Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

In reply to RX Reven' :

If I was a broke berkeley, I wouldn't care. But my credit is tied into my business credit and if that gets berkeleyed up it causes me issues.

I don't have a problem with the bill. Insurance is a bit of a joke and apparently doesn't pay for extra labs while regulating some meds and such.  But if I don't know about it, I can't pay it. 

And it's not just one visit. There were amounts from 4 visits starting in February of 2022 through the present for a total of about $900. How do you not inform people of due balances? It's a stupid way to do business, not only from a business standpoint but from a customer service standpoint. 

I was livid.

In reply to Toyman! :

My wife had the EXACT same conversation with one of our medical providers yesterday.  We're all paid up according to the provider, received an $8000 bill yesterday for physical therapy she had 8 months ago.  Outsourced biller, ongoing problem.  Provider hates the biller, but the umbrella corporation won't do anything about it....

volvoclearinghouse said:

So, for your laziness, ignorance, lack of planning, and general inconsiderateness, berkeley you. 

I mean, doesn't that apply to at least 60% of your interactions with the general public?

I've been in this low-key fight with the new school my youngest is attending because their registration/forms-management site won't let me register.  It keeps telling me that my domain is invalid when it asks for my email address.  I own the damned domain so I know it's valid.  We've been going back and forth trying to figure it out to no avail.

This morning, it occurred to me that I hadn't gotten the bill from the doctor for stitching up my finger.  I logged into MyChart and it wanted to verify my phone and email with a code.  Fine.  I got the text message and verified that, but the email didn't come through.  Check spam, check that I have that address created, everything looks okay.  But no email from them. 

Weird.

So I start going on a hunt to figure out what's up with that.  In the process of trying to validate blacklists and connections I use nslookup to find my MX entry in DNS.  It doesn't exist.  Wait.  What?  Going back in the history of MyChart I used to get emails from them, but starting at about October of last year, there's a bunch of messages there that they should have sent via email but I never got.  Somewhere in that timeframe of about 10 months ago something happened to my domain's MX record.  It's just gone.  So I recreated the entry and now the MyChart verification email starts working!

With that solved, I go back to the school's system, put my email address in, and it takes it immediately.  So apparently, these guys are smart enough to do a DNS lookup of the email domain to make sure that it's valid before accepting it.  Which is actually really smart.

I have no idea how I was receiving email from everybody else in the whole wide world without an MX entry for the domain.  And I have no idea what happened to that entry.  But at least it's solved now.

Shingles vaccine....I don't think I've felt this bad from actually being sick  

Shot 2 was test afternoon, I started to feel "off"Around 11pm and  by 1 am I was going from sweating to freezing hourly. Finally dragged my butt out of bed around 9:15.

Still have a temp of 100.3F (with an ear thermometer), and a splitting headache after 4 Advil. 

Hopefully this passes soon. 

Rodan said:

In reply to Toyman! :

My wife had the EXACT same conversation with one of our medical providers yesterday.  We're all paid up according to the provider, received an $8000 bill yesterday for physical therapy she had 8 months ago.  Outsourced biller, ongoing problem.  Provider hates the biller, but the umbrella corporation won't do anything about it....

Flipside of the coin:  if they aren't telling you about bills, are they telling you when your account has a balance?

We prepaid on baby #1 because we didn't know any better.  Ended up paying a bit more afterwards, but that was expected.  Baby #2 is 15 months behind #1, so somehwere in the 2nd trimester, they start asking about the payment plan.  My wife thinks it will be the same (1k), but it was ~1400...  "Oh, well the prepay is now $2000 but you have a $600 account credit"  My wife declined it then told me.  

Thankfully, I was not there, because I was (and still am) livid about it.  We asked for a refund and we have politely (okay, by #5 they stopped asking) declined the option on all of the subsequent kids.  

Peabody said:

Rodan said:

County inspector just showed up to sign off on our new RV carport.  30 seconds start to finish, didn't even take a serious look at anything.  If you're going to force me to apply and pay $$$ for a permit, and require an inspection, you could at least take it seriously.

Consider yourself lucky.

Back in the day we had to pay extra for that.

In cash

"First of all you're going to have to grease the local politicians for the sudden zoning problems that always come up. Then there's the kickbacks to the carpenters, and if you plan on using any cement in this building I'm sure the teamsters would like to have a little chat with ya, and that'll cost ya. Oh and don't forget a little something for the building inspectors. Then there's long term costs such as waste disposal. I don't know if you're familiar with who runs that business but I assure you it's not the boyscouts."

I've purchased 5 shelving units for my garage from Wallyworld. All 5 were shipped via FedEx. 4 arrived in a few days and we're in good shape despite FedEx's efforts to destroy everything. The 5th shelf has been in shipping purgatory for 10 days now. Walmart says it has shipped but FedEx says that they haven't received the package, just the shipping info. Walmart won't refund my money because it has "shipped". FedEx is not in possession of the package.

Walmart's customer service:

Oh, it's in transit?

So does FedEx have the package or not?

Looks to me that you DON'T have the package.

Either ship me my damn shelves or give me my money back you berkeleyers 

Just found out our favorite road race track in Phoenix is for sale as 'land'....  guess the developers have finally won.

I'm scheduled for a ECG Stress Test to try to diagnose some weird health stuff I have going on. I just got an estimate that *my* share is going to be about $2,600. WTF?

I have that money in reserve (thank goodness), but it's going to be dipping into reserves to maybe possibly help diagnose what's going on. WTF is insurance even for?!?

We're in waaaay better financial shape than the vast majority of families. How the berkeley is the average person supposed to afford basic medical care?!?

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

Our medical care including the luxury body parts (teeth and eyes) cost us about 20% of my gross salary in 2020. It is super demoralizing. 

Beer Baron 🍺 said:

I'm scheduled for a ECG Stress Test to try to diagnose some weird health stuff I have going on. I just got an estimate that *my* share is going to be about $2,600. WTF?

I have that money in reserve (thank goodness), but it's going to be dipping into reserves to maybe possibly help diagnose what's going on. WTF is insurance even for?!?

We're in waaaay better financial shape than the vast majority of families. How the berkeley is the average person supposed to afford basic medical care?!?

Make some phone calls and do some shopping. I had the same done about 8 years ago. My doctor's recommended shop wanted a $1700 copay. I got on the phone and ended up having it done for $300 cash at a private cardiologist's office. 

My wife had to have a CT done. The recommended imaging center was something like a $1200 copay. She had it done at a private imaging center for $800 cash.

From there you will need to file your insurance yourself if you want any reimbursement, but that's not terribly hard. And even if they don't give you anything, what you pay goes toward your deductible for the year. 

In reply to Toyman! :

Just like... google "Cardiologists" or "ECG Stress Test", see what comes up, and start making calls without a referral?

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

Yep. You probably need to get outside of whatever network your doctor is in and you will have better luck with the guy who has a private practice with bills to pay. They love $100 bills. 

wae said:

I have no idea how I was receiving email from everybody else in the whole wide world without an MX entry for the domain.  And I have no idea what happened to that entry.  But at least it's solved now.

Putting my nerd hat on, if I remember the SMTP RFC correctly for mail to wae@example.com, if there is no MX record for example.com it should use the A (or AAAA in the modern world) record for example.com if there is one.  I can also imagine newer RFCs recommending only using the MX.  So some senders might work and some might fail.

Beer Baron 🍺 said:

In reply to Toyman! :

Just like... google "Cardiologists" or "ECG Stress Test", see what comes up, and start making calls without a referral?

Yes, but be ready to call 50+ places. It is increasingly hard to this stuff in my experience. 

Delaware DMV does its own safety and emissions inspections, at 5 or 6 different locations across the state.

The Manic Miata will not communicate with the OBD-II checker.  This is a historic issue for the car and it has notes in its file that the plug-in test can be waived, but I need to go down to the headquarters location for inspection and have a specific supervisor approve it.

That's about an hour's drive, but a 100-mile round trip is so much easier than trying to make the car OBD-II compliant that I am happy to do it.  I attempted that this morning, after putting the street tires back on it last night.

• Street tires have never been very well balanced, and being off the car for 3 years apparently hasn't helped with that.  Steering wheel shakes at random speeds all the way down to the inspection lane and back.  I should probably replace them but they are almost never on the car and it seems like a waste of money.
   
• For the first time in my ownership of the car (14 years / 7 inspection cycles) it failed for not having a stock airbag steering wheel.  Never been an issue before.  OK, I have a stock wheel I can reinstall.  Not sure if the horn buttons will work, but it will be an airbag wheel.
   
• Inspector wanted me to put it into reverse to check the backup lights... won't go into gear.  WTF?  Finally turned it off, put it in reverse, and restarted it.  All good.  Everything passed except the steering wheel, and I'm preparing to leave the lane...clutch goes to the floor.  Some time in the 5 minutes between getting off the highway and getting into the inspection lane, the slave cylinder bit the Big One.  So I had to drive 50 miles home with no clutch, rev-matching my shifts, praying I didn't have to stop anywhere, and starting it in gear when I did have to.
   
• Made it all the way into my driveway, but only just.  Too steep to start in gear and get it into the garage, so I guess I'm doing the work outside, on a slope.
   
• Did I mention that the V60 picked up a screw in a front tire, and in the process of putting the spare on, I discovered the sunroof is leaking again?  Berk.

All of this could be much worse, so it really is a minor rant.  But in the immortal words of my old man, "It's never nothing."

Beer Baron 🍺 said:

In reply to Toyman! :

Just like... google "Cardiologists" or "ECG Stress Test", see what comes up, and start making calls without a referral?

Our carrier, Anthem, has a thing on their website where you can check prices for a given service at different in-network providers, so you might check to see if that sort of thing is available to you.

Semi tongue-in-cheek rant - I made the mistake of clicking on a link of a Tamiya Audi rally RC car and then went down a rabbit hole where I am now contemplating shelling out a few hundred bucks to get back into a hobby that I got out of 25+ years ago which just snowballs in cost.  But man, some of the new scale cars and crawlers are visually awesome. Now to research local tracks and wonder if my mom still has my Ultima and Blackfoot in her attic...  

wae said:

Our carrier, Anthem, has a thing on their website where you can check prices for a given service at different in-network providers, so you might check to see if that sort of thing is available to you.

Ugh... I think I'm going to have to look into this more because I am getting wildly diverging information from different sources. I don't know what all it would cost to get a quote, because I don't know what procedure number or whatever it is.

I have a strong suspicion that the estimate being provided is a totally inaccurate calculation by MyChart.

Aetna has a bunch of procedures listed that say "Echocardiogram" and "Stress Test" with cost estimate that run the gamut from $35, to $125, to $530... but *none* are like $4,000 that MyChart is estimating.

I can't figure out how to schedule something different if I don't know what specific procedure the doctor actually wants.

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

I swear they use vague descriptors just so you can't look into what they want done. It's the greatest shell game in the world and they are making billions on it. 

I remember the good old days, when you had medical coverage, you went to the doctor, and insurance covered it.  Those days are gone and, to paraphrase a politician, they ain't coming back.  My experience?  Cash talks, and shop around.  Glasses at the optometrist are $300.  Get the eye exam done there, grab your script, and go online and get glasses made to order and delivered to your house for $75.  I had a chiropractor for awhile, they quoted me $65 copay with my insurance per visit...or I could just pay in cash $35 per visit.  

Fund your HSA and LPHSA as much as the law allows and remember: you are your own best health advocate,  shots and pills can only do so much, preventative medicine is cheaper than corrective, and diet, lifestyle, and exercise are the best preventative medicine.

In reply to Duke :

That reminds me...

Thursday night as I was (still at 9pm) doing setup at the track the Sherco overheated badly. Turns out that the electric fan is only good for about 10 years.

Friday afternoon as I was coming back from the farthest part of the course, still doing setup, climbing a hill on the GasGas, I hit a good size tree root, purposely, and launched into the air. When I landed, the rear wheel skidded and the bike immediately stopped running. The master link broke and the chain got caught between the case and the front sprocket. At least I was only about half the way in on a 12km loop.

After I raced Sunday I rode to the very back of the course on the KTM to close a nasty section from the C class riders. When I got back on my bike the battery was dead. No kick, e-start only, but I was very near the hill where the link broke on the GG, so I used that hill to bump start it.

I despise trailer lights, as they never work (for me) for any length of time, but have used the same magnetic lights (for that very reason) for over a year. On the recent rebuild of my trailer I mounted the same magnetic set permanently. Monday night I was coming back from doing teardown at the track when I noticed my trailer lights were *not working...

Tuesday morning I pulled out of my driveway in the Spark, wound it up to about 6000RPM like normal, and when I went to shift the car pulled HARD to the left, then started making a pile of noise. I pulled over to find a nice big Phillips screw in the LR tire. It was flat, but  the sidewall on those NeoGen's is so stiff you could probably call it a run flat, and I didn't notice it going slowly up the driveway. I was close enough to home that I drove back slowly, was able to remove it with a screwdriver, and plug it on the spot.

* After berkeleying with the lights way longer than I should have, it turned out to be something simple. With both 1157 bulbs in, it immediately tripped the overload internal to the (I assume) BCM. Disconnecting the lights, shutting the car down would reset it. Removing one of the trailer light bulbs, either side, it would work. Putting the second bulb in tripped it immediately every time. I had re-wired the light set to work more effectively with the dual voltage run/brake setup my car has and that sent me looking in the wrong direction.

Any guesses what it was?

Heat was intense today.  Time for a windshield 

Old_Town said:

Semi tongue-in-cheek rant - I made the mistake of clicking on a link of a Tamiya Audi rally RC car and then went down a rabbit hole where I am now contemplating shelling out a few hundred bucks to get back into a hobby that I got out of 25+ years ago which just snowballs in cost.  But man, some of the new scale cars and crawlers are visually awesome. Now to research local tracks and wonder if my mom still has my Ultima and Blackfoot in her attic...  

I somewhat regret selling all of my RC stuff from the late 80's/early 90's about 20 years ago when I was clearing out stuff to move into a smaller place when the ex-wife and I separated. IIRC I had a Hornet (very upgraded from the Grasshopper it started as), an Ultima, a Maxxum FF (I think one of the only FWD RC cars at the time, maybe ever), and a generic 1/12-scale street racer, but it was the right move at the time. I've on occasion browsed around at some of the RC shops in town and boggled at how much faster things are these days, but I know I already don't have the time to devote to the hobbies I currently have so anything I got would pretty certainly just sit and gather dust.