Lots of Pictures

Too bad I haven't a clue what any of them mean. Taking a wild guess at the bone scan one not showing any "hot spots" on the collar bone where she is having the pain, I'd say that is hopefully good news for not having an infection and definitely not being broken. The MRI is just a bunch of jibberish to me. LOL

Kenzie was a real trooper today and did great with both tests even though she was very nervous. She got the dye injected around 8 this morning, they took a few pictures to make sure the dye was traveling through her system correctly and then we told we could go and to be back at 11. With 3 hours to kill, I decided to take her to get her hair cut since she's wanted be to do that for a few weeks now. She was very happy to get that done. =) I also got mine cut, then we ate something real quick before heading back for the after pictures. With those done, we headed up the street to get the MRI done. Wow, what an interesting machine! I had no idea it made as many strange sounds and was as loud as it was. Kenzie, again, did great and stayed still thought all the picture taking.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring us good news although if it's not broken and it's not an infection, I'm not sure what that means is causing her pain. Maybe the blood work she had done will something.

What a Day

Sometimes I think insurance is more trouble than it's worth. I made Kenzie's appts in the morning...was able to get them both scheduled for Weds...but found out during the process that I needed to get one of the tests preauthorized. Well you would have thought I was asking someone to cut off their right arm to get that authorization #. After numerous phone calls to the hospital (where the test is going to be done), to the preauthorization unit at the insurance company and to the specialist office which resulted in being forwarded to referral persons voice mail multiple times...I hate that!...being told that we wouldn't have enough time to get the pre auth because there is a 48 hr turn around time...that we are supposed to be having the test done at the hospital, that it's supposed to be done somewhere else. Ugh! by this point I'm totally freaking out because all I know is that I was told Saturday to get all these tests done and to be back in the drs office Thursday morning. I ended up with a supervisor in the pre auth area who said that she would work with me in the morning to make sure that everything got straightened out. I also talked to the specialists assistant who also assured me that she would get with her referral person to make sure that the info got done asap so the auth could be obtained. I received a phone call around 6:30pm from the specialist giving me the auth number that I needed. What a hassle! Now we're just in a waiting mode until Weds when all the test get done. The bone scan gets done in the morning and the MRI in the afternoon. Kenzie had the blood work done today.

Financial Aid

We finally got around to filling out the Parent Financial Statement (PFS) that the Gunston school gave us when Andy and Alex went to the open house last month. The PFS is submitted to the School and Student Service for Financial Aid (SSS) which processes the information and will then send a report to the schools requested and to yourself detailing how much they think you can afford to pay for schooling. We received the results back today (about 2 days after filing the forms). Boy, filing electronically is great. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they calculated what we could afford to pay for school at pretty much what it costs us for the homeschooling supplies for Alex. Of course, this doesn't really mean anything because it's dependant on how much financial aid the actual school can give out but it's nice to know the school won't (or shouldn't) be expecting us to fork out an arm and a leg because we can't. So, since this report says things are still within our means we'll go ahead with the next steps for Gunston which would be submitting an application for the school. Then he has to take a standardized test...like the SAT but I can't think of the acronym for the one he has to take...so he'll do that either in February or March. Then, assuming he got accepted into the school, we'd have to see how much aid they could offer us to see whether it's really doable or not.

We got new insurance cards for all the kids showing their new pcp except for Kearsyn which is the one we really need. They only put 6 cards in an envelope so I'm assuming the one that has her card in it got separated from the other envelope. I wish it would show up as the others got here a few days ago. I figure I'll give it til after the holidays and if we haven't gotten it by then, I'll have them send another. I know her pcp got changed because I can view the info online so worst case scenario, if she gets sick before we get the new card I'll just print that page out. Updating to say that we received Kearsyn's new insurance card today, 12/22, so we are all set for the new doctor. =)

We finally got our refund check from the over payments to the specialist office for Alex & Kenzie's broken collarbones. I called the beginning of November to request it so it took about a month and a half for them to get it to us.

Today we did some house cleaning since we are having a small piano recital here tomorrow. Will be fun to listen to the kids playing.

I've made up all my days for work where I was short on leave so now I'm free until Jan 2. Yay! I was even able to help with a couple of programming modifications that they needed done so my timing was perfect for this make up work.

Bekah is doing so well with her sign language. She walked up to me today and did the sign for drink and then milk to let me know she was thirsty and wanted a glass of milk to drink. How cool!

I unpacked all my regular clothes and boxed up my maternity ones the other day. Anyone want to take bets on how long they'll stay boxed up? And Andy, you stay out of it! ;)

I was able to get most of the presents wrapped today while the kids were over at a friends house practicing for the recital tomorrow. Still have a few more to do but shouldn't take long...finding the time without the kids around will be the problem. And trying to do it at night it's that easy because that's when Kearsyn is at her grumpiest.

On Our Way

I called our insurance company Wednesday and had the kids pcp changed to the new dr, so effective 12/13 they are now patients of Dr K. I figured since insurance thought they were his patients, I'd better drop off the registration paperwork at his office so I ran over after dinner to turn that in...plus it gave me a chance to get a look at the office. What a nice trip that was, 5 minutes and I was there. I got to say hello to Dr K. as he was passing through the office on his way to see a patient. I had a nice chat with the office manager while turning in the papers and filling out another form for her so now they are officially patients there. So far so good. Let's hope it stays that way when we actually have our first appt in February. I was talking to the office manager about the shots given during the 4 month visit and Kearsyn will be getting another 4 shots and an oral vaccine and then at 6 months, she gets another 4 shots and an oral vaccine. Good grief...doesn't that seem like an awful lot of shots for someone so young? So far she's had 9 shots and an oral, so by the time she's 6 months she'll have had 17 shots and 3 orals.

Alex is very excited about tomorrow as he gets to go see Eragon with his youth group. Connor, on the other hand, isn't quite as excited because he wants to go as well but he doesn't know that his mommom is planning on taking him to see it. She's not sure she can do it this weekend...but one day soon she will. Kenzie is going to a sleepover birthday party tomorrow so she's looking forward to that. She's going to be eating at a nice restaurant...I'm kind of jealous cause she'll be eating better tomorrow than we will. LOL Wednesday is my dad's birthday, so we are all going to my parents on Sunday to celebrate. My sister and her DH are coming over so it should be a nice time.

So far I've worked 5 out of my 8 makeup days for work. I was able to redo two of the reports so that my boss could review them over the weekend...he loves to work on the weekend. The rest of us hate it because we know come Monday that there will always be a list of things for us to do. I only have 3 more days to make up and I'll be glad when they are done. I'll work Monday, Wednesday and Thursday next week and then I'll be done working until the new year. Of course, that means I'll actually have to start going back into the office on 1/2/07...wow, hard to believe it almost the new year...which I'm so not looking forward to...but I know everyone there is. ;)

New Doc

We're going to take the plunge and try a new pediatrician for the kids. We've been talking about it for awhile now but haven't been able to find someone close to us that wasn't part of a big practice. Plus it's a big step as we've been going to this dr for 8 yrs...ever since Kenzie was a baby. But we currently have to drive 40 minutes to get to their current pediatrician which is getting to be a bit much with all the kids, plus it requires us to drive across the bridge and in the summer that can get a bit tricky. This new dr is only 2.5 miles from our house so getting there will be a breeze. They have good hours...a couple of days they have late evening hours and they also have Saturday appts. I was a little nervous, though, because he has a name I can't pronounce so I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to understand him but he sounds like a very nice man. I got to talk to him for a minute when I called up to make an appt. And come to find out, I didn't need to worry about having to pronounce his name...everyone just calls him Dr. K. LOL The office manager was very pleasant and didn't even get mad at me when I called back 5 minutes after making the appt to change it. Sheeze, I just can not keep track of all the kids schedules. LOL I'm hoping we are doing the right thing cause we are having to make this switch with Kearsyn first and she's due to have shots at her next appt so that will be a pain with her current dr if we don't end up liking this new dr but from all indications so far, that shouldn't be a problem. Let's hope so at any rate. I'll let you know on 2/14...hmm, it just occurred to me that's Valentine's day...as that's when her appt with the new dr is.

Refund

Why is it so difficult to get money back from a doctors office when you over pay them? We pay a copayment everytime we go to the drs. When Alex had his broken collarbone earlier this year, he saw the dr 4 times. Based on the insurance payments to the dr, we ended up owing 3 different copays...the first one was our specialist copay, next two were our diagnostic copay and the last visit we didn't owe anything. But because we have to pay up front, we payed the specialist copay each time which means we overpayed for the services. The same thing happened with Kenzie broken collarbone visits. She had 3 appts...according to insurance the first one was our specialist copay, the next two we didn't owe anything but again because we had to pay up front we paid 3 specialist copays. The combined overpayment for both kids ended up being $70. The last appt was early August. Here it is November and we've seen nothing regarding our overpayment. I finally talked to the billing office today and was told that yes indeed, we did have a credit on our account and that she would issue us a refund check. So exactly how long would they have held onto the money if I hadn't called? And how many people don't call and would have lost that money because I'm sure the office wouldn't have refunded it without being prompted? I also think insurance companies contribute to the problem with their screwy copay systems. The kids were seen for the exact same thing each time so why did we end up with three different payments. Makes no sense to me.