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Health Issues
Jan. 26th, 2012 02:27 pmI'm a little worried. For about a month or so, I've been noticing a weird symptom--a rapid heartbeat at odd times. I certainly drink a lot of caffeine, and that is one potential cause. Heart disease runs very strongly in the Green family--my grandfather, my father, both uncle and at least one aunt. And my brother had something going on as well. Gotta make an appointment to see the doctor--this is awkward because last year someone at my temp agency made a huge error.
They sent out notices to all of us that they were switching health care providers, but the notice was weirdly worded, very unclear, and they only sent us a notice by e-mail and not by regular mail. So a lot of people, myself included, did not opt in, and so I was without health care but didn't know it. I went merrily on my way and visited my PCP who wanted to check on my B12 levels, and sent me to a laboratory to get a blood test (or something). They also referred me to a bone doctor because I'd fallen in January and was still feeling pain. It wasn't until the visit to the bone doctor in March that I discovered that I had no health care. I raised the effing roof on the phone with the H/R department. Like WTF--HOW could you make this mistake?! I've been working here for years, OBVIOUSLY I don't want to opt out, and why would you leave such an important notification to E-MAIL? E-mail is not secure, people miss emails all the time, especially those that are sent to large numbers of people and get filtered!!! For such an important notice you need to require a response from people one way or the other, not just assume! Luckily--very luckily--they forced the new health care plan to accept me even though it wasn't open enrollment period. VERY lucky. But I was still dealing with random doctor bills coming back to me from those visits in the beginning of the year. All of these but one were eventually dealt with (my agency had the new health care provider cover them) but there's one still outstanding and I don't think it's been dealt with. This is almost a year now and it's something like $200. I don't know if ny doctor will want to see me if there's this dispute--I have no idea what's going on but...it's awkward. I noticed this past year (they switched health care providers AGAIN, this is my third in three years now!), they were much, MUCH more careful about making sure we all understood what was going on, and requiring us to either opt-in or opt-out.
But back to my heart. Ugh. If I have to start eating salads and vegetables I will not be happy.
They sent out notices to all of us that they were switching health care providers, but the notice was weirdly worded, very unclear, and they only sent us a notice by e-mail and not by regular mail. So a lot of people, myself included, did not opt in, and so I was without health care but didn't know it. I went merrily on my way and visited my PCP who wanted to check on my B12 levels, and sent me to a laboratory to get a blood test (or something). They also referred me to a bone doctor because I'd fallen in January and was still feeling pain. It wasn't until the visit to the bone doctor in March that I discovered that I had no health care. I raised the effing roof on the phone with the H/R department. Like WTF--HOW could you make this mistake?! I've been working here for years, OBVIOUSLY I don't want to opt out, and why would you leave such an important notification to E-MAIL? E-mail is not secure, people miss emails all the time, especially those that are sent to large numbers of people and get filtered!!! For such an important notice you need to require a response from people one way or the other, not just assume! Luckily--very luckily--they forced the new health care plan to accept me even though it wasn't open enrollment period. VERY lucky. But I was still dealing with random doctor bills coming back to me from those visits in the beginning of the year. All of these but one were eventually dealt with (my agency had the new health care provider cover them) but there's one still outstanding and I don't think it's been dealt with. This is almost a year now and it's something like $200. I don't know if ny doctor will want to see me if there's this dispute--I have no idea what's going on but...it's awkward. I noticed this past year (they switched health care providers AGAIN, this is my third in three years now!), they were much, MUCH more careful about making sure we all understood what was going on, and requiring us to either opt-in or opt-out.
But back to my heart. Ugh. If I have to start eating salads and vegetables I will not be happy.
