doctor put down a diagnosis code of 123.0 and he was supposed to put down 123.00.

The patient then ends up calling the doctor's office and saying the insurance company said the diagnosis isn't covered. The doctor's office is paying one crank minimum wage to do two jobs, and the crank says something like, "Well, we can't falsify your billing records," instead of researching what code it was billed under, and seeing if there is another diagnosis code that conveys the same medical information (so no fraud) but that is covered. The same is true for procedure coding.

A lot of stuff is actually not covered, but easily 7 times out of 10, when someone was calling me about a billing problem, it was either the insurance company's fault, or the billing office's fault, and the poor patient would pay the bill to make it go away.

Your cat is much smarter than my cats.

But, then, two thirds of the cat population here = really dumb. The remaining cat = old and lazy.

Hmm. Now to teach the baby more practical things, like how to turn on iTunes.

Happy birthdays, Cash and Matt! Hurray for your being born!

Easy fasting for anyone whose observing that. I'm not, because I, um, forgot. Whoops. Ate dinner after sundown and got up and had breakfast before I remembered what I was supposed to be doing today...

I got 2 hours of sleep, and then the client called me to have me read the document because his home computer couldn't open it. I would think that your home computer not opening would clue you in that it's a large document, but nsm, I guess. Thankfully, when I didn't answer the phone (because Greg couldn't get me up fast enough), he called the office, found out that his second-in-command thinks it's wonderful and that it's also 35 pages, and decided I didn't need to read it to him. I had to make a few minor edits and it's all done.

Now I'm plotting for a nap.

Little girl will be programming before we know it!

I think Leif and Emaryn really learned a lot playing computer games. Someday they'll discover that non-educational video games exist, but so far they have fun doing math, spelling, and learning phonics.

Argh. i don't know what I am doing at work and I am screwed.

{{Nora}} anything we can help with?

Steph, I hope Ray helps and I hope lunch helps with the cheering up.

Enjoy your free lunch, Tep. Hope Ray starts helping sooner rather than later.

but I am so very Boston.

Topic!Cindy, is being very Boston a good gig? One of my editors has a contact in some Boston publishing concern with a job opening, and she's sending him/her my info.

I don't know, Calli. I love it here, but I'm a homebody and change averse. Where are you originally from? How do you feel about lots of weather? You're always going to be relatively close to the ocean, and mountains, as well as woodsy lake areas.