What’s Gotta Go

When you have medical problems with your family, you seek the necessary help.  How can you do anything but get the necessary help?  You want to see your child or spouse get better, and if seeing a doc or going to a hospital is necessary you just do it.  At least that is my attitude.

I am fortunate to have health insurance through my job.   I know that many people do not have that luxury these days due to the rapidly rising cost of premiums.  Health costs are astronomical; we all know it, we all hate it.  What gets me though is that medical billing is like no other business out there.

How many business do you deal with that don’t tell you up front pricing, can bill you for months and seemingly even years later from the various parties involved, and can provide terrible service with no assurance of quality or outcome?  Let me break that down.

When you head in to a hospital for care, you have no idea what things will cost.  Of course they don’t always have time to explain every treatment option and applicable pricing for you to make a fiduciary decision at every step of the way.  That said, it would be nice to know up front based on your insurance what your costs are going to be for the daily stay, doctor fees, etc.  In the heat of the moment, you are not going to be ticking off a list of what you can afford, but I do know I am the type as a parent that I would like to have a daily summary of my increasing bill printed out so I know what to expect once treatment is finished.

I always wonder if hospitals don’t want to produce an ongoing bill for you because they are afraid you will find their errors because it is so fresh on your mind.  Do they wait months to start sending out bills so you have let the individual procedures and people involved slip your mind and just have to trust that they got things right?  Perhaps they don’t have any idea themselves until they get some creative accounting underway and see what your insurance will tolerate, then send the remainder of costs on to you to cause another heart attack and start the treatment/billing cycle all over again.

Then comes the way billing takes place.  Getting billed much later is not the only kick in the gut you are going to receive later on; it is the repeated kicks that really get you down.  Usually the facility itself is the first to arrive in your mailbox, large and in charge.  After you work your way through that painful check writing process, then comes the treating doctor.  Yep, they bill separately.  Did you need any anesthetics in the process?  Yep, different billing group for that.   How about oxygen therapy…they have their own bill.  Physical or occupationaly therapy…the list goes on.  Even if all these treatments are housed and received under the same facility, they all have their own billing, and it all adds up big time.

Now, on to the quality of service and guarantee of outcome.  Ok, I realize doctors cannot insure you will always get better simply due to the nature of various injuries.  I think I am typically a reasonable guy.  I do think there should be some discount or reduction in costs if they fail to accomplish the tasks they set out to do.  That kick in the gut I mentioned about delayed billing is nothing like the one you receive when you are paying for services that failed.  I have a friend that talked to me about how painful it was to pay the bills for a difficult late term miscarriage they went through.  Yes, after having lost a child at near full term they had to pay costs that exceeded had the child actually been born.  Let’s just kick them when they are really down.

Given the fact that medicine cannot solve all things, at least there should be some measure of the quality of service received and the ability to challenge fees when those services do not meet the required criteria.  I know I have personally experienced mistakes and failings that have gone on to actually hurt a child of mine in a very real way.  Though I never took this to a legal recourse, I likely could have.  With so much fear of legal battles the medical field cannot even reveal an ounce of wrong on their part for fear of big liabilities; because of this, we have no means of oversight or quality assurance in the care we receive.

All this comes to mind because of the recent hospitalized care my son is receiving.  He was quickly moved to a care facility for his needs, but now that we are working through the treatment we have begun talking to the billing department to get a handle on what our costs are going to be.  We are finding that even after what insurance covers our costs of being in this outfit rival a full hospitalization.  As I mentioned in a previous post, we have had very frank talks with his treatment team on the ineffectiveness of most of what they are doing, to which they actually agree.  Will we receive a discount because of their lack of ability to effectively treat my child…of course not.  1/3 of the treatment team seems adept at what they are doing, and that is the primary side of what we came for anyway.  So, for the other doctors involved, I really don’t feel justified in paying them for services they cannot effectively render.  Of course the cost of the facility is fixed, and the doctors are billing on top of that.

In the end, I will pay the fees and move on; I really do not have a choice.  Before you receive any services they force documents on you that are essentially a blank check.  You promise your life away so they will begin care.  In effect the document you sign says you will pay whatever they deem necessary to bill associated with the treatment of your child.  Other than medicine, what business these days could get away with that?

Tags: health care, hospital, medicine

Today life is a bit better than it was a week ago.  I realize I may have sounded pretty down in the dumps over the issues with my kid, and frankly I was.  We are still in the throws of it, but there has been improvement, which makes a huge difference in my outlook for things on the whole.

The entire problem is enough to send any parent into a deep funk anyway, but what had me really bummed is my complete lack of confidence in one part of his treatment team.  The direction they were taking things, or should I say lack of direction, and the fact that we had an inexperienced resident practicing on my child was not what I needed to see.  After one meeting with this individual I was disgusted and ready to yank my kid out of their entire program.

For as much as I talk a big story online, I really don’t like conflict.  I end up trying to be a diplomatic fool in most cases trying to assuage hurt feelings or avoid them entirely.  This was one of those situations where avoidance was not an option; this is my kid’s well being we are talking about.  So, for today’s meeting my wife and I went in with some pretty specific concerns and requests to discuss, possible hurt feelings be darned.

Full of intent and with more than a bit of adrenaline pumping throw my veins anticipating push back on our concerns, we headed into the meeting.  After a few formalities we dived right in.  There was little back and forth as we plowed through our recent efforts with our son and the failings we were observing in his treatment and the entire situation at the treatment facility.  Then without any dramatic pause that we might have anticipated, the resident fully agreed.

Just like that we realized she had observed the same lack of effectiveness and the fact that our son didn’t click with her on any level.  She was recommended replacing herself with another doctor or moving to an outpatient program as quickly as possible.  I was pleasantly surprised.

Though I still don’t feel like she was ready to treat my son, I respected her for recognizing and accepting the fact that she wasn’t the best fit for the situation.

Today life sucks a little less.  We actually have a potential time line to bring my son home and continue his therapy in an outpatient situation.  Trials are always easier for me to deal with when there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

So, sometimes you just gotta say it, whatever “it” is.  Just like the eBay commercials, right?  Often your big anxieties will be solved better if you just take the challenge head on, even if the challenge is a potentially difficult one.

Tags: challenge, problems, treatment

I was checking out my traffic stats this morning – which I haven’t done in some time – and noticed a few new sites that linked over to various articles.  It is always interesting to me to see which articles receive the most traffic and which end up getting linked to.  The results may or may not surprise you.

By far the most popular topic searched for is Baggy Pants or Saggin’.  That article rivals and often surpasses the traffic even to the home page!  When I wrote that piece I had no idea there were so many people that agreed with the gripe.

Coming in a close second this week and often high in the polls is  taking Taking Responsibility For your Own Actions.  Apparently there are also a lot of other people tired of seeing our society relying on blaming others for their own shortcomings and wrong choices.

Third in the current rankings, and one of my personal favorites is Chewing With Your Mouth Open.  If there was ever a pet peeve I would devote my time to eradicating, this would be it.  I don’t need to see or hear what you are eating, thank you very much.

I received a new inbound link today from a fellow hater of Smokers Who Litter.  There is just plain no excuse for this nasty habit, much less smoking itself.

Most flattering though was a favorable review from Man-O-Pause.com about the What’s Gotta Go in general.  Our fabulous periodic guest write Ali gets a nod in the review as well.   Thanks for the comments and link!

Though we don’t write here for the praise, it’s always nice to see things getting read whether the readers agree or not with the sentiment.  Pure venting and fun humor alike, I am finding that writing periodically is really quite therapeutic.  As always, guest writers are welcome and encouraged!

This post may not make much sense to those that do not have the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lane in your area, but for those that do, you undoubtedly will have seen what I am going to talk about. For those that don’t know it by HOV, it is the commuter lane, or the lane you can only use if you have two or more passengers in the vehicle.

The HOV is relatively new to Utah, and it was long overdue when it finally came in the recent widening of I-15, our major and practically only option running north and south through the major cities of this state.  First it was added in Salt Lake City, and eventually it was extended down through the Utah Valley to the south.

A couple of years after it’s addition, the state decided to implement the limitation of where you can enter or exit the lane.  The idea, at least as I understand it, is to limit the merging in and out of the lane for both safety and travel efficiency of the lane.  Rather than have people treat it as the ultra fast lane, the designated entry/exit points are to keep traffic flowing past some of the lesser used exits with the limitations.  It has taken a little getting used to remembering where you have to get in and out, but after awhile it works.

After all that build up, this is what cracks me up.  People in Utah speed.  In fact if you are not traveling at least 10 miles over the speed limit, you had better be in the right lane because traffic is moving at a fairly decent clip over to the left.  So people are not afraid to speed, but when it comes to entering the the HOV lane, they will wait patiently, or impatiently as the case may be, for a designated entry point to get into that left-most lane.  Why are they ok with breaking one law of traveling 80 mph in a 65 zone, but will wait until that opening to merge their way over into that lane? Are there some unbreakable laws even for the habitual speeders?

Even more hilarious to me is the fact that while in the HOV lane moving along at such a breakneck clip will these drivers hug the tailpipe for miles of someone not as NASCAR inspired as they are.  Rather than drift over these ultimate double white line barriers to make the pass and keep moving along, Speedy Gonzales will instead dangerously tailgate for miles waiting for the opening to make the pass and once again gain pole position in their personal race.

Who was able to convince these people that the line is unbreakable when so many other rules go so lightly unobserved?  Don’t get me wrong, I make it a point to observe the designated entry/exit points, but I am sufficiently impressed that the state has somehow convinced or scared these people into sticking to the plan.  Whatever mojo they are working on that ought to be used on some other laws as well to keep a little more order on the freeways; that’s all I am asking.

So keep at it drivers, obey that law.  While you are at it, pick a few others that you may be skipping and try out observing them as well.  It can’t hurt, right?

As a parent you always live in a balance between hope and fear for your kids; at least I do. I hope for the best and try to provide every way for them to enjoy and succeed in life. I always live in fear that they will hurt themselves, fail at anything or have anything wrong with them. I feel blessed for the most part in my life, but we have had our share of problems.

My oldest son is severely disabled, which has always been a difficult thing for me to come to terms with, but for the most part it has become a part of our lives. I still hold resentment for some of the ways his disabilities came about, but you can’t harbor those forever and life continues on whether you deal with it or not. He is a loved part of our family, for which there has never been a question.

We have been blessed with three other healthy children and work hard to be the best parents we can for them. At least we thought thought they were fully healthy. Recently another of my children has been developing some severer personality issues that have started to effect his everyday life negatively. After nearly a year of buying books and trying every possible parenting technique we could think of, we finally started seeing a child psychologist. Within two sessions more drastic treatment has been advised and started this week. It has been crushing to watch him in such emotional pain and need that such measures are necessary. I can only try to imagine what is going on in that little head and hope we can find the right treatment to help him.

As I have mentioned often in other posts, I am a problem solving kind of guy. I like knowing a solution and working towards it. When there is no clear solution to be had and when you have to put the care of your child into the hands of others, there is a total feeling of helplessness that in no clearer terms, sucks. I am not 100% confident in the care he is currently receiving, but there is really nothing more we can do. We have to put our trust into a system that I have had poor results with another child and pray for the best.

So, today, life sucks. I try to come up with a positive outlook on things, and often talking through it and voicing my frustrations. I had some good venting session with my friends at work, which helps me to some degree; at least in my ability to move on with the day. The day really only sucks because I really care about my child and want him to get better. I have to trust in others to do that, and that sucks.

There have been a few people that know something has been going on, so there you have it. No need to worry about our family other than we appreciate concern and look forward to working our way through this. We have a wonderful network of friends that have helped us farm out our other kids while we spend time with our urgent need, and for that we are very grateful. It is at times like this you really learn to appreciate such relationships.

Tags: Health, kids, problems

The first Blog Action Day is almost upon us.  On October 15th, nearly 7,000 blogs will be all writing about one central theme, the environment.  I think the concept of uniting writers from around the world to focus on a single topic is both interesting and exciting.  I have no expectations of sudden world peace as a result of this effort, but an increased awareness may be a result.

I feel fortunate to be doing my small part in this, and I am hoping that some of you may also be interested in participating in the event.  If you have a blog, you are more than welcome to register at www.blogactionday.com no matter how small or large your blog is.  They do prefer established blogs though, not ones started up just for the sake of participating.

If you do not have a blog but would like to participate I would really enjoy seeing some guest posts on What’s Gotta Go or What’s Gotta Stay for that day.  The posts need not be literary masterpieces; they can simply be your thoughts on thing that are good or those that need to be fixed.  The posts can be short or long, whatever your style or the amount you want to say.  I have a few choice topics I plan to cover, but I am more than happy to have anything you might want to contribute.

If you are interested in writing, please contact me by submitting a comment on this post or emailing me at wgg (at) whatsgottago (dot) com.  As always, sorry for the cryptic way of writing the email, but it helps in avoiding spam.

Please keep in mind that I am more than happy to receive your articles/posts prior to the 15th; I can hold on to them and post it on that day.  I look forward to hopefully hearing from some guest writers!

Tags: blog action day, environment, participate, writers wanted

If you have raised kids past the age of learning to talk, then you are familiar with the phrase “guess what?”.  In fact, I would submit that you are not only familiar with it, but the mere beginning of the phrase sends chills down your spine.  Every newly enabled talker in our family has employed this little phrase as their means of ensuring full parental attention to every word they are saying.

There is always that happy moment you enjoy when your little offspring begins to have the ability to really communicate.  I don’t mean just “no” (which is of course nearly always the first word every learned because they hear it so much up to that point in their life), but really start to express themselves.  The reward is not only that you have raised a child that is apparently capable of expressing themselves in a manner other than crying, but also someday they will hopefully be a contributing member of society.

That moment passes soon after they learn to leave out the pause for a breath between sentences in order to keep your undivided attention indefinitely.

Truly it is a lot of fun to have the ability to actually carry on a conversation with your child.  Given that you have your wits about you and the time to look them straight in the eyes for an extended period of time, the experience can be a pleasurable one.  The problem arises when you are trying to accomplish other tasks, and your child simply does not believe you are paying attention unless you are looking directly at them through the entire dialog.  There may be some truth the fact that you are catching only some of the words in an attempt to split your time and simply guessing at their intended communication.

In order to be sure that you are with them, your child starts to use the “guess what” at the beginning to get your attention.  Once that works, guess what starts to be used repeatedly at the beginning of every sentence; then later at the end, middle and whenever they feel like they don’t fully have you there.  The habit develops, and soon you have more guess what’s then you do actual content to the communication.

I am not sure if it happens more with girls than boys, and I am likely predisposed to think it is girls because I currently have a 6 year old girl that is in the throws of the guess what phenomenon.  Of course I have an eight year old boy that has evolved from guess what to simply saying “look at me” when he doesn’t think you are paying him the proper amount of attention.

I keep reminding myself that improving communication skills is perhaps the most important developmental process a child can go through, so I just smile and casually remind my daughter every so often that the guess what is really not necessary…especially 2 to 3 times in the same sentence.  It has become a laughing point because she doesn’t even realize she is doing it.  Some day I will get the guess what to go, because it really does need to go!

Apparently simply getting into MIT may indicate a level of intelligence, but not necessarily any amount of common sense “MIT student ‘lucky to be alive’ after fake bomb prank“

An MIT student with a fake bomb strapped to her chest was arrested at gunpoint today at Logan International Airport and later claimed it was artwork, officials said.

Star Simpson, 19, had a computer circuit board and wiring in plain view over a black hooded sweat shirt she was wearing, said State Police Maj. Scott Pare, the commanding officer at the airport. “She said that it was a piece of art and she wanted to stand out on career day,” Pare said at a news conference. “She claims that it was just art, and that she was proud of the art and she wanted to display it.”

The device had wires connected to a battery, allowing it to light up, he said. Simpson also had Play-Doh in her hands, he said.

Simpson was charged with disturbing the peace and possessing a hoax device, and was to be arraigned in East Boston District Court later today.

“I’m shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport,” Pare said. Simpson was “extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used,” Pare said. “She’s lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue.”

I’m no genius, but I can figure out that in today’s climate this wouldn’t be the kind of “art” to display at an airport.

Like most everyone I hate paying taxes.  It’s not that I don’t believe in paying to a government to provide the services and protections our country needs; really I do.  What I don’t believe is that our taxes are being used wisely and that I feel like we are being way over taxed because of such misuse.

Of course it is easy for me to make such sweeping statements without any detail; but that is still how I feel.

We all have read the stories of government excess and misappropriation of funds.  We have all heard the news of government contractors charging hundreds of dollars for a hammer or screw either as outright criminals or the just as criminal good old boys network.  All these things leave a bad taste in our collective mouths when we pay our required money to our state and federal government.

All those regular taxes aside, the ones that really get me are the less than ordinary taxes we get hit with.  I have written before about my feelings about prize and inheritance taxes, but within a recent article I see another mention of taxes that cause me to grind my teeth.

If you hadn’t read or heard, the college student that was fortunate enough to emerge from the mele for the Barry Bonds record-breaking* (asterisk included) home run ball decided to auction it off.  You can read about the ensuing news and interesting choice to open to the public the fate of the ball by the new owner.  In the subtext of the article, though, is the part that stood out to me.

He decided to sell it, he said, because he couldn’t afford the tax bill that would result from holding onto the ball.

Some tax experts said Murphy would have owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes based on a reasonable estimate of the ball’s value even if he had never sold it. He may also have faced capital gains taxes as the ball gained value.

How wrong is it for a person to end up with a valuable ball at a baseball game to end up having taxes levied against him at the purported value of the ball>  Hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes?!  Our government has no business labeling this transaction one deemed required to be taxed.  Now when he sells it, that makes some more sense, but if he simply has it in his possession without having purchased it in the first place it is ludicrous to have the government involved at all.

I feel the same way about person to person vehicle sales, inheritance, prize winnings, etc.  The government needs to get their hands out of so many pockets and make better use of the funds already being collected.  Quit looking for more ways to take a larger portion of our money and do a better job being efficient with what you have.  Quit deficit spending and set an example for our nation and start the hard road of working your way out of debt and living within your “means.”  How can we expect the American public to do it if our nation as a whole cannot do it either?

This is one of those things that falls under the “is it just me?” line of thinking.  I am seriously nauseated by the smell of exhaust.  I don’t want to sound like a pansy here, I really can be around a car just fine and sitting in traffic in my convertible doesn’t make me green in the face, but when there is a build up of exhaust for whatever reason, I really start to get sick to my stomach.

I do come by this weakness honestly…weak stomachs run in my family.  I love roller coasters, but I often try various remedies to get keep motion sickness at bay.  I used to not have a chance at them, but now I typically go ahead and take on the ride, then spend the next hour paying for it.  Oh well, the price of fun.

Exhaust though has one of those unique ways of just turning my stomach into knots and bringing on that extra saliva in the mouth preparatory of an upcoming expulsion of the previous meal.  Not all exhaust is equal either; diesel wins the contest hands down for having the most nauseating effect.  I have never been a fan of diesel trucks for this reason (among others), though current trucks have gotten much better.
I think of this because the other day the construction of a new building directly next to my office has an excavator idling his backhoe right next to our back door during his break.  Yep, for the 15 minutes he sat there, the exhaust density mushroomed into a cloud I walked right into without realizing what I was getting into as I left the office.  I wanted to walk over, open his door and turn off his machine for him.  All waste and environmental considerations aside, idling that machine right next to an occupied office building was far less than considerate.  Our air conditioning units were all of 20 feet away from his chosen spot of relaxation.  Thanks a lot buddy.

So, with my genetic weakness, you will rarely see me letting a car idle in the garage or find me standing near a vehicle running for any period of time if I can avoid it.  Not only do I not need that in my lungs, I really don’t need to feel like I am going to lose my lunch either.

I hate to think of the buildup of all that exhaust in our atmosphere, but that is for another day.