An Open Letter to the Medical Insurance Industry

Dear Medical Insurance Folks,

Do you guys remember a couple years ago when I took all three of our boys in for their annual “wellness visits?” Those visits that are supposed to be free under your plan in an attempt to make us think that you care about us getting regular check-ups and staying healthy?

Remember when the doctor noticed a wart on Son Number Two’s foot and offered to freeze it off real quick? I was there, so I remember. He grabbed a spray can of freon (or something else really cold) out of the cabinet on the wall and sprayed the wart. The entire process, including asking if he wanted it done, took less than fifteen seconds.

Do you guys remember that the visit then became a “surgery” in your insanely whacked out system, and you charged me $450 for his free annual wellness visit, instead of the customary zero dollars?

Yeah, that was fun. Good times.

I thought your system was broken back then, but Monday you proved to me that I hadn’t seen anything yet.

Monday was annual wellness visit day, and their doctor confirmed medically what my wife and I had suspected – their feet are huge! He was also able to confirm that Son Number One has a very mild case of regular old teenage acne. While he was checking him out, he wrote him a prescription for some acne cream that is a little stronger than the over-the-counter stuff, hoping to just completely clear him up.

When he examined Son Number Two, he noted that he had an even milder case of teenage acne than his older brother, but asked me if I wanted him to prescribe the same thing.

“Sure,” I said, naively, not believing that even your malfunctioning system could screw something as simple as this up. Ha! I went to the pharmacy later that day to get my dose of reality slapped across my face.

“I have two prescriptions to pick up for my sons. They are both the same thing.”

“OK, yes, we have them right here. This one will be $10, and this one is $147.53.”

I am not making this up.

“Huh?”

“Yeah, that’s weird,” said the pharmacist, frowning at the computer screen. “They are the same exact thing. What happened there? Do you have individual deductibles?”

“Yes, but neither of them have racked anything up this year. We haven’t been to the doctor at all.”

“Weird! Let me run it again… nope, came up the same.”

“OK, well, I think I’ll just take the $10 one and they can just share.”

The nice pharmacist promised that she would keep looking into why the prices were so whacked out, but she hasn’t gotten back to me yet. Do you know why I think that is? Because she can’t figure out your insane system either.

Two boys on the exact same insurance plan get prescribed the exact same medicine on the exact same office visit, and Son Number One’s bill is $10, and Number Two’s is $150. How on God’s green earth can you look me in the eye and tell me this system is working?

The only possible explanation I can come up with is you think the acne cream is some sort of follow-up treatment for his wart “surgery.”

Your system is completely and utterly broken.

I’d ask you to fix it, but I have a strong hunch that “broken” is exactly the way you want it.

Kindly bite me,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2021 Marc Schmatjen

 

Your new favorite T-shirt is at SmidgeTees

Your new favorite book is from SmidgeBooks

Your new favorite humor columnist is on Facebook Just a Smidge

Exam Questions

Few things are more impressive in their function than the combination of medicine and technology. In most cases, it’s impressively good, like laser eye surgery, MRI’s, and cyborgs.

In some cases, it’s impressively bad, like when our three sons became “medically independent” at the age of twelve under the idiotic HIPAA rules and now they all have their own user names and passwords to access their secret medical records that I am not supposed to know anything about and I’m not supposed to have access to their accounts except for the fact that if you let a twelve-year-old set up their own medical user name and password, no one, including the twelve-year-old, will ever know what they are, and also I am not allowed to know anything about their medical records or activities right up until it comes time to pay for them and then all of a sudden I am allowed to be involved and no one can seem to see why that is the dumbest thing in the world.

But I digress.

One of the lesser but nonetheless impressively good features of modern technology and medicine is the ability to log into your medical account and see all your files and notes that they take during your doctor’s visits.

I had a yearly physical appointment the other day, and just for kicks I read the notes afterward. While the technology is cool, I do have a few questions about the notes themselves that have me wondering just how precise this whole “physical exam” system is.

For starters, my body mass index was listed as 29.27, which really meant nothing to me until I read further and saw that I was in the 25-30 = Overweight category. I would generally agree that I’m overweight, especially after my impressive Halloween candy intake this year, but a closer look at the numbers had me questioning the data.

Noting that I was on the high end of Overweight, I found a BMI chart that told me I was only two pounds (or six Snickers, in Halloween math) away from being Obese. It’s not just that “obese” for me is unrealistic, but that the chart wants me to lose 40 pounds just to get out of Overweight and into Optimal. And I can lose as much as 80 pounds and still be in the Optimal category.

Now, you may not know me personally, but let me assure you, if I lost 80 pounds, I would look like I was just freed from a two-year stint in a POW camp. I’m not putting a lot of weight in the BMI chart. (See what I did there?)

Under GENERAL in the notes, I was listed as “well developed, well nourished, in no distress, and alert.” I will take all of that as a compliment.

However, under HEAD, they wrote, “skull is normal in size and shape.” Nothing could be further from the truth. My head is abnormally large and dented and scarred from years of poor timing and/or decision making. I think my doctor may have just been trying to be nice, but facts are key here.

EYES: “normal in appearance.” I would agree with that, but would also like to add “kind, bright, and wise.”

EARS: “external ear normal.” Again, they are rather large and I think she was just being nice. Same situation with my nose.

LUNGS: “normal chest excursion.” I have no idea if that was a typo, but if not, then I don’t know anything about how my lungs work.

HEART: “regular rate and rhythm.” Maybe here in this office, but you should feel it when I try to take my 29.27 BMI's on a run!

Under MUSCULOSKELETAL and EXTREMITIES, I am proud to report that I have a normal spine ROM, no cyanosis, no clubbing, and no edema, assuming all of that is good, since I have no idea what any of it means.

MOTOR FUNCTION has me a little confused. They noted “grossly normal strength.” On the one hand, “grossly” would suggest that I am super buff. On the other hand, “normal” is not a word associated with an excess of anything. I am either offended by this, or pleased with my workout efforts. I’m not sure which.

As confusing and questionable as all that was, the note that really had me wondering was under CORTICAL FUNCTION. My doctor listed me as having “normal intellectual function, normal memory, and good judgement.”

C’mon! These are the notes on me, right? It’s as if they got my file mixed up with someone who can keep a thought in their head for more than ten seconds, can remember what they had for breakfast, and doesn’t have an impressively long list of bad decisions that haunt them to this very day.

Technology is great and all, but having notes available online is only helpful if the notes are true. Trying to be nice about it isn’t helping anyone.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go eat a salad.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2020 Marc Schmatjen

 

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

HIPAA Critical, Part III

Son Number Two turned twelve a few months ago, and you know what that means – yes, that’s right, Medical Independence!

Yes sir, nothing points out the fact that the collective IQ of our governing officials is below room temperature better than HIPAA, which stands for Hypocritical Idiots Pounding Abundant Alcoholic Beverages and Possibly Smoking Crack While Passing Insane Health Insurance Bills They Will Never Be Affected By Because They Don’t Live Under The Same Rules As The Commoners. (They cut out some of the letters because the acronym was getting too cumbersome. By the way, “Cumbersome Acronym” is obviously the name of my next rock band.)

The fully-lobotomized bureaucrats who authored the HIPAA bill, presumable with Crayons and drool, included the fun new law that anyone who has reached the ripe old age of twelve should now be in complete control of their medical decisions.

This was not news to our family, since we’d been through this once already with Son Number One. (He’s now thirteen years old, so under the HIPAA regulations he now has his own apartment and a Volkswagen Jetta.)

One easy way to know if your child has HIPAA’d up at twelve, is that their name will disappear from your list of family members on your medical provider’s website. That’s because, due to their newfound medical independence, you no longer have access to their medical records, even though you will be their legal guardian until they are eighteen, or if you are the parent of a hipster, thirty-five.

Now, sure, my twelve-year-old is probably better prepared to make his own medical decisions than Deklan, the thirty-two-year-old bearded chai-sucking blogger living in his parent’s basement, but that’s not really saying much, is it? Son Number Two is still twelve, after all, so his idea of a good medical decision after, let’s say, experiencing a blow to the head, would be to see if he could eat a whole ten-pound bag of granulated sugar with a spoon.

Captain Independence had gone into the doctor for something right before his magic HIPAA birthday, and a few weeks later when I logged on to attempt to pay the bill for the office visit, he had disappeared.

Under the HIPAA regulations, the doctor’s office is prohibited by law to set up his personal medically-independent online account over the phone. It must be done in person with the medically-independent twelve-year-old. In the meantime, I couldn’t pay his bill online because it simply didn’t exist on the website.

I must be honest. I didn’t lose any sleep over that.

When it came time for his regular checkup a few days ago, we went through the ridiculous charade of having him set up his “own” online medical account with the help of the nurse.

Now, I don’t ever expect anything logical to come out of a bureaucrat’s mouth, and neither should you. These are people who have never held down any real job more complicated than running the sour cream gun at a Taco Bell. Their entire existence revolves around clinging to their government job like a rabid squirrel on a caramel popcorn ball, so none of their decisions make any outward logical sense.

I do, however, expect people with real jobs, such as, let’s say, doctors and nurses, to make logical and reasonable decisions, and say logical and reasonable things. I expect these folks to do so during standard, everyday situations, and also in the face of complete government absurdity.

That being said, there we were in the examination room, with the nurse walking Son Number Two through how to set up his username and password on the in-room computer. “Type your username in here,” she said.

I told him what it should be so I would remember it.

She glanced at me with what appeared to be frustration on her face. Then she turned back to him and said, “OK, now your password.”

Again, I told him what it should be.

As a parent of a twelve-year-old, you can imagine how taken aback I was when the nurse turned to me and actually uttered the words, with a sigh, “Just so you know, this is supposed to be his own private account.”

*sound of a small blood vessel exploding in my brain*

I was so shocked I simply couldn’t help myself. I responded, “Just so YOU know, that’s just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” (Which is a true statement, and keep in mind, I have a teenager who talks.)

She then began sputtering about regulations and how they technically have to follow them, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah, but I cut her off.

“Never mind the fact that he is incapable of making good homework or personal hygiene decisions, let alone good medical decisions. Forget that part of this nonsense. Did you know that I can’t pay his bill without being able to access his ‘private account’? Do you have any idea what his username and password would be right now if I didn’t tell him what to write?”

“No.”

“Me neither. And do you know who else wouldn’t know? Him, in about fifteen seconds from now. And even if he had ‘remembered’ that he made his password ‘thisPasswordissuperlitty2,’ he would have spelled ‘Password’ wrong in the middle, so it wouldn’t have mattered. So, if you really want it to be his ‘private account,’ I'm actually all for that. Keep sending him the bill, and we’ll keep not paying it, and then you can send his medically-independent ass to collections and see how much money a judge will let you try to squeeze out of a twelve-year-old.”

Thankfully, they were basically done and we were able to leave before any more blood vessels popped in my head. I didn’t want to have to be admitted for treatment of a HIPAA-induced stroke.

I know the nurse was just trying to do her job in the face of governmental idiocracy, and I appreciate that, but c’mon, people! No matter what they tell you to do next, let’s make sure that common sense doesn’t get too uncommon out there!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2018 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Mrs. Magoo

I wanted to take this opportunity to do a small but vital PSA for the medical professionals out there – specifically all you doctors. I realize you spend an inordinate amount of time and money on medical school, and when you graduate and start practicing medicine, you’re all wicked smaht, as they say in Boston. But there seems to be one thing they’re not teaching you in medical school, and I wanted to share that with you today.

It seems like it would be obvious to everyone, but apparently not. The thing that some of you doctors are missing is the fact that almost all of your patients didn’t go to medical school like you did. That should make sense now, if you think back on it, because your classes were regular size, and didn’t include all the rest of the people in the world.

The end result of that fact is that you might need to explain the things going on in your head out loud to your patients, because your patients might not inherently know what a high blood CRP level means, for instance. Or what “wow,” means when you stick that cold thing in their ear and shine the light in there.

You might also want to take a second to put yourself in your patient’s gown, as it were, when prescribing medicine or advising on treatment, and think about some of the challenges your suggested course of action might present. Let me give you an example...

My wife was recently diagnosed with iritis, which is an irritation and inflammation of the irises (which, after I Googled it, turn out to be the colored parts of your eyeballs). We had to go to the ophthalmologist to get that diagnosis, because she had another issue going on with one of her eyes.

Besides being very bloodshot, her iris was stuck to the lens behind it, so her pupil wasn’t opening and closing properly, causing it to be almost rectangular instead of round. One eye looked normal and the other looked like a cat with a severe hangover. She’d been to the optometrist the day before for a routine visit, so she went back to have them look at the new problem.

They saw the funny shaped pupil and immediately opted for the worst possible diagnosis, guessing she had an eye-threatening condition that would likely leave her homeless, wearing a second-hand eye patch, with no friends and a bad case of mange.

(That might not have been exactly what the optometrist said, but it was something like that.)

The second opinion from the ophthalmologist was a little more upbeat. You get to keep your eye and your home and your friends. We just need to keep both your eyes dilated for a week while we put steroid drops in them to cure the iritis. Dilating your eyes will also un-stick the iris from the lens.

Hmm... Well, that does sound better than the mange scenario, but I have to keep my eyes dilated for a whole week? That’s going to make seeing a lot harder. OK, well, let’s do it.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had your eyes dilated, but it’s not very fun. You can’t drive, light hurts your eyes, and everything is fuzzy. My wife is a high school teacher, so keeping her eyes permanently dilated for a week was interesting. I needed to drive her to and from work., and she wasn’t able to see anything that she, or anyone else, was writing on the board or on their papers, which made teaching much more exciting.

Her district didn’t have an extra Braille computer lying around, so reading her emails was a challenge at best. She could just start to see a little as the drops were wearing off, so she basically had a half-hour window right before her next scheduled dilation to get six hours of grading and computer work done.

It was a rather frustrating, tiring, headache-y, and overall non-productive week for her. Back at the ophthalmologist’s office for the follow-up visit and he tells her she needs to keep up the dilating for another week. After a very heavy sigh, she turned to me and said something about emails, or not being able to read some other thing.

“Well, you just need to get stronger readers. Then you’ll be able to see.”

I’m sorry, what?

“Yeah, you just need a stronger magnification on your glasses when your eyes are dilated, then you can see again. Just buy the strongest ones they have at the drugstore.”

You see, doctors of the world, this is what I’m talking about. We out here with non-doctor jobs have absolutely no idea how the eye works. We never studied it at the medical school we didn’t go to. You just assuming we would know something like that is really unhelpful. That was an offhand comment that really would have helped out a great deal... A WEEK AGO!

So, off to the Dollar Store we went. I found her a sweet pair of Mrs. Magoo glasses with a classy zebra print on the sides. She put them on and shouted, “Holy crap! I can see!” Since we were at the Dollar Store, no one even noticed.

We splurged and got her two pairs of zebra print glasses, just in case she took one of them off and couldn’t find them again in the blur.

Mrs. Magoo sure is a lot more pleasant to be around now that she can see! Thanks, Doc.

Is there anything else you want to tell me?

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

HIPAA Critical, Part II

Does anyone have the number for the idiot or idiots over at HIPAA that I can send my gas receipt to? I just had to drive across town to Son Number One’s pediatrician for a special office visit so that he could get his own health care web access all set up... you know, because he’s twelve now.

When you turn twelve these days, at least in California, you’re medically independent. For everything except the bill, that is. The bill they still send to me, even though I’m not allowed access to his medical records anymore. Funny how those HIPAA folks made a nice loophole for actually collecting the money and all.

Why did I have to drive all the way across town? Well, they want to make it so the twelve-year-old has their own personal user name and password-protected access to your health care plan’s website, but ironically, you can’t set that up on the website. You have to physically go to the doctor’s office and bring the actual twelve-year-old with you, so they can repeatedly ask why they had to come if they’re not having an appointment. Do you know why you, as the parent, have to go, too? Because twelve-year-olds CAN’T DRIVE, that’s why!

As if this galactically stupid monumental waste of our time is not asinine enough, the poor doctor’s assistant, who has approximately two bazillion better things to be doing, has to go through the ridiculous process of showing the twelve-year-old all the fun features of the new website he now has access to. The guy actually tried to show my son how to set up an appointment. My son and I looked at the guy with the exact same blank stare.

My stare meant, “Are you being $#&%’ing serious right now?”

My son’s stare probably meant, “Can I change the background image to a dragon?”

Prior to that, the guy had actually asked my twelve-year-old what he wanted his user name and password to be. Here’s how that would have gone if I hadn’t been in the room:

“What would you like your user name and password to be?”

“Huh?”

“Your user name. Right here. What do you want it to say?”

“I get to choose??”

“Yes.”

“Cool! Make it FlamingNinjaDeathRay.”

“All right. How about a password?”

“I dunno.”

“It has to have at least one number or character.”

“OK. Make it FlamingNinjaDeathRay2000##**##.”

“All right. You’re all set.”

Thirty seconds later

Me – “What happened in there?”

Son – “I got a website.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, I have a user name and password.”

“OK. What are they?”

“SamuraiDeathFlame, or something.”

“Is that the user name or the password?”

“I dunno. I’m hungry.”

Since I was in the room, we now have a user name and password that one of us will remember. Now my big grown-up twelve-year-old can finally take charge of his health care, as it was always meant to be. I logged on for him when we got home. (Don’t tell HIPAA.)

While I was on his amazing new health care web access portal – which looks exactly like the one I have, just conspicuously without the ‘Bill Pay’ option – I noticed that the doctor’s office had two online forms that they wanted my medically-independent son to fill out, since they sent them to his new account that I’m not allowed to have access to.

The first questionnaire started like this:

Please answer the following questions. It will help your clinicians spend more time discussing those specific issues that concern you.

Please list all medications, vitamins, inhalers or supplements your child is currently taking:

Actual answer – None

What his answer would have been – I don’t understand any of those words.

Please list your child's medication or food allergies, if any:

Actual answer – None

What his answer would have been – Cough syrup, peanuts, cauliflower, mayonnaise, carrots, and celery.

Has your child had any major medical problems since his or her last check up?

Actual answer – No

What his answer would have been – I have a wart on my toe and my dad is freezing it off and it hurts like crazy when he puts the cold thing on it, but I don’t know when my last checkup was and I don’t know when I got the wart and I also skinned my knee really bad playing kickball.

At that point I stopped reading the questionnaire, deleted it, and went ahead and changed his password without telling him.

I’ll bet you folks at HIPAA never saw that one coming. I’ll send you the gas receipt. And just so we’re clear, you can reimburse me, not my son.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Whoops, We HIPAA'd your TDaP

I’m confused, California. I just want to make sure I’m perfectly clear on what’s happening here...

I have a son in the sixth grade, attending a public school in our great state of California. Next year, if we’ve paid off the right people, he will go on to the seventh grade. Our public school district, operating in and under the authority of our great state of California just sent me, his parent, a notice about his immunization requirements for school. What?

The letter starts like this:

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, continues to threaten students in California. To help stop its spread, all incoming 7^th graders are required by law to have proof of a whooping cough booster (TDaP) vaccine, or file an exemption, in order to attend classes this year. Students will not be allowed to attend classes without an immunization or medical exemption signed by a physician.

Then you guys ask me, his parent, to please submit an immunization record for him. You see, this is the part that confuses me. He’s twelve, for goodness sake. You know he’s twelve because you know his birthdate, and you’re in charge of teaching him algebra, so I assume you guys can also do birthday math. So why are you sending this letter to me?

Don’t you remember the letter that your HIPAA folks sent me a few months ago when he turned twelve? Do your HIPAA people and your school district people not talk to each other over there?

How in the world am I supposed to tell you anything about his immunization record? Your HIPAA department just informed me that I don’t have access to his medical records anymore now that he’s all grown up, being twelve and all.

By the way, how old are your HIPAA people over there? I have to assume they’re all over one hundred and fifty years old. Is that why you chose the ripe old age of twelve? Because the people writing these laws are all from the good old days when everyone left the farm at twelve to get a job and needed to prove to their new employers that all their liniments, tonics, and salves against consumption and winter fever were up to date?

Anyway, if you want to know about his immunizations, you’ll obviously need to talk to him. Which leads me to the next thing I’m curious about. Are you just tired of having anyone over the age of twelve attend school?

Students will not be allowed to attend classes without an immunization or medical exemption signed by a physician.

So, in case you’re slow on the uptake, let me recap this for you. You told the twelve-year-olds that their parents aren’t in charge of their medical decisions anymore. Then you told them that they have to do a medical thing or they can’t go to class. So, what you did there was tell twelve-year-olds that they are now in charge of deciding whether to go to school or not.

I would assume you school district folks have met twelve-year-olds before. You must see the problem here. Or do all your old-timey HIPAA people just want them to go get jobs? I can’t figure you guys out.

Speaking of that, there’s one more thing in this letter that I can’t figure out. I don’t mean to get all logical on you or anything, but you started the letter by saying that whooping cough continues to threaten students in California. Then you said to help stop its spread, students are required to have proof of a vaccine, or file an exemption?

So, just so I’m clear, one of the ways you plan to stop the spread of whooping cough is by collecting vaccine exemption letters? Was there even a meeting on this, or does Phil in the back cubicle just write down whatever the hell comes into his head and then sends it out to the parents?

Again, not to get all logical on you, but the only way that makes any sense is if the non-vaccinated kids are required to carry their exemption letters with them at all times to hold in front of their faces when they cough. Since my twelve-year-old regularly forgets to carry anything that isn’t physically attached to him, I don’t see that plan working.

Anyway, good luck getting my son’s vaccination records from him. He doesn’t know the name of his doctor, the name of his doctor’s medical practice, the name of our insurance provider, his insurance plan number, the telephone number to any of the aforementioned offices, the fact that he even has a vaccination record, or the name of his school district.

Basically he knows the name of his school and the exact time of each recess.

But I think everything will work out fine, you know, because he’s twelve now.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

HIPAA Critical

Son Number One just turned twelve years old. I have a news flash for you. Most eighteen-year-olds are idiots. What do those two things have in common? Health care, obviously.

Eighteen-year-olds are, by definition, still teenagers, and therefore some of the most irrational and irresponsible creatures on the planet. Teenagers are worse than toddlers, actually, because their brains work exactly the same, but teenagers have cars.

Why am I focusing on eighteen-year-olds? Because they shouldn’t be in charge of anything. Whomever decided that eighteen was the age to become an adult probably just couldn’t stand having the kid living in their house any longer and wanted to be legally allowed to evict them.

Since twelve-year-olds are younger than eighteen-year-olds, do you know who else shouldn’t be in charge of anything? Twelve-year-olds, that’s who. Makes sense, right? Well, not to the government, I guess. Those braniacs just put my twelve-year-old son in charge of his own health care decisions.

I was not expecting that to happen, because I am a rational adult human, so it never even occurred to me that something as asinine as that would even be possible until I tried to log into our health insurance website the other day. Son Number One was missing from my list of family members on the plan.

I just figured it was a website maintenance issue, since we had just gotten home from his doctor’s visit. After further investigation I found out that HIPAA decided that twelve was the perfect age for health care independence.

HIPAA apparently stands for HighAndMighty Idiots Parenting AllOurKidsForUs Anonymously. Who comes up with these crazy acronyms, anyway? The folks over at the government health care office have made it illegal for me to have unfettered access to my own child’s medical records.

Hmm... Well, that seems really dumb. I know my sons’ doctor had nothing to do with this, because he is a doctor, so he has an actual, working brain. Unfortunately, it’s his office that gets to deal with the aftermath of this HIPAA stupidity.

My twelve-year-old is now in charge of his own health care decisions. OK, fine. One health care decision is whether or not to pay for your health care. I’ll let you give him a call about billing for that office visit. He doesn’t have a phone, or a credit card, or any money at all, or a clue, so good luck. When you do get a hold of him somehow and ask him for money, he’s going to talk to you about Star Wars, so be ready for that conversation to not go your way. If you try to call me to get payment, I’m afraid I’ll be forced to refer you to the rigid HIPAA guidelines. Sorry.

At our recent office visit, he got the first of his HPV shots. It’s a two shot process, and he needs the next one in a year. Good luck with scheduling that. Like I said, he doesn’t have a phone, but he does have a gmail account for school, so I guess you could try sending him an email. But be warned, if you include the word ‘papilllomavirus’ you’re going to lose him. He’ll just assume it’s a language he doesn’t know and then he’ll go play kickball.

You could keep it simple and say ‘come to the doctor,’ but he has no idea where your office is. Seriously, it could be a block from our house and he still wouldn’t know. He knows where Blaze Pizza and Cold Stone Creamery are, though. Maybe you could meet him at one of those places. I’m afraid I won’t be able to drive him over to your office, because I don’t want to risk being seen as coercing him into anything under the HIPAA guidelines. Your best bet would be to actually send someone over to the middle school with the syringe and corner him at lunch.

Since I’ll need to let him schedule his next appointment, if you guys aren’t willing to track him down, you should see him back at the doctor’s office when he’s about thirty-eight years old. He probably won’t be going to a pediatrician any more by then, so you may have seen the last of him thanks to HIPAA.

Also, I’m just perusing the six-page health care instructional handout you mistakenly handed me during the office visit. I left it for him to read, but it ended up wadded up with his gum stuck to it. I guess he wasn’t all that interested in reading up on his most pressing twelve-year-old health care issues. Perhaps that’s because he’s twelve. Tough to say.

Anyway, most of the immunizations and testing page was illegible due to the Juicy Fruit, but I did notice there were sections on nutrition, screen time, and sleep. Now that my twelve-year-old is in charge of all this stuff, and since he apparently has no interest in reading your helpful tips, you might want to come over and talk to him. He’ll be the one in a twelve-year-old boy-shaped divot on the couch, catatonic in front of the TV, surviving on root beer and pita chip crumbs from the cushions.

Maybe we could get the school nurse to give him some advice. That is, if he decides to go to school at all. Am I allowed to insist that he goes to school anymore, now that he’s all grown up? I guess I should check the governmental regulations on that.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2016 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Health Care?

Have you ever applied for health insurance on your own? If not, let me suggest you never do. The application process is enough to give you a health condition.

I am applying for a health insurance plan for my whole family, and there are five of us. That meant that when I filled out the 28 page online form, I filled it out five times. I can’t even do that math, but I know it’s a lot of pages. Lord help you if you answer yes to any of the questions, because down drops another page with 56 follow-up questions.

There was all sorts of stuff that made no sense to me, like the height and weight questions. I understand asking about the adults’ dimensions, but the form was the same for the kids.

Son Number One - 8 years old - height and weight?

There was no button for “standard.”

I don’t know how tall he is, he’s 8. He’s short on me, but the same as every kid in his third grade class. Weight? Too heavy to carry, still light enough to knock over easily.

They wanted actual numbers, so I had to leave my computer and round up the boys.

“Get my tape measure from the garage and meet me at the bathroom scale.”

Son Number One – 8 years old – 4’-5” tall, 70 pounds. Like those numbers mean anything to anyone.

After I had gone through each family member’s complete medical history, explaining every cough and sneeze we’ve had in the last 5-10 years, they asked, “Has any person on this application, for any reason, seen a physician in the last 5 years? If so, please explain.”

There was no button to click for “see above,” so off I went again down medical memory lane. Multiple hours, and all my medical records later, I hit send, only to get an email a few days later asking me to call them to answer a few additional questions.

I innocently dialed the number thinking, this should only take a minute, since I answered 6000 pages of questions online. What more could they possibly ask me?

“Thank you for calling. My name is Nancy and I am a doctor. The underwriters have a few follow-up questions regarding your health, as well as that of your sons.”

“OK, shoot.”

“Please state your address, including city and ZIP code.”

What does my address have to do with my health?

“Has your weight fluctuated by more than 10 pounds in the last two years?”

I’m a 6’-1”, 210-pound man. My weight fluctuates more than 10 pounds if I forget to eat breakfast.

“Are you currently expecting a child with anyone besides your wife?”

If I am, you’re going to need to sell me life insurance, not health insurance.

“So, the last time you were at the doctor was October of 2012, for a chest cold, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“What was your blood pressure at that visit?”

“I have no idea.”

“Was it normal or abnormal?”

“Uhhh… normal I guess. No one said anything.”

“And did the symptoms clear up?”

“Of my blood pressure?”

“No, the chest cold.”

Are you asking if I still have the chest cold I had a year ago? I thought you said you were a doctor?

“Has your health situation changed in any way since you completed this application?”

You mean, besides my blood pressure during this call?

“Let’s move on to Son Number One. Please state his address, including city and ZIP code.”

“The same as mine.”

“I need you to state it for the record.”

I just did. Same as mine. He’s 8 years old. He lives with us. He doesn’t have his own apartment.

“You say that Son Number One takes Flonase, is that correct?”

“Yes, for seasonal allergies.”

“What is he allergic to?”

“Spring.”

“I mean, is it grasses, pollen, pets, dust, or mold?”

“Whatever comes out in spring. Grasses and pollen, I guess.”

“How often does he have symptoms?”

“Every spring.”

“No, I mean how often in the spring?”

“Once, then we give him the Flonase.”

“OK. Has Son Number One, in the last 12 months, used tobacco or nicotine patches or any kind of nicotine substitute? And I apologize for that question, since I know he’s 8 years old.”

If you know he’s 8 years old, why are you asking the question? If any of your underwriters are parents, I’m calling Child Protective Services.

“Let’s move on to Son Number Two. Please state his address, including city and ZIP code.”

Grumble

“Does he live with you?”

You just made me say the entire address again. It’s the same as the last two times. If you would just accept “the same as mine” as an answer, you wouldn’t have to ask the stupid follow-up question. Yes, he’s my 7-year-old son, so we keep him here at the house.

“You stated that his last doctor’s visit was in 2012 for a flu shot. Was everything normal at that time?”

“Yes, it seemed like a pretty normal flu shot.”

“OK. Has his weight fluctuated more than 10 pounds in the last year?”

“Uh… maybe. He might have gained 10 pounds in the last year, but he’s 7 years old. I don’t know how much he weighed when he was 6.”

“OK, let’s move on to Son Number Three. Please state his address, including city and ZIP code.”

Grumble

“Son Number Three broke his right femur in October of 2011, correct?”

“Yes.”

“We have a claim for an office visit with the orthopedic surgeon in 2012. If he broke his leg in 2011, why were you visiting his doctor in 2012?”

“Because he broke his leg in October. His cast came off at the end of November. The year 2012 was only a month later.”

“So this was a follow up visit?”

Yes, I guess the orthopedic surgeon figured he might not be doing his job if he just sawed the cast off our 3-year-old and said, “Good luck!”

“There were x-rays at that same time. Were those also for the follow-up visit?”

Yes, the way I understand it, the doctor has a hard time seeing the bone without them.

“OK, thank you, Mr. Schmatjen. You should hear something back in 10 to 15 days.”

That seems like a reasonable amount of time to look up the proper weight for the average 8-year-old, cross-match all our addresses, and do the math on the 2011-2012 broken femur time discrepancy.

“Thanks.”

Strangely, the underwriters did not have a single question regarding the lady who gave birth to these three children. I guess they figure if she’s still alive, she’s plenty tough enough.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!