I could rant...

 I could rant about health insurance not recognizing my primary care doctor, and listing someone that I've never seen nor heard of. I could rant about insurance telling me to contact the doctor's office to tell them to get the Dr. to send in certification to the insurance company.

I could rant but I won't. 

Well maybe a little rant. I am really tired of this situation. I have an appointment for a yearly exam which was made 6 months ago when I first saw this new primary care doctor. Today the parent company through another department called to say she wasn't listed as my PCP (primary care provider.) So I called both insurance and various people at the PCP office.

I thought, as I was on hold at one or another call, that I could just die of a heart attack and none of these clowns would know or care!

I still am waiting for the credentials to be sent to the insurance, and then the doctor's office will call ME to call the insurance again to make sure they recognize her as my PCP so I can see her.

I can't stress enough to the people (clowns?) at Advent Health, that these are their job tasks, not mine.

What happened to customer's being right? Why are so many of these folks in the midst of "that's not my department?"

It reminds me of checking out at the laundry re-filling-station...where you can buy non-scented washing sheets. I put the box of sheets in front of me on a tiny little counter, and the woman standing there continued talking with another young woman who works there (also behind the counter to define her roll.) Second woman left and the first asked for me to pay $38. I asked her why it was so much, and she explained the total was for an item sitting on the counter plus my box of sheets...and I said, I didn't want the first thing, it had been sitting there before I arrived. I didn't say when she ignored me and continued talking with the other employee. As a customer, I was not only ignored, then someone else's purchase was being added to mine. She finally took off the extra item and I paid my $24 plus tax.

It seems to be a day when I have invisibility. 

I'm even wearing red.

I'm waiting for important calls to set up more lung tests, and then probably more antibiotics. I may or may not decide to have that treatment. After looking it up on line, yes, the Mayo Clinic and other medical sites, I don't see that all the bother will actually be worth it. But I'll perhaps need to address this fungus. We shall see.

What do you think those squares in the foreground are?

I was looking out a second story window, and they are roofing tiles. Kind of neat optical illusion, eh?

Please forgive my rant. 

Nobody has called back that said they would today. Maybe tomorrow. 

I'm glad that I went to the post office, got my detergent, and had coffee with a friend at the second place we tried because suddenly the first one closes on Tuesdays. Well, suddenly to us, anyway.

May all who are over 60 stand up and wave that we're not invisible! We demand to be noticed! And don't close when we want to enjoy chatting over a cuppa! And please please please, get those other people to call back when they say they will.

OK, some of these things we have no control over. 

A small helping hand, etc.

These boxes are full of canned goods or non-perishible items for the food pantry at Swannanoa Valley Christian Ministries. I brought a bag to include in these boxes at my church. Thinking of families who might find some canned goods welcome at this time.

Our state, and our area have many people identified as having food insufficiency. When I first heard the term I was eating at a site which provided low cost nutritious lunches for seniors. That was last year. 

I've become vegetarian in 2020, which meant I couldn't get nutrition from these lunches which were oriented around an animal based protein. I'm happier making most of my meals now with low-fat plant-based choices. This was recommended by my cardiologist and the Ornish Heart Rehab program.

Warning, a rant shall follow!

 Mission Hospital System, which has become a for-profit member of the HCA corporation, is closing down the Ornish program. I don't know the reason why, but can guess. We survivors of heart conditions were learning new lifestyle choices including stress reduction with meditation, exercise, and eating low-fat plant-based diets. We also formed small groups that could help support our emotions with a counselor facilitator. A lot of healthy choices. 

The only choice the next survivors will have will be a version of the standard rehab class that includes 40 minutes of exercise with a heart monitor, then about 20 min. to sit quietly and be meditative. They may be recommended to eat plant-based diets, but they won't have one served for lunch as well as be given instructions how to cook low-fat. I learned how to sauté vegetables without any oil...and now can cook completely oil-free. I have good friends to offer me a support system in a time when more people are isolated from each other...and I do a daily meditation, which we spent an hour a day practicing during Ornish Rehab. 

I am really dismayed that this wonderful program has ceased to be supported by the corporate hospital system. I know certain cardiologists do support it, and I hope they will offer it somewhere else soon. This is the only cardiac rehab plan that has statistical evidence of reversing the symptoms of heart disease. One of my cohorts had not been considered eligible for surgery for his heart problems, so his alternative was the Ornish program. He visibly became much more fit, lost a lot of weight, and he stated he was eating very differently from his normal southern cooking lifestyle.

And in case you're thinking it has to do with insurance, I was told all insurance covers the Ornish Lifestyle Rehabilitation Program, including Medicare. Makes sense, since many elders were in this group...mainly those who had had heart attacks and some form of surgery. 

I've seen a statement that the "new" Cardio-Rehab will have more of the Ornish training in the future. I guess they can do a lot of these things without calling it Ornish. There's another plant-based famous scientist, Campbell, who has provided lots of good recipes. (That's where I got my potato and bean recipe earlier in the week.)

I must also include in my rants, how I've adapted to having only texts, emails, blogs, and zooms to connect with people. Oh, and a few phone calls. I love talking one on one and having a conversation. As a senior living on my own, I limit my encounters, as I've been warned to do. But first I missed the hugs. Now I miss conversations. OK, I can still pick up the phone myself!

Quote for today:

For the future residents of the earth: may their world still be packed with mysteries.  May they still grow giddy on the eve of a great adventure.  May they become more responsible to one another and the planet.  May they keep their taste for the renegade.  May they never lose their sense of innocence and wonder.  May they live to chase brash and astonishing dreams.  May they return to tell me, if such a thing is possible, so that I can know the answers to a thousand scrupulous puzzles, hear of whole civilizations that bloomed and vanished, learn what travel to other solar systems has revealed and behold the marvels that arose while I was gone.  If that’s not possible, then I will have to make due with the playgrounds of mortality, and hope that at the end of my life I can say simply, wholeheartedly that it was grace enough to be born and live.

Diane Ackerman, Deep Play

A credit card fiasco

Yep, skip reading this if you aren't interested in my rant of the day.

I finally took my little old car to get new shoes (er tires for those literal-minded people).  That's not the same as being liberal-minded, at all!

Got the job done in plenty of time, gave the man my credit/debit card, asked for him to swipe it as credit.  He says, hummm, and gives me a stub of a receipt saying it has no charge, try again...and there's $ 00.00 total.  So he wads up the receipt, throws it to trash can, and tries again.  Then again.  Still receipts say no money, and he tries it again.  After 4 tries, I say, try it as a debit.  And I enter my pin number.  No that doesn't work either.  So I urge him to call, and try one more time.  A 6th try doesn't work any better.  NONE of these tries says it's denied.  (I know I had plenty of money in the account, or I wouldn't have handed the guy the card.)

So he calls the credit card place that has a phone number on the back of my card.  He punches in lots of numbers...when he finally gets someone he tells them about this situation, and then I say, just let me write a check.  So I do.  And then he hangs up, never having found out what's happening.  (I had assumed he would check with the merchant's end of things, rather than my credit card company).

I then go home and go on line to verify for myself the amount of money that was in my account yesterday.  There are FOUR pending charges against my account, leaving $45 in it.  Obviously no more could go against it.

SO I get in the car and drive over to my local branch of my bank.  Kelly is nice, and says there's no way to back out those "PENDING" charges, which have eaten up all my account balance basically for TWO to THREE days.
WHAT?

They weren't even charges...I saw the "$ 00.00" amount on those receipts before he threw them away.  She suggests I go back and get the receipts, so I call the guy and say I am coming back for them (and then do so).

I ask Kelly what will happen when the check is presented and I don't have enough money in my account?  She says she'll make sure it doesn't bounce.  (There are small favors).  But I just lost all my money to a system...and just have enough to get gas, which was all I was going to buy today.  Tomorrow however, I was going to pay the water bill.  

Suddenly I have spent 2 hours with an event that wasn't quite as bad as identity theft.  But why did it happen in the first place?  They guy at the tire place didn't have a clue.  Neither did Kelly at the bank.  Nobody could fix it for me either.  My $660 is now tied up in a non-purchase apparently, out in a limbo of "pending transactions" that never happened.

And what has all this taught a slightly anxious woman who is very careful with her Social Security income?  Avoid plastic, never let them swipe the card more than once, and maybe go back to cash under the mattress.