A wrinkle in time . . .

Interesting glitch with the VA. Received a bill for $50 for outpatient service in September, 2011. The VA is notorious for not billing our Stirling & Stirling insurance so invariably I call to make sure we really owe what they claim we owe them. This time Denise, my regular contact for billing problems in Providence ( the actual billing office is in Georgia ) told me that they couldn't bill our insurance because Puppy's Pop had been seen by a "student," not an MD. Now, that is a surprise. Puppy's Pop had no idea he was with a "student." No one told him that he would be seeing a "student." Denise agreed that from now on Puppy's Pop has to make sure he sees an MD if we want the insurance to kick in. Not blaming Denise, but miffed just the same, I called Senator Blumenthal's office here in Connecticut and Madeline C. said she would look into it. She agreed that it doesn't seem kosher but did tell me that the VA rarely does anything right when it comes to insurance. I think that's because some veterans, like P'sP are on Medicare as primary insurer and since both the VA and Medicare are federal programs they are not allowed to bill each other. The real tricky part is that our insurance kicks in after Medicare pays its share therefore the insurance company has to figure out what Medicare would have paid if it were paying and then pick up the remainder. How's that for clarification? What a bureaucratic heaven for the paper pushers. Not telling you you're seeing a student and not telling you your insurance will not be billed is ridiculous.

Played cribbage at home yesterday so Grampa could use my car to go play horseshoes in East Hartford. I felt awful because I won four straight games. But I imagine the wins and losses will even out the more S. and I play. It was nice to be able to play on the kitchen table with the completed puzzle taking up less space. I shall leave it up until Friday so Kiddo can see it then perhaps he can help me squish it up and put it back in its little box. I'll be going to Groton shortly even though Wednesdays are no longer on my weekly list. I imagine Kiddo will want to play outside on the playground before we go to his house and open his box from Amazon books.

Quote: He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. __Shakespeare