Insurance Mess

Not even 24 hours and already I'm looking at a potentially complicated insurance mess.  We got a memo this afternoon at work announcing that the company will be switching insurance providers beginning July 1. Most likely, that means that the clinic will have to submit the authorization request for the operation to the new carrier. What I'm still trying to find out is if they can submit the request to the new carrier before the switch over, or if I'll have to wait until July 1 to begin the request.

Based on what I've been told in the clinic's information, it normally takes about 4 weeks for an insurance company to respond to the request. Based on that, I was expecting that surgery would probably be scheduled the second week of July. Right now, I don't know when to expect it.

The Green Light

This is pretty exciting (for me, at least): I spent this afternoon at the U of M Medical Center for several appointments: A CT scan, a meeting with the surgeon, and an appointment with a health psychologist.  As it stands right now, I have been approved to receive a cochlear implant. It will probably be 2-4 weeks before I have a surgery date set, as we need to wait for the prior authorization from my insurance company.

The day was mostly pretty boring. The appointment for the CT was at 12:20,  I checked in just after 12, and the technician came to get me within five minutes. I was done with the whole CT by 12:20. My appointment with the surgeon wasn't until 1:30, meaning I had and hour to kill, so I picked a chair in the lobby and read for a while before heading up to the ENT clinic. 

About 1:20, the nurse called me in, and took some more medical history. Then another wait in the exam room for 30 minutes for the surgeon. The surgeon finally came in, said he had examined my CT scan, and that there were no problems. Then, he asked "Which ear are we doing?" his next question was "Which device are we going to implant?" He spent another 10 minutes or so discussing risks of the operation and answering any of my questions, the nurse came back and we went through the pre-op packet, and I was on my way to the next appointment, with only 40 minutes to wait.

I had no idea what to expect with the psychology evaluation.  This one lasted about an hour, and we discussed my hearing loss, the risks of the surgery, and what kind of support I have for the rehabilitation. The last part of the evaluation was pretty much just a depression screening. After that, he told me I was cleared to proceed, and asked me if I knew when the surgery was scheduled, which I don't yet.

The current plan is to implant my right ear,  and my next step is to decide which manufacturer to go with for the implant.

Tasty

I had another one of those Saturday morning PBS cooking shows on this weekend (yeah, I know, but I don't have cable in my "office," and the other options are bad japanese card game based cartoons). On this show, they were preparing Indian recipes, and according to the captions, one of the ingredients you are supposed to add is phlegm.

I'm not sure I want to eat Indian food again until I figure out what exactly they were adding.

Not Much I Can Add To This

A foot? Maybe mb needs to spend more time surfing the web.

Good To Know

Not so Mity 8

I took a long route home from work today, and hit a rough patch. I didn't hear the cyclo-computer fall out of the mount. I did notice it missing and doubled back about 25-50 yards, but by that time, it had been run over by a car. 

Because I Like My Oatmeal Cookies Straight

Does it really count to be called a raisin nazi by a guy with a purple mohawk, whose favorite song is "The Rainbow Connection"?

Mangled Closed Captions

You can probably guess that I rely on closed captions when I watch TV. For the most part, the quality is pretty good. Occasionally, however, they get mangled by the captioner.  Sometimes what I get is amusing, like last summer when WCCO's Jason DeRusha covered the iPhone release: the captions repeatedly told me that Apple's new product was the eye phone. Or the time during an anchor toss, it said that we were going to a report from Jennifer DeRusha.

Other times, the goofs are confusing: last week, the captions during a WCCO report kept referring to a University of Minneapolis.

But sometimes, they just make you say "What the hell?" Take this morning: I happened to have the PBS show "America's Test Kitchen" on while reading the comics and RSS feeds. They were doing a review of hot cocoa mixes, and the captions indicated that some of the mixes included powdered water. I haven't seen powdered water on the shelves at REI yet, but I would think that would be pretty useful for a back country hiking trip.

March Baconalia Reruns

Some reruns you may have already seen over on mnspeak. Right now, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to upload some of these scans and playing around with the posting functions on blogger.

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img042.jpg, originally uploaded by mnblrmkr.

Audiogram