Octopus Overlords

Ok, you win.

Misery does love company.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 12:10 am Ok, you win.

Do not want.

Best luck to you and yours though!

The Meal wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 12:06 am Were received a bill for our daughter's appendectomy from April 30th. Guess what changed on May 1? If you said she went off the University health care and onto legitimate coverage you nailed it. The local hospital? Out of network. Retroactive Medicare is an option (as would be renegotiating the debt). Option C? Bankruptcy at age 25.

It's been a busy month.

Damn. I assume there's no way for the old coverage to still be valid for the procedure since it happened while she was on the old coverage?

The Meal wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 12:06 am Were received a bill for our daughter's appendectomy from April 30th. Guess what changed on May 1? If you said she went off the University health care and onto legitimate coverage you nailed it. The local hospital? Out of network. Retroactive Medicare is an option (as would be renegotiating the debt). Option C? Bankruptcy at age 25.

It's been a busy month.

Is that a hypothetical if timing were different or did you actually get smacked with the bill? If it's the latter, there may be other options.

pr0ner wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 2:24 pm

The Meal wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 12:06 am Were received a bill for our daughter's appendectomy from April 30th. Guess what changed on May 1? If you said she went off the University health care and onto legitimate coverage you nailed it. The local hospital? Out of network. Retroactive Medicare is an option (as would be renegotiating the debt). Option C? Bankruptcy at age 25.

It's been a busy month.

Damn. I assume there's no way for the old coverage to still be valid for the procedure since it happened while she was on the old coverage?

It's usually by coverage at time of service, or admit date for inpatient. If I'm reading correctly, the old insurance had the network issue.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 4:47 pm

The Meal wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 12:06 am Were received a bill for our daughter's appendectomy from April 30th. Guess what changed on May 1? If you said she went off the University health care and onto legitimate coverage you nailed it. The local hospital? Out of network. Retroactive Medicare is an option (as would be renegotiating the debt). Option C? Bankruptcy at age 25.

It's been a busy month.

Is that a hypothetical if timing were different or did you actually get smacked with the bill? If it's the latter, there may be other options.

It's how things really worked out. Admitted through the ER on the evening of 4/29, surgery performed early am on 4/30. New insurance (Medicade) kicks in on 5/1. The bill contained inserts which indicate retroactive applications for Medicade is a possibility. The bill is sitting in my kitchen (what I'm not sure on is whether they are simultaneously also billing the university health insurance for whatever they'll pay as an out-of-network procedure).

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Tue May 15, 2018 3:33 pm

naednek wrote: ↑Sun Apr 29, 2018 11:46 pm We are looking to build our own cover using acrylic Plexiglas. I found some pre-made ones, but they want $270 for a 65 inch. We could build one for about $50 or less

Tap Plastic or whatever your local equivalent is can easily sell you a sheet.

I'd imagine you just need to put a barrier in front of it so the impact doesn't go directly against the screen. Depending on how you mount your TV you may just need some Velcro (tm) and some bumpons (tm).

That's exactly where I went to. I didn't make it myself. I paid more than I wanted, but the result was good. Barely a glare covers the whole tv.

Laser treatment to remove a birthmark for my daughter, MRI for my ankle, braces for my daughter, and $500 in parts for my AC. Still trying to save up for the new car as well (shooting for August, but depends on any more unplanned expenses).

The Meal wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 5:30 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 4:47 pm

The Meal wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 12:06 am Were received a bill for our daughter's appendectomy from April 30th. Guess what changed on May 1? If you said she went off the University health care and onto legitimate coverage you nailed it. The local hospital? Out of network. Retroactive Medicare is an option (as would be renegotiating the debt). Option C? Bankruptcy at age 25.

It's been a busy month.

Is that a hypothetical if timing were different or did you actually get smacked with the bill? If it's the latter, there may be other options.

It's how things really worked out. Admitted through the ER on the evening of 4/29, surgery performed early am on 4/30. New insurance (Medicade) kicks in on 5/1. The bill contained inserts which indicate retroactive applications for Medicade is a possibility. The bill is sitting in my kitchen (what I'm not sure on is whether they are simultaneously also billing the university health insurance for whatever they'll pay as an out-of-network procedure).

For an ER admission I would hope that the University plan has significant coverage. If not, retro Medicaid is a good bet if she has eligibility (not sure if existing coverage negates eligibility in get stare). PM me if you need help. Can't guarantee anything since I don't have contacts there but I can take a look.

My BIL just had an emergency appendectomy 2 weeks ago. Must be going around.

I had an emergency appendectomy several years ago, although since I had a pretty good idea what was going on I was in pain but not full on yet. The ER made me wait for 6-7 hours before I went in for surgery, by then I was in bad shape. But another 6-7 hours later I was headed home.

Thankfully insurance handled most of it.

I had never heard of the problem with "observation" instead of "admittance" discussed above. I wasn't billed that way for the above and I have seen my father and MIL sit around the ER without being billed for "observation".

The Meal wrote: ↑Tue May 15, 2018 9:57 pm An organ transplant and a new house.

5/23 and 6/18.

My $500 electric lawn mower should be here tomorrow. $200 of that is the 4aH 80W battery.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:32 pm My $500 electric lawn mower should be here tomorrow. $200 of that is the 4aH 80W battery.

Which one did you get?

Greenworks

After 2 years, I still love my Ego. I especially like that it charges from dead to full in 30 minutes, I have a lot of grass to cut, and it takes a little over 2 charges when grass is average height (more if I let it go too long).

Getting carpet for the bedroom and great room, and this time I'm paying for the memory foam carpet pad! Free installation from Lowe's and tax free so coming out cheaper than I thought at $3100.

Since April 2018... (mostly this year)

New Freezer for the shed (old one was a chest freezer and the lid literally came apart - about 16 years old; new one is upright - like it A LOT better), new tires on both vehicles, new starter, rear wiper motor, a control arm (cause on Honda Odyssey's the ball bearing for the wheel is built into the control arm, can't order it separately apparently and the ball bearing was going bad), new front brakes (free parts - apparently they were still under warranty, something was happening that the brakes weren't releasing fully so they were getting worn fast), recharged AC all on the van.

We did get the new bed (it was about $1100). We bought new couch/loveseat to replace oversized recliner that wife thought was getting scratchy and possibly causing some itchy skin reactions, and sofa was set out and getting very worn in some spots. $900 with delivery and warranty (6 years, we should probably call them out for some sat out spots).

A little over $7,500 in medical expenses before we reached the $8500 out of pocket max, company sold our division, new company, new insurance - where we cap at $7,500 out of pocket max (rest of the year is free!) Wife did near the end of the year cap her individual out of pocket max (it was over $6,000 to do that on old plan; new plan it's 50% of family max so she will cap much sooner if next year is a bad year; but if kid is bad too, we'll hit family max anyway).

STOP BRINGING THIS THREAD UP! It's too damned depressing listing all this crap.

Zenn7 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 9:27 pm STOP BRINGING THIS THREAD UP! It's too damned depressing listing all this crap.

Hah. I don't even want to see the bills surrounding my BIL's long hospitalization. But that still hasn't quite played itself out, so I deleted a long lament.

Our next major purchase was supposed to be replacing the fuse box with a circuit breaker and upgrading the electrical throughout our house. The money that was supposed to pay for that is not there anymore.

Kraken wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 9:46 pm

Zenn7 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 9:27 pm STOP BRINGING THIS THREAD UP! It's too damned depressing listing all this crap.

Hah. I don't even want to see the bills surrounding my BIL's long hospitalization. But that still hasn't quite played itself out, so I deleted a long lament.

Our next major purchase was supposed to be replacing the fuse box with a circuit breaker and upgrading the electrical throughout our house. The money that was supposed to pay for that is not there anymore.

Sorry, long post...

I got to see the bills for my Aunt's skilled rehab/nursing home expense for 3 months last year. Long story, but my wife and I ended up inheritors of her and her husband's estate when they go (he went 3 years ago), so when she got too bad, I took over managing her money. Not enough to pay for the nursing home for long term so we looked into Medicaid. That's difficult. If you can get on there, you get to keep $60/month of your income (Soc Security, pension, whatever). The rest is used towards the nursing home. Medicaid pays the rest of the nursing home and all medical expenses. Clothes, personal hygiene, etc - comes out of your $60/month. She had a bit of money (not rich in any way, but a CD for a modest amount). Was in there just long enough to burn that up. Lawyer's advice was to sell the house after she was on Medicaid and we might be able to keep the profit (had a sizeable mortgage to pay off). By the time we found we wouldn't need Medicaid, she moved to a senior living facility, tried to put the house up for sale after labor day, too late. Sold it finally in April. Spent most of that time paying her mortgage/utilities, $500 deductible when water pipe broke, increased house insurance they then let us know about cause the house was unoccupied (but they did cover the claim first, which was good, new policy cost like 3-4 times as much and deductible was $5,000!). So glad when the house sold and we did get all that money back (very helpful to have that so I could pay the previously mentioned bills).

She basically has enough income to pay for her rent/live on, using the house money to pay for extra medical expenses and other sizeable expenses she has. After a year though, found out they were not charging for delivering her meds (they manage meds - that's one fee - ordering/prepping, actually taking them to her room rather then her having them in her room to take her self is $10/day - they have to come 4 times/day). She can't do meds on her own. So that's an extra $300/month. Until her house money runs out, not a problem. After that...

And had to buy her whole life insurance policies (wasn't a lot of value to turning them in, but would have had to spend all that money too for Medicaid - I bought them before finding out she was not going to be staying there - at that time everyone thought she would be there permanently til the end). As she's in mid-70's and had many issues including a not-Parkinson's but a lot of similar symptoms problem, seems like there's a good chance to come out ahead on the insurance - somewhere between 5-10 years is when paying the monthly premiums vs just cashing out now will go from making money to losing money. Morbid and impossible to guess which way it will go, but there's a significant chance it will end up profitable, which we will need the money then to pay for cremation and whatever funeral service we end up doing.

That's just the financial picture - emotional toll was rather high as well and covers a lot more time/ground than the above.

We have always enjoyed camping, using my 2002 F150 and a 1998 Wilderness Travel Trailer. But yea, they were getting old.

So, we bought a 2012 F150 Platinum (with only 50k on it) and a new 26' Travel trailer. Our hope is that we will be doing a lot of traveling as we move into full retirement in the next 1-2 years. The truck is rated to tow 11k pounds, and has every known bell and whistle. In fact it has way more crap than I would have ever wanted but in order to get the engine I wanted you have to buy all that crap.

I get to pay $1,600 for storm damage cleanup around my house. 100 MPH winds last week that were NOT a tornado.

My trees crushed both back yard neighbors' fences. Sorry about that!

Could be worse, at least 7 neighbors to the northeast of me all had trees on their roofs. It's been nothing but chainsaw music here for a week.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:33 pmGreenworks

Be sure to let us know how you like it.

I've had a 40V Kobalt for the last 5 years. I love the fact that it's electric, but battery recharge time is not great.

The Ego has a 56V/4A battery. During the 30 minute charge cycles I just do edging/weed whacking. I have about as much fence line as Trump is proposing for Mexico, so there there is no inconvenience caused by downtime.

Z-Corn wrote: ↑Fri Sep 20, 2019 8:39 am I get to pay $1,600 for storm damage cleanup around my house. 100 MPH winds last week that were NOT a tornado.

My trees crushed both back yard neighbors' fences. Sorry about that!

Could be worse, at least 7 neighbors to the northeast of me all had trees on their roofs. It's been nothing but chainsaw music here for a week.

We had a bad hail storm last week in which my car (2019 Hyundai Elantra with <4500 miles) and our daughter's car (2016 Hyundai Elantra with 27k mile) were both damaged. Insurance adjuster came yesterday, her car is being written off as a total loss, mine has about $6k worth of damage so off to a body shop I'll go. I'm hoping the lien holder on hers will let us do a buy back since it's all cosmetic, the difference in what we owe versus the check they'd write is only around $2k and the car would still be worth around $6k, and I also really don't want to have to look for another vehicle for her.

MHS wrote: ↑Fri Sep 20, 2019 1:43 pm

Z-Corn wrote: ↑Fri Sep 20, 2019 8:39 am I get to pay $1,600 for storm damage cleanup around my house. 100 MPH winds last week that were NOT a tornado.

My trees crushed both back yard neighbors' fences. Sorry about that!

Could be worse, at least 7 neighbors to the northeast of me all had trees on their roofs. It's been nothing but chainsaw music here for a week.

We had a bad hail storm last week in which my car (2019 Hyundai Elantra with <4500 miles) and our daughter's car (2016 Hyundai Elantra with 27k mile) were both damaged. Insurance adjuster came yesterday, her car is being written off as a total loss, mine has about $6k worth of damage so off to a body shop I'll go. I'm hoping the lien holder on hers will let us do a buy back since it's all cosmetic, the difference in what we owe versus the check they'd write is only around $2k and the car would still be worth around $6k, and I also really don't want to have to look for another vehicle for her.

A very sleazy someone who is no longer forced to be in my life (praise pancake) had a method I saw used all too regularly in the late 90s for himself and other people whom are not longer in my life and it was very effective. If you are willing to take your time, then you take their time. He would go in early on a Monday with claims adjuster and all of the highest value similar cars he could find to drive up the price insurance would pay for a totaled car and fight and fight and fight until he got the price he wanted. He would then wait until the end of the day the same Friday with all of lowest value similar cars and fight and fight and fight until they agreed to let him buy the car back at the low price. It worked for him but I don't think I would capable of such haggling.

I can't say how much this has changed since so much information is available so quickly on the Internet and in actuarial databases, that weren't that way in the late 90s and early aughts.

MHS wrote: ↑Fri Sep 20, 2019 1:43 pm

Z-Corn wrote: ↑Fri Sep 20, 2019 8:39 am I get to pay $1,600 for storm damage cleanup around my house. 100 MPH winds last week that were NOT a tornado.

My trees crushed both back yard neighbors' fences. Sorry about that!

Could be worse, at least 7 neighbors to the northeast of me all had trees on their roofs. It's been nothing but chainsaw music here for a week.

We had a bad hail storm last week in which my car (2019 Hyundai Elantra with <4500 miles) and our daughter's car (2016 Hyundai Elantra with 27k mile) were both damaged. Insurance adjuster came yesterday, her car is being written off as a total loss, mine has about $6k worth of damage so off to a body shop I'll go. I'm hoping the lien holder on hers will let us do a buy back since it's all cosmetic, the difference in what we owe versus the check they'd write is only around $2k and the car would still be worth around $6k, and I also really don't want to have to look for another vehicle for her.

Wow, a total loss due to a hail storm? I have seen pictures where cars have been damaged but you don't think of them as being totaled, but then nowadays the cost of repair is such that they total things much quicker. I remember seeing the storm on the local news, and my wife now has a cousin living somewhere in your area so she is always checking the weather. I think they had a small amount of snow a week or two ago. I know our current cool down here has led to snow in the higher Sierra's.

I think it counts if I'm out looking for a house for business partners to purchase since it will become ANOTHER loan that gets paid off before I do?

I see so many Kia's on craigslist with rebuilt titles that I begin to think if a Kia is barely scratched it gets totaled out?

I was surprised that they totaled it but yep, too expensive to repair aluminum. I'm sure someone smarter or with more energy than I could find a way to game the system but everything will get made out to the lienholders so I'm not sure how, and I don't have the personality type or time to dig into it anyway. It's just one more thing that is going to cost me time and money ($500 deductible for each car.)

~$1900 for maintenance to my wife's 7 year old car. Stupid gas cars.

We're getting the kitchen and bathroom redone. On the plus side, this means that we'll finally have kitchen cupboards mounted at a normal height (the previous residents were short and mounted the cupboards weirdly low). And we'll have a decent ceiling light in that room for the first time in 12+ years.

On the downside, I have learned that a new kitchen is not cheap, even with Ikea fixtures. Oof.

The demo work starts in about a month.

We got a massage chair. So as far as major purchases go, at least this one's enjoyable.

gilraen wrote: ↑Fri Sep 20, 2019 6:54 pm We got a massage chair. So as far as major purchases go, at least this one's enjoyable.

Bit of a let down without the happy ending though.

My LaZ-Boy chair arrives tomorrow. It swivels, so I get to play Dr. Evil. My wife has a small one that automatically reclines.

We bought a new house last year instead of remodeling the kitchen and bathrooms. We figured it was safer for our marriage and we didn't way to delay it longer than 10 years.

Teeth.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Sat Sep 21, 2019 1:38 am My LaZ-Boy chair arrives tomorrow. It swivels, so I get to play Dr. Evil.

We just met with a landscaping company about having a pretty significant stone wall and patio constructed in our backyard, as well as the redoing all our front landscaping. We're waiting for the proposal and quote now, but expect somewhere in the $15-20k range

While the grass wasn’t as long as I usually let it get, even just not having to manage the cord made it a less unpleasant job. It’s got an automatic speed adjustment when you hit the denser sections.

The battery has three bars of health, and there was still one lit when I finished the front and side yards.

We walked into the AT&T store to inquire about possibly upgrading my wife's phone. We walked out with three new phones and fiber internet.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Sun Sep 22, 2019 9:55 pm We walked into the AT&T store to inquire about possibly upgrading my wife's phone. We walked out with three new phones and fiber internet.

And signed up for what? 3 year contract?