Wasn’t United Health the company that put an AI approval bot in place that rejected 80% of legitimate claims? I don’t think killing people is a good idea, but if someone had to interrupt the path of a bullet, there were worse options.

I haven’t had cable in 19 years, but today when my TiVo wasn’t getting a signal to my tv, I found out I have access to 24 hour news channels on my smart tv from the major networks. So with the assassination and the ouster of world leaders and cabinet nominee nonsense and Supreme Court transgender case, I kept it on all day. Literally from 9am until now almost nonstop. And there has been basically no movement in any of these stories. How do people do this day after day?

I've really been pushing the online surveys this week to fund a third Adirondack chair for my patio. Among the ones I completed were a celebrity PR survey that featured both Jonathan Bailey and James Franco (my answers, shall we say, varied WIDELY), and a telecommunications survey where AT&T was the focus. I believe they're going to have to throw out my answers to all of the above to avoid skewing the results.

We have a snow day.

In other terrible American health insurance news, I just found out about this!?!?!?!!

I don't condone murder, but YEAH, not at all hard to sympathize with the motivation here.

Why bother building guillotines when it’s so easy to get a gun. USA!

Wow, Jessica!! That is insanity. Apparently what minuscule amount of doubt there was is gone since the shooter engraved the bullet casings. No, I don't condone murder, but insurance companies have done their share of it and I understand the rage.

According to Bluesky, the outrage about that is being whipped up by the anesthesiologist's association, and it's not what they're making it sound like.

"They are moving to the CMS standard for anesthesia billing. In other words, they are going to pay the same way they do for Medicare and Medicaid."

I can't do a link right now, but I'll come back with the source later

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield for Connecticut published this last month:

We will utilize the CMS Physician Work Time values to target the number of minutes reported for anesthesia services. Claims submitted with reported time above the established number of minutes will be denied.

and

If you disagree with a claim reimbursement decision, please follow the claim dispute process as outlined in the Provider Manual. Documentation to support your request will be required.

[link]

It seems to me that the open question is whether the provider will make the effort to dispute any denial, or will just pass that on to the patient.

eta: took a bit of hunting, but I found the same publication for Missouri: [link]

Our neighborhood did a Krampus walk last year, and they're doing it again next weekend, so I'm online shopping for Krampus horns. Like you do.