Thanks Seth!

One thing that I've noticed since moving up here is that the the clinics/Dr.'s offices don't do their own billing they have someone else do it. Some third party that doesn't know what the heck they're talking about and don't seem to have much desire to do their job. They'd much rather me do it for them. This is the second time this has happened. It goes a little something like this:

1. I take kid to doctor

2. Receptionist asks if our insurance info is the same as last visit. Yep.

3. Get a bill from the third party billing company for said Dr.'s office saying I've provided incorrect insurance info and to please call them.

4. Call them and they tell me our insurance is bogus and won't pay claims.

5. I tell them they're wrong, go over info to make sure they have it right because I never had a problem in Texas.

6. They tell me they sent in the claims twice and won't do it again so I need to figure it out myself because they're not wasting anymore time.

Come again? This bill here says that I owe $380.00 before the insurance pays and I'm not paying a dime until you file it right because you're obviously doing something wrong. By this point I've put on my angry eyes. She told me they're not dealing with it anymore and I need to call my insurance company. After I got her name and extension I did just that. I spoke with a nice man named Seth who informed me (again! same story as last month) that they've not received any claims from them. I told him what she told me and then he got a brilliant idea that we'd call her back on a conference call. This amused me to no end because I caught her in a couple of lies which he was sure to point out. His first order of business was to go off on her because she was having me do her job. He also pointed out that she should have been calling him, not vice versa. She told me that they mailed the claims to the insurance twice. She told him they filed it electronically. He chewed on her a wee bit more for not calling or following up with them to make sure they received the claim. He then asked her a few other things and come to find out, they were filing the claims using a code that isn't even valid so that's why it wasn't going through. So once again, they were screwing up but expecting me to fix it. I was really annoyed that I had to spend a half hour dealing with it because someone else didn't want to do their job or couldn't do it properly. Thanks Seth, for putting miss priss in her place and helping me out with that! If he wouldn't have been on the line we still wouldn't have it fixed. How would I ever know that they were filing using codes that aren't valid??? I would have no way of ever knowing that, nor do I know any of the codes. They should have been calling my insurance and figuring out what the problem is, not me. They really should try listening to the customer for once. We do know what we're talking about once in a while. Dummies.

I mailed 3 of my PIF packages out on Friday and got an email from Rachel earlier saying that she received hers. I was really excited because I made a super cool thing for her and couldn't wait to post a pic. Rachel really likes cats and I wanted to stitch a kitty piece for her. I pulled out a chart I have from The Trilogy called Eekology and stitched the kitty for her. I made it in to an ornament using organza ribbon for the hanger. I bought a long length of the same ribbon and ran it through the loop on the hanger and wrapped it around the top of one of those crafting mason jars and tied a bow in the front. How cute is that?! I found this jar at A.C. Moore. I really like this one because it's smooth all around unlike those canning jars that have fruit and things on them. It was only $1.49. If you decide to mail one of these, I don't recommend you send it overseas and I do recommend you use a flat rate box. Jar is cheap, shipping is not LOL :). It just turned out so darn cute though. I plan to make more of these for Halloween and for Christmas. Celeste has one up at the shop with a skeleton head ornie on it filled with candy corn. Too cute. You could fill one for Christmas with peppermints or other Christmas candies. They'd make really cute teacher's gifts. Rachel told me that she's going to fill hers with candy and put it on her desk at work :). She has a ribbon eating cat at home so that would be the best place for it...lol. I also sent her a really late birthday gift. I actually contemplated not sending it for a while because I wasn't all that please with my finishing on it. I had this little round cookie Christmas cookie tin that I had been saving for a while because I knew I'd want to mount a stitched piece on it at some point. I've never finished a tin before so put it off. I stitched the kitty for her from the Prairie Schooler's Barnyard Christmas chart. It was the perfect size for the tin so I decided to give it a go. It didn't turn out as well as I wanted it too but I think it still came out ok.