Zorro has great eyes. I think whoever handed him Zorro saw a resemblance to the mask, but I don't think that's his true name.

When my mother was in hospital we wanted to get alcohol wipes to clean something up for her, and the nurses told me that, no, we didn't really want them, because they tracked every single one, and billed us some startlingly large amount for each one.

RRUCLAMC? Tosses the little shit around like nobody's business. I hate when they crack open an entire box of tissues for my crying jag, but then again, I don't want anyone else's. Cooties.

Let me go look at see how much I might have cost this past weekend. So far, it looks like the food I got in observation is cheaper than the food in the normal parts of the hospital. Which makes no sense, because it's only one menu, and you can have pretty much whatever you want.

....I can't find the meds I get (well, I can't find meds in general--I suspect I'm looking aimlessly, as I am kind of even paying attention to the meeting I'm in), but at last check, my ER visits were about $2K a pop. Last time, between the reluctant ER and the more accepting Gonda, I ended up ingesting 150mg of Benadryl IV, and at least 16MG of dilaudid. Which, apart from being a massive mindfuck of a trip, was also an incredible waste.

No capes!

He's cute enough without a cape.

The nurses wanted to get stroppy with me when I brought in a box of tissues--they were new and hadn't been opened--it's just the hospital ones were scratchy, and we like the ones we use at home. Turns out, theirs were like $20 per box. Maybe more. I pulled a tylenol out of my purse stash (for me, as a visitor, not the patient). The patient offered to ask a nurse, but I didn't want him to have those dollars on his bill. Ridiculous.

I also like Abed

Punny.

I think I will be getting him a new name first.

Zee

I had Wilson for three weeks before I got his real name. "Wilson" is an *executive* cat. He is SO not a Wilson. When he came and laid in my lap for the first time, I thought, this here's an needy neurotic emo cat who'd rather be petted than eat, and I said "Percy Shelley!" and he yawned and stretched and got down, as if to say, well, finally. It's totally his name, too. He answered to it from the first time I called him that, he still comes when I call him. Usually. Unless I want to take him to the vet, of course, then he vanishes into the ether.

but she guess it's the one "who, like you, does not have the protection offered by child bearing", am I allowed to tell her to STFU?

Oy! I think you said the right thing to her.

Kitty is very cute.

Lee, I think you are allowed to tell your mom anything you want.

ita and other hospital-ly types, have you seen the state hospital chargemasters before? They detail in an excel spreadsheet all the billables for a given hospital. (For example, at Huntington a 4% Cocaine solution (!!!) is $149.... Grace's trache tubes are $330+ each, a day in the NICU is over $5000).

kat, I worked at Mass General, until Ben was born. I was a systems coordinator (sort of a liaison between Finance and Information Resources). One of my responsibilities was to maintain various tables, including the hospital charge master. Ours had a lot more fields, than the sample one I downloaded at that site -- same idea, though. Procedure/item/service name; price; revenue code. (Also HCPCS codes and a bunch of other stuff nobody will care about). I couldn't get over the prices, then (and that was 1996). If I recall, correctly, printed out, it was between 2 and 3 reams of paper, small font, double sided, landscape oriented. I had to get monthly dumps in various sorts, because although I maintained it, I couldn't then access it online, or on our hospital computer.

Working in the hospital made me convinced single payer gov't run insurance is the only way. Every insurer has its own rules about how to bill, so the money we spent just trying to figure out and obey those rules (which they don't really want you to figure out, because if you figure them out and bill properly, they have to pay) was ridiculous.

In my opinion, pricing is all a shell game. Healthcare providers will moan about Medicare reimbursement rates, but Medicare is the payer who butters most of their bread.

Zee

Zed

Zed!

Like it.