Tag Archives: money

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The tweeter is twerked

Ok, I never signed up to twitter. Bunch of twits.

But I did write another verse for the song SAVED. It might not be the one that comes up on the You tube search. I learn it as a teen from side B of Moondog Matinee by The Band.

I sang it to my father. He said, “Where did you learn THAT?” I didn’t know and did an internet search. I forgot what album I leaned it from. It was his album, that I recorded on tape before I went to college.

Here is my new verse:

I used to Tweet, I used to Twerk, I used to Tweet, Twerk, I was such a Jerk

I used to tweet and twerk, tweet and twerk and I was such a jerk

But now I’m standing on the corner, it was too much work

That’s cause I’m saved, that’s cause I’m saved

People let me tell you about Kingdom Come

I’m saved, I’m saved, I’m going to preach until you’re deaf and dumb

I’m in the Salvation Army, beating on the big bass drum!

_____________

Who else sang it? Laverne Baker! She is the earliest I’ve found. Recorded in 1960, though the videos are later.

And here too, along with her hit “Jim Dandy”.

The authors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saved_(Leiber_and_Stoller_song) .

Anyone else? Oh, yes, and I haven’t even listened to them all. But one is Elvis Presley. A gospel album:

And here is the dance video:

So, chief twit, tweeting gets a verse. I do not mind if it dies other than the verse. Shake your money maker, twitter!

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Robust healthful manhood

The photograph of “a healthy man” to go with my Ragtag Daily Prompt conflate post.

I LOVE the caption. “Robust healthful manhood is the source of mental and physical power.” How differently the author portrays health womanhood, as shown in the conflate post. The book is Macfadden’s Encyclopedia of Physical Culture, in three volumes, 1911. Volume I is 500 pages. It is easy to read but it’s a different style from now. Here:

As a rule, if you will simply retain the idea that food should be swallowed at all times without effort, that is, that never, by any means, wash it down with water, milk, tea or any other liquid, that you should masticate it until it seems to disappear without swallowing, you can rest assured that you are masticating sufficiently. p. 97, volume I.

I plan to read the entire set. I think I will find lots of wonderful words for the Ragtag Daily Prompt (hey, I don’t think we’ve used masticate yet!) and material to write about.

Are there still interesting medical ideas out there? Oh, yes. LOTS. Only now they use the internet. I have subscribed to some of the series of videos, telling people how bad and wrong minded allopathic doctors are. Sigh. We do our best. The scam is that they let folks watch one a day for a week, or let them watch one, and then want you to buy the series. “Only $349.99!” Nice scam that is proliferating rapidly. I have now gotten emails saying “Health coaches should make as much or more than physicians and we can teach you how to market and target people and make that money.” Ugh and ick. Really?

I have patients in clinic who present by saying, “I don’t usually go to MD doctors, I go to a naturopath, but I am here because I need an antibiotic.”

I learn to respond gently. “Oh. If you need an antibiotic, maybe you have signs of infection? What are your symptoms?” I have to get past their dislike of allopathic medicine and find out what the symptoms are. Usually if I can diffuse them by getting the story, we can work together. Once in a while it doesn’t work: I have people come in and give me orders. “Do these labs.”

“Uh. Where did this list come from?”

The answer could be a video (by a naturopath, a biochemist, a biologist, whatever. I have watched some of these series. They start by saying that doctors are wrong/stupid/stubborn/misguided/etc.) or a “cash only” doctor or a magazine.

“Why are you coming to me?”

“I want medicare/my insurance to pay for it. I have done my research.”

“Well, medicare does not work that way. I have to list a symptom or diagnosis code for every lab ordered.”

“WHAT?”

I try to be patient. “Every lab has to have an attached appropriate diagnosis code or medicare will not cover it. There is a place in town where you can order your own, but it does not take medicare. You pay for it.”

“Just order it!”

“No. I am a medicare/insurance provider, which means I have a contract with them. It would be fraud and illegal to make up codes. Does your cash only provider use diagnosis codes? Can your bring their clinic note to me?”

One person replies, “My provider doesn’t take notes.” Oh, how nice. That provider does a very expensive panel of labs three times a year that the person is paying for out of pocket. “My provider checks EVERYTHING.” Um, and makes a boatload of money off you too, I think. That patient is very angry that I won’t take her orders and switches clinics. Oddly enough, this does not break my heart.

Some days I hate Dr. Google. There are lots of websites and people on line swearing that they can improve your health. There are scientific looking papers that swear something has been tested, but read the fine print: if the sample is 8 people, how does that stack up against the Women’s Health Initiative, where one arm of the study had 27,000 people? The evidence is weighted. We get multiple articles in medical school and subsequently about how to read a paper, how to weigh the evidence, how to recognize fraud or a poorly designed study.

I do not object to people looking on the internet and I have had people who came in and said, “Is it possible that I have THIS?” and who are correct. However, I see more fraud, always.


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Fibbing Friday: defining monetary terms

  1. In the world of international finance, what do the abbreviations, USD and GBP stand for? USD stands for Use (the) Stocks, Darling and GBP stands for Good Bonding Place. See number 3.
  2. What exactly is cryptocurrency? Currency that is cryptic and actually invisible, as well as unstable. You can’t hold it, you can’t touch it and it only exists as long as the servers have current. That why it is called currency. Once the current is off the cryptocurrency disappears.
  3. What is the difference between stocks and bonds? Stocks are immobile, usually made of wood, and are not all that common now, except in really retro BDSM dungeons. Bonds are very mobile and can be made of velvet, or metal as in handcuffs, or nearly anything that you can tie someone up with. Wire and barbed wire are not ok. Use the safe word.
  4. What is meant by a “bull” market? This is a market that sells a lot of bull. It is very very common.
  5. What is meant by a “bear” market? This is when the bears show up and devour all the bulls.
  6. What is a stock split? Usually one uses an ax or a chainsaw to demolish stocks. Rarely, those demolition people who blow up buildings are called upon, but this does not leave neat halves. Stock splits are often the product of either a divorce or the sale of the building holding the retro BDSM dungeon.
  7. What exactly is crowdfunding? My favorite crowdfun involves the pop up singing where one person starts singing and it turns out that the entire chorus is standing around in a crowd. Flash mobs! Some people prefer demonstrations or driving a lot of trucks around the beltway. I do not think storming the Capitol is a good crowdfun.
  8. What is a pension? These no longer exist in the US.
  9. What is a 401(k)? 410K is the number right before the answer to the universe, number 42. Once we reach 41, everyone says OK, because 42 is next.
  10. What is day trading? Trading that does not occur at night.

For Fibbing Friday.

Flashmob:

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Revolution in prior authorizations

I had a small one doc family practice clinic for ten years. Spent more time with patients. The trade off was that if they need a prior authorization, they had to come in for a visit. I would call the insurance company from the room face to face counselling and coordination of care and all that crap. This did a number of things:

1. I could bill for the time.

2. The patient saw how the insurance company treats us and our offices. The rep on the line would try to call me by my first name since doctors rarely call. I would say, “No, please call me Dr. Ottaway.”

3. The patients sometimes had called their insurances already and been told “Have your doctor call.” When I would call, the company rep would sometimes say, “We don’t cover that.” The patient would be outraged and say, “But I called YESTERDAY.” The rep would say, “I only talk to doctors. The part of the company that talks to patients is a different part.” The insurance companies can’t triangulate their way out of that.

4. I would end the call by saying, “This has been a face to face with the patient call, you have been on speaker phone and I am documenting the call and the time in the patient’s chart.” At first the calls took 25-30 minutes. Some companies apparently flagged me, and would say “Yes.” if I called, and get me off the phone as fast as possible. They really do not like it being documented in the chart.

5. Insurance companies sometimes drop patients on purpose because the person has gotten more expensive. I had a snow bird from Alaska whose insurance had dropped him. He said he’d paid on time. I said, come in if you want and I will call them. I spent 45 minutes on the phone where they made multiple excuses, lied (we can’t send you a copy of his insurance because we don’t have a fax after they’d said he was not allowed to leave Alaska and I said, “For how long? What do you mean? You don’t insure him if he’s out of the state? Send me a copy of his insurance contract!”) I finally realize that they have dropped him on purpose because he’s been diagnosed with diabetes. I say “Ok, look, I am staying on the phone until he’s reinstated and I don’t care how long it takes. And if you hang up on me I will contact the insurance commissioner in Alaska and Washington states.”

6. Patients are truly outraged at how a physician is treated when she calls an insurance company herself. I have to give my name, my NPI number, my address, my phone number, my fax number, the patient name, the patient address, the patient phone number the patient insurance number and sometimes have to do it every time someone transfers me. When they see me spend 25-30 minutes on the phone to get a prior auth, especially if it is refused, they are up in arms.

I think it would be truly revolutionary if every doc in the country called an insurance company with a patient in the room and documented the conversation in the chart. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Gonna be a revolution, yeah…..

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Kite

K for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

“Let’s go fly a kite, up to the highest height
Let’s go fly a kite and send it soaring.”

Mary Poppins was a movie that scared me as a child and worried me a bit. We didn’t have a television until I was nine, and so movies were a bit overwhelming. Animated movies could be scary but were clearly not real. Oliver Twist was the first movie that I saw with real people and the scene where the villain is shot and his body swings back and forth on a rope gave me nightmares. Way too vivid.

Mary Poppins worried me in a number of scenes. I knew that the fierce women singing about “suffragettes” were important, but I did not know what a suffragette was. I was aware that there was some tension between men and women, but did not know why. I did not ask about it.

I also found the bank scene terrifying. The frightening old men, formally dressed and the very old man in the sterile bank setting, with him nearly slipping and falling on the floor. I did not trust any of them and hoped Micheal would not give them his money. I thought they were ganging up on Micheal. The topic of whether a bank can be trusted is timely over and over again: will our money be safe or are we being lied to and manipulated?

I found the scene up on the rooftops frightening but exhilarating. Here is light and air and birds and flight and a view of the world.

All of this sparked by the word kite….

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Just, Justice, Juxtaposition

J in the Blogging from A to Z.

Just, Justice, Juxtaposition

It is funny

R says that I should not
associate with J
leave the wrong
impression
everyone watches
judges in a small town

I am committed
to J

J wants more
pushes

I can’t tell
if J thinks
I’m joking
or just
is pushing me
past my limits

I don’t know

but it is funny

because J and R
are alike
passionate
idealistic
madmen

ethical
committed

R does money
J does improv

yet alike

and R is the joker
and J is the taskmaster

and everyone
is not
what they seem

and my reputation
is shards
anyhow
in the surf
my X
told all
that I wasn’t
putting out

before
we were X

one
in the surf
was my office manager’s
daughter
and my office manager
asked me
next day
couldn’t
I control
the X

I laughed

someday
I want to bring
J to R
or
R to J
and watch

them
circle
like cats
antipathy
or recognize
the heart
that stands open

which is why
I love them both

previously published on everything2.com