(Phaysis)

I went out for a high-speed drive across town for a sense of perspective. Needed to get myself outside of myself for a while because I’m really, really in the middle of it. Right now, I’m a dog in a corner, and I’m ready to bite.

Today, I got a bomb dropped on me in the form of two envelopes from my health insurance carrier. Inside is a pair of Explanation of Benefits (EOB). Remember back in March and April when I saw the chiropractor because my back was messed up and I needed help in a bad way? Well, I finally got the insurance statements from all those visits. The end result is that my insurance carrier won’t pay for a single thing; their rejection reason is that the chiropractor isn’t in network. That’s Bullshit with a capital B.

When I was looking for help, I called the clinic; I’ve been to this clinic for 7 years…my general practitioner is there. And, for a while, so was the chiropractor. So I called the office to check, to see if I would be covered if I saw her for my back. The operator said she’d have to pass on the question to the billing department. They called me back and confirmed to the positive that I would have coverage, so I made the first of a series of appointments.

The first visit was nothing but a consultation on Monday. She then sent me for X-rays which I took that day. Then, since she didn’t show up to the office for my appointment on Wednesday, I had to come in Thursday to look over the X-rays and come up with a treatment plan. THEN, finally, had a visit Friday to pop my back into shape…two weeks after injury. She wanted me to visit three times the next week (office visits are $30 copay each time), but I whittled it down to two visits. By the end of that week, it was revealed that she was no longer a member of the clinic and that she would start her own practice elsewhere. So, I didn’t visit her again.

I had been waiting on the EOBs from the visit, but suspected something was dreadfully wrong. All my other EOBs from all the other visits to the various doctors I see produce an EOB from my insurer in short time. Something had to be wrong, and fucking hell, it was very wrong. I tallied up the charges from those five visits and the X-rays: $1270. You read that correctly.

My blood is boiling; I haven’t felt this level of rage in years. It’s an impotent rage because in the wash of corporate displacement and beaurocratic process, I have no target. No one is to blame. Nobody is at fault, and my only recourse is to play the game. I was provided an address to submit a written appeal; you can damn-well believe I’ll appeal. This is Bullshit. If I had known that the chiropractor was out of network, I would not have fucking gone for the first visit, let alone all five. I was lied to. I believed the lie. The one who lied to me didn’t know they were lying. Misinformation happened.

My teeth are grinding. Whatever it was I was doing in my life, whatever I had planned for the weekend, it’s fucked. My teeth are grinding. I’m in a corner, and I am ready to bite.

Someone backed into my car with their bike rack. Yeah. I can’t curse the guy, really, because he actually left me a note with his number. “Dear sir, or madam, I backed into your car…”

When I pulled into the lot and parked behind him along the edge of the lot, I left plenty of space. Maybe he forgot about his rack. I dunno. When I left the lot and headed towards home, I found the note flapping under my wiper blade. Pulled off at the next light and grabbed it. He said he didn’t see any damage, and in my rush to get back into the car, I didn’t either. But later, I gave my car a thorough going-over and found the damage. His rack, or something on it, cracked the plastic lens on my left headlight and the force fractured the silver reflector inside; there are pieces floating loose. I took pictures. I’ll need a new headlamp assembly.

But I called the guy and he offered up his insurance information. I really don’t want to stick it to him because at least he was bold enough to leave a note and, quite honestly, I’ve done some shitty things car-wise myself, so I guess it could be karmic payback (carmic?). We’ve traded info, and I thanked him for his boldness in admitting fault. You’d never find that kind of behavior anywhere.

Here’s hoping for a speedy resolution.