don’t just pay it. do not automatically pay the hospital bill when you receive it. call your health insurance provider and POLITELY say, “excuse me, i just received a bill for $1200 for my hospital visit/ER visit/etc., is that the correct amount i’m supposed to pay?” because hospitals bill you before your health insurance and they will take your money no matter how the amount due may change based on your health insurance looking at it. 90% of the time, if your health insurance is in any way involved in the payment of that bill, you do not have to pay as much as the hospital is billing you for. call your health insurance provider first, and POLITELY request clarification, always remember that the person you are talking to is human and this is just their job, and then you will very likely find out you actually only owe $500.
don’t shout at anyone about it, don’t get mad, just understand that this is The Way Things Are right now and call your health insurance provider before paying the bill your hospital just sent you. there’s a chance the hospital bill might be correct, true, but call your health insurance provider.
THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT. after my car accident last year the hospital billed me ~$8000. They sent me letters asking me to pay, and I called them back saying my insurance was processing the claim. This is also what I told the collection agency when they kept calling me about the $1000 emergency room fee (billed separately from the hospital fee, mind you). Once everything got straightened out, all I was actually liable for was my $200 emergency copay.
!!!!!!! things my ass didn’t know !!!!!!!!
Yes this is a life lesson my adulting ass didn’t know I needed and I’m out 80 bucks for an anti-nausea pill. 😒😒😒😒😒
Reblogging for American friends.
Also, it is important [for people receiving medical care in the USA] to carefully read all of the items on the medical bill and look for errors and overcharges. I know that the normal feelings of avoidance and dread can make it hard to look at scary hospital bills, and that’s okay! But as the OP mentions, private orgs like hospitals don’t monitor overpayment of bills – they are motivated to charge you extra – and it is basically impossible to get your money back. Read the bill carefully and make sure that the charges are correct, using the links below for help if you need. If they haven’t sent you an itemized list, you can ask for one. Sometimes you will be charged extra for items or treatment you didn’t receive. Most people don’t know that you can dispute medical bills! But in 2009, Consumer Reports stated that 8 out of 10 medical bills scrutinized by a watchdog had errors, and generally you are not obligated to pay for someone else’s error.
You may be charged for using medication that you actually brought into the hospital with you – that’s easy to dispute! You may be charged for the consumables used during your stay such as sheets, gloves, gowns, etc – the hospital should actually cover that under its running budget. You may be charged for a brand name drug if the generic was available for cheaper – the links below explain how and when you can dispute this. You may be charged a surprisingly expensive “oral administration fee” (where a nurse puts pills for you to take in a little clean paper cup and then hands it to you) but that’s worth disputing if you were actually able to take the pill out of a bottle and put it in your own mouth. And so on.
Ugh one thing I loved about Thailand was I had a hospital visit, filled out a (half) sheet of paper, saw the doctor, had tests run and got 5 medications under 45 minutes all for $60 flat no insurance needed.
Get it together America.
Another one for people in the US: I got an ER bill reduced from 1300.00 to 125.00 by writing a letter of hardship explaining I am unemployed, uninsured, and unwed, and also pointing out they’d billed me for one test twice by writing it in differently each time.
Dear people who say statements like the above scare away good men,
It fucking doesn’t.
When I started dating my current boyfriend we talked for 6 hours on our first date and 7 hours on our second. We talked about a shit ton of different topics, and one of those topics was politics and the #metoo movement. We talked about sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Every step along the way towards us having sex he asked for my consent. The first day we actually had sex he made sure I was ready and checked in on me several times to make sure I was still enjoying myself. He was amazing.
I had men who were trying to flirt with me grab at me before I even knew who they were. I’ve had creepy old men decide giving me a shoulder massage while I was sitting down the perfect way they could introduce themselves. That is the type of touching we want to stop.
Any of the guys that are scared off by women saying “don’t touch us unless we ask” are the exact type of guys that need to learn about consent, women’s bodily autonomy and personal space.
If you are concerned that becoming friends with a women in the Me Too era will read to someone accusing you of sexual harassment, you need to rethink how you interact with women.
I have a bunch of guy friends, and none of them are afraid I’m going to accuse them of anything. Do you know why? We are friends. We treat each other with respect. Any of them can hug me goodbye or put their arm around me and I know they won’t touch me inappropriately. But when we first met that wasn’t true. We built a friendship of trust.
I am a hugger, I like hugging people. My friends know this about me, but when I meet new people I always ask them if it is okay that I hug them. I have had people say no, and I respect that and do not hug them.
The whole “the bard seduces the dragon” thing is only implausible if you’re assuming that all dragons are wise and powerful ancient wyrms.
This ain’t necessarily the case: D&D dragons have age categories.
Maybe that dragon is only two hundred years old – which is the equivalent of like twentysomething in human terms – and therefore makes bad life decisions.
Maybe your bard can be one of those bad life decisions.
Be the bad life decisions you wish to see in the world.
I used to work in the lingerie department of a medium-to-high-end department store and I had a woman come in and tell me this story. She once had a party with a bunch of girlfriends and the theme was they all had to wear cute pajamas. You know that thing moms liked to say– “Always wear clean/cute underwear in case of emergencies”? It was based on that.
Well. Lo and behold, they have a fire at this party. Something happened in the stove and they had to call the fire department. Nobody got hurt and the house was fine, but you have half a dozen women standing outside in super cute pajamas with all these seriously hot firemen taking care of the house. (Multiple numbers were exchanged and one girl dated one of those firefighters for a couple years.)
I had a conversation with @belldreams about the very important question of–would Anakin refer to the act as:
a) Sex b) Fucking c) Making Love
–?? Because, honest to god, that boy is a idealistic romantic at heart, he wanted to get married as soon as possible, he wanted a family as soon as possible, he idealized the whole notion of love, I sincerely doubt he separates the idea of sex and love at all, they’re one and the same for him, he puts the whole concept/experience on a pedestal, so I’m pretty sure, yeah, Anakin would initially be SUPER OFFENDED to refer to this beautiful, wonderful sharing his soul with the person he loves as “fucking”.
And we generally agreed: – with Padme, the act is always, always “making love”, she feels the same way
– with Obi-Wan, it starts out as he wants to ~*make love*~, Obi-Wan refers to it as “fucking” because he’s by far the more pragmatic of the two, which at first Anakin is deeply offended by (WAIT, DO YOU JUST WANT TO HAVE SEX, BUT AREN’T IN LOVE WITH ME??? Anakin says, this close to having a full on meltdown at the idea, and then Obi-Wan actually has to talk about his feelings out loud to reassure him, it’s one thing to know them in his head, but to put them into words, ugh, torture), but eventually they agree on something more in the middle with “let’s go to bed” or similar
Look, Anakin Skywalker has IDEAS about how love and romance and sex should go and HE WILL BE SUPER OFFENDED IF YOU’RE NOT ON THE SAME PAGE AS HE IS, OKAY.
(Once he’s comfortable, though, he absolutely will go blissed out with pleasure and demand “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me” in the height of passion, but if it’s outside of those moments IT’S MAKING LOVE, IT’S IMPORTANT, DON’T RUIN IT, OKAY.)
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