"Well, sir, there's nothin' on Earth like a genuine bona-fide electrified six-car monorail!" - Lyle Lanley

There was this article from back in 2011 which a woman in Oregon claimed it was her Uncle, who had died in 1999. I don't know if it was ever proven or not.

Shouldn't you be running Lotus 1-2-3, and Netscape Navigator Gold 3.0?

Funny thing.. I was helping empty a lab today and we found install disk #6 for WFW 3.11. No joke :-D

Starting to see reports or restored service and my own is up as well.

Good call on Kermit!

http://www.columbia.edu/kermit...

Used to use that to get into my *nix shell accounts. Man do I miss those days..

Hmm.. internal or external? And would you be transferring those files with Xmodem? :)

I think for some (and I'm not saying mschuyler fits this, as I don't know the person at all) it's the status thing. Example.. this is an actual conversation I had with the CEO of the company I worked for:

Him: "Hey.. I got a new truck this weekend!"
Me: "Really? Cool - what did you get?"
Him: "Oldsmobile Bravada"

For him, it was status/look/etc. The thing never left pavement, ever. The most he hauled was groceries in the back seat. Same guy used to park his sports car under the sidewalk awning when it rained...

For some though, having the perfect paint job on their truck just means they take better care of it than most, and that's not a bad thing either. Or maybe they only use it for it's truck functionality occasionally, which is fine too. Mine never looked perfect when I had it, but I hauled stuff, towed stuff, etc all the time.

I'm glad I got out of the field before ICD-10. ICD-9 seemed fine enough and covered all the bases. The only thing I didn't see in ICD-10 was "captured by aliens, probe rear entry, subsequent encounter" Sure has everything else though..

If I recall correctly also, the 3 digit codes are facility revenue codes. She probably could have searched online for the CPT and rev codes to determine what they are - there's a million resources and they're all standard.

I don't know if the figure is accurate, but could be. I know it was a constant battle with physicians who always wanted more money, the carrier trying to both keep costs low *and* hold physicians accountable for patient care. For example, Patient sees Dr and Dr recommends an MRI. This can go one of two ways:

1> Dr. "My patient needs an MRI"
          Carrier: "Ok, please provide the medical documentation to prove it's a necessary procedure"
          Dr. "Sure, here you go"
          Carrier: "Looks great - go for it"

2> Dr. "My patient needs an MRI"
          Carrier: "Ok, please provide the medical documentation to prove it's a necessary procedure"
          Dr. "No.. they need it because I said so."
          Carrier: "Please provide the medical documentation to prove it's a necessary procedure"
          Dr. "Don't you know what I do for a living? (lengthy argument follows)"

Frustrating because in the time it took 2 to have the argument and whine, they could have gotten the documentation in and had approval and had the procedure done and paid for. Unfortunately with 2, the patient is caught in the middle, and because the Dr. is someone they have known for some time, tends to be believed when they say "I just don't know why your insurance carrier won't approve this - I mean, I told them you need it!"

Case in point.. Chiropractor in California. The member had coverage for Chiropractic care, and the plan, as determined by the employer, asked the Chiro to send in medical notes after 5 visits to prove that progress was being made to correct the injury. Most had 0 issue providing this. This one refused. Flat out refused. The notes (I read them) basically stated, 'patient came in for adjustment and 2 modalities" No documentation or measurement of progress at all. I call the Chiropractor. Either they wouldn't pick up the phone, or when they did, spoke perfect english until I identified myself as calling from the insurance carrier to discuss what we need to pay patient x's claim. Suddenly the call would mysteriously disconnect and on callbacks, if they did answer, english was no longer an option. (this isn't me with a dig on any non-english speaking persons.. this is purely their reaction to my call). Frustrating for me, frustrating for the patient who finally had to go confront her Chiro face to face and demand they provide medical documentation, after which the patient had the expense of time and money to fax in to me so I could get the claim paid.

This is part of what is broken in the medical system. And yes, your insurance carrier isn't always part of the problem. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's just as frustrated as you are.

As a former employee of a large insurance carrier in the US, I can tell you that the insurance carriers would love it to be simpler as well. My daily job was to sort out insurance claims and billing issues for customers, contacting Dr offices and hospitals. Some were great to deal with, and happily corrected the occasional error. Some were a constant may-as-well-put-you-on-speed dial and they were never wrong, just ask them. So many hands in the mix, so many variations on training, and so often, easily corrected errors that should never have happened in the first place. And from the carrier side, you can't tell an office, "you billed this with the wrong code" - legally hands are tied. Have to guide them and hope the light goes on.

And they'd never tell the patient that if you go in for a procedure, you'll be billed by the facility, the doctor, the anesthesiologist, the labs, and maybe assistant surgeon all separately.

I left to get back into my original IT career, but I can tell you the people, at least where I worked, really did care about the customers/patients and were just as frustrated with the system. The executives constantly were both asking for and implementing ideas from the rank and file, and were very open to any suggestions. They all wanted a simpler system, and were doing what they could do to make it like that, while still following the plethora of laws that need to be followed.