Starting Radiation October 2019
Comments
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mocame: It cooled off here too, down to the high 60s, so don't feel to alone with the cold. I'm feeling much better as it's been four weeks now. I think I'm up to about 600 calories a day. I'm supposed to be at 700 for the next month or so. I've not had any problems with nausea which I'm thankful for.
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Kamboka, I hate yard work, but have to do what you have to do. LOL How are you feeling?
mocame, It is 76 degrees and suppose to rain this afternoon. I should go for my walk before it does.
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It rained this morning but now it's sunny and mid-70s. It gets up to the mid eighties before going back down to the 60s for the weekend. At least it will be sunny. One of my cousins who lives in Orlando is coming to visit with me over the weekend. Too bad I can't enjoy going out for food. I'll try going to a few restaurants and having soup. He likes to thrifty shop so we might do that. I'm feeling much better. So far, I've lost 28 pounds--50 to 60 to go.
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Forgot to mention that the insurance company sent me three bills today totaling about $8K. That's ridiculous. I do not like this new insurance. I'll probably try to change jobs after my one year and go back to the type job I had before with the better insurance.
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Kamboka, why is the insurance company sending you bills? Is it an explanation of what was billed by the provider and what they are actually covering?
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Yes, this company sends the explanation and I get so many of them. I'm trying to hold off until the hospital posts a bill and then I will challenge it. I was feeling great till all these bills started appearing. I don't mind paying something but I could get three surgeries done in another country for $7000. Our healthcare system needs a total overhaul.
I'm trying to sell two office chairs and buy another. I just bought the last one this weekend. They feel good for a day or two and then my back starts hurting. When I buy the next one, it will probably be my 10th chair in the last seven months. The back is still not as bad as before and not as bad as the neuropathy in my feet. I swear I want to cut them off.
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30's, raining, and chance of snow showers today. Ugh!
Kamboka - I'm sorry you are having to deal with all of these medical bills. I always wait until I get a bill before I call about it. I've had to call numerous times in the past. Do you have a high deductible? Can you get on a payment plan with the hospital/doctors? Until a couple of years ago, we paid for our own insurance or had Obamacare and had very high deductibles because that's all the premiums we could afford to pay. I would ask to be put on a payment plan for the thousands of dollars of medical bills. My main hospital would do a payment plan and if you paid it off regularly during the year, they would contact me in February or March and say that if I pay off a portion of the balance in a lump sum in April, I could save a lot of money. I think it basically came out to about 30% off. For example, if my balance was $1,000, and I paid $700 in a lump sum, the rest was forgiven. Now the insurance that I have through my work covers the whole family and pays for a lot but I also pay over $1,000/month and that doesn't include the part of the monthly premium that my company pays too. It's so expensive.
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Medicare Advantage plan works well for me, but before we were 65 we had Obamacare. Between the 2 of us it was about $2200 a month and enormous co-pays and out of pockets.
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Yikes, petite1, that seems like a lot. I've been blessed with not having to pay too much since I'm in the federal system. I pay about $600/mo. Mayo does have a payment plan but I'm going to ask them to forgive the hospital night since I didn't ask to stay. they should have know the requirements for a second night. I just think it's so much to pay for health insurance no matter if it's Obamacare or private. I could take that $7K and do some more things I want to do around the house. I'll challenge my doctor when I see him next week to refile the claim with the info needed to get Cigna to pay.
Today was cool but sunny. I don't mind as long as it's sunny. My colleague in upstate NY showed us the snow today while we were on conference call. I can't believe it's April and still 60 degrees. It was high 80s over the weekend.
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Petite1 - We had a similar experience with Obamacare, although our premium weren't quite that high. We were better off before Obamacare when we paid for our own insurance and only had a $5,000 deductible. Now that I'm working full-time, my portion of the premium is a little over $1,000/month {for a family} but with great coverage. Some medications, I paid $0 for 3 months worth.
A word of warning about Medicare Advantage plans. Because I work in a retirement community and work a little with seeing what plans pay out, unless you are in a company's retired benefits Medicare Advantage plan, it isn't as good as Medicare in the end. While you are healthy, Medicare Advantage plans are mostly great. (Be careful about the obscured small no-name insurance companies with cheap premiums) But when you have more health problems or need skilled nursing, they are much worse than Medicare with a supplement plan. We get so mad at those Medicare Advantage tv commercials. They don't tell you the truth...If you change from a Medicare supplemental plan to a Medicare Advantage plan, you can't get back on a Medicare supplemental plan later without premium increases or can't get back at all because of health issues or age. We have residents call us when they end up in skilled nursing or health issues why they are getting such high bills all of the sudden with their Medicare Advantage plan. It's because of what I have said above. Also, Medicare Advantage plans are like regular insurance, not everyone takes every plan. Our retirement community and skilled nursing care are out-of-network for 95% of plans. (Not unusual for not-for-profit retirement communities) Before you go to the doctor or a retirement community, check out if they are actually in-network. People don't really think about that and end up in trouble when health issues come up.
We have been in the 40s as highs and 20s at lows the past couple of days. Brr! Today it will be in the 50s. I will take it!
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mocame, You are correct on that. I was a Nursing Home Administrator and some of the small company plans did not cover Long Term Care. The person had to disenroll and go back to Medicare and hopefully qualify for Medicaid. My plan is Blue Cross and Blue Shield. It covers LTC the same as Medicare, but there may be facilities that don't take BC/BS Advantage plans. My husband has Aetna Medicare Advantage, but it is through the City of Tampa retirement plan. Hopefully we won't need that kind of care for a very long time.
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Thanks to both of you for this info about Medicare and Medicare Advantage. I will be signing up for this in three short years. All these things can be so confusing unless you have the inside track.
My cousin is here for the weekend and mainly we just talked and caught up. We ate at SaltLife and I had the chowder soup. I think it was a bit spicy but so far it hasn't bothered my stomach. Tomorrow, we'll go for breakfast as I can eat eggs and oatmeal. I could have some pancake but I don't need the syrup and what's a pancake without syrup?
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Happy Easter, ladies.
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It was a gorgeous Easter day here. I enjoyed my cousin's visit. Hope you both had a nice day. I still don't understand why we don't have a holiday around Easter. When I work in most other countries, we sometimes get both Good Friday and Easter Monday as holidays.
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Happy Easter!
Petite1 - I didn't have a clue about Medicare or Medicare Advantage plans before I worked for a retirement community. I have friends that didn't sign up for Part B Medicare right away and found out the hard and more expensive way that they should've signed up at the same time at Part A. It's confusing but I'm learning. It sounds like your plans are good. Nursing Home Administrators aren't easy to come by. We could use you in our personal care section. We are having a hard time finding a personal care administrator right now.
Kamboka - I'm glad you had a good time with your cousin. Sounds like a nice and relaxing weekend visit.
I had an Easter gathering on Thursday evening with my family and today we had an Easter gathering with my husband's family. Today was a beautiful sunny day with the high in the 60s. We went to church, volunteered for one service, and then spent the day outside eating good food and spending time with family and friends. My daughter was home for the holiday weekend and it was nice getting to spend time with her and continue to plan our trip to Disney World in May. I took off of work tomorrow and it's supposed to be sunny and 68. Yay! I'm hoping to be able to clean up my flower beds a little bit. I haven't worked on them since fall and they are a mess! Even though we have downsized the amount of flower beds that we have, it is still a lot and takes more than one day to do them.
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mocame: I'm so glad you had nice weather for the family gettogether. It's always fun to have those special times with family at holidays. Again, I sure wish Easter was a federal holiday.
I remember reading that even if you don't want SS at 65, you have to sign up six months ahead of your birthdate otherwise there are some penalties. Hope I don't forget and hope I'm still working at my job so I can hang on until my 66 and 7 months (I think that's the timing).
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mocame, my Florida NHA license is proudly marked "retired" LOL
We had a surprise visit from our grand nephew and his wife. It was very pleasant. They are turning 29. He was a toddler just yesterday. Times flies so fast.
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Petite1 - Shucks! I was hoping to recruit you. LOL. That was so nice for your family to surprise you.
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When I read your email petite1, I was reminded that I needed to apply for my FL nursing license. (My TN renewal notice came yesterday.) It took me almost an hour trying to find the form, filling it out, and then going to another website to schedule fingerprints. You would think they could just use the ones I have on file working for the federal government. Costing over $200. Money goes so fast.
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Kamboka - $200! Yikes! You would think the federal government fingerprints would be fine and outrank having to do it again.
Well, yesterday was my birthday and it was a beautiful day here with highs in the low 70s. Too bad I had to work all day. My husband took me out to eat (I ate a lot! LOL!) and then we walked it off on the Rail Trail that is right next to the community where I work. Beautiful night and lots of people were out walking or biking.
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Kamboka, Do you have to take the state board or is there reciprocity? I don't recall. With the NHA, some states do and some states require taking their board. The renewal fee was $330 from active to active. Inactive to active is $655. If done before expiring. If it is expired $1005.
mocame, Happy Birthday!
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mocame: Happy belated birthday! The walk sounds wonderful. Being alone, that's one of the things I miss--doing couple things.
Actually my TN license is reciprocated so I can work in FL but since I've changed my permanent address, I have to sign up in FL. They sent me a note telling me this but I still need those fingerprints. Maybe they will reduce the license fee and make it a renewal. Can only hope.
I had my bariatric appointments today with the nutritionist and the surgeon. They were pleased with my progress. Mayo does spend a lot of time with you but I always hate to see the bills.
I asked the surgeon about the hospital night but he had no words to direct me. I'll have to try with the billing department and insurance company. 0 -
Kamboka - Glad to hear everything is going well and the doctors are happy. Medicals bills shouldn't be based on the amount of time the physician is there unless it is excessive. Usually you are only with them for about 5 minutes. That's an expensive 5 minutes. Years ago, I called my PCPs office because my bill was so high. I had two things I scheduled the appointment for instead of one and apparently it went past the normal "allotted time" by a few minutes so they charged me for 2 appointments.
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Kamboka, good to hear about the progress. Good to hear you don't have to take the state board. I would hate to have the NHA state board, again. The national was easy compared to the state. Glad nursing doesn't have a national & a state. For a while I carried both. The CEU's were a big pain. I uses to go to conventions to knock out 30 hours at a time. My picture is from one of those, a year or 2 before I retired. I was involved with American College of Healthcare Administrators as a member and an officer. I miss those times the most. They have special rates for the old retired NHA's and Medical Directors to go, but I have not attended. As the saying goes "when you are in, you are a guest. When you are out, you are a pest."
mocame, I can't believe they charged you for 2 visits.
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mocame: I have a similar story. A few weeks ago, the RO didn't get all the specimen that she wanted so she asked me since I was already there and prepped could she go back in and re-biopsy. Well, they charged me for two procedures. Had I known that, I would have just said, we'll do it again in 6 months--which I'll probably end up doing anyways. I don't know if the insurance company will want to pay twice. Ugh.
petite1: TN doesn't require CEUs so that's why I always keep my license there over the last 10 years. I've had license in LA, CA, FL, IN and MD. I was so glad when they went to the multi-state license but didn't realize that TN and FL were covered together. Way back in the day, it was only a few States in different multi-state pacts. Now, it seems to be more national--which is great. There is no way I could pass the nursing test again!
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Wow. My answer from yesterday went into cyber space or something. We had a bad storm this morning. It is not raining now.
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Petite1 - I had that problem a week ago. I posted something and it disappeared! I heard Florida has been getting a lot of bad weather the past few days. We had a storm last night and it will be a mostly cloudy, cooler, and wet week. Yuck.
Kamboka - Your dr should've thought about that first and consider the options before doing that. That's frustrating.
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Good morning. I was suppose to get my Johnson & Johnson vaccine this morning, but they are out of stock. Oh well another day.
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Petite1 - That stinks! Don't they know how many shots they get ahead of time and schedule accordingly?
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mocame, I think they had problems and have stopped distribution due to blood clots. So it is probably a good thing.
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