04/10/10: Less than 48 hours

Friday was another day of the phone ringing off the hook.  First up was a call from the business office.  Just letting me know what my portion would be and making sure they have my name right.

So here's the deal with my name.  After I get married, my sweet hubby and I went down to Antigua for our honeymoon.  It was fantastic.  We came home.  I went straight to DPS (aka DMV but it's Texas, so we're different) and changed my name.  Unbeknownst to me, they left my maiden name on the license.  So what happened was my last name was updated to my married name while my maiden name replaced my middle name.  And my middle name was just thrown out.

GRRR.  I never meant to or wanted to be hyphenated.  But, see, I'm not.  I literally have my maiden name for my middle name.  But that confuses a lot of people so it gets treated as a hyphenated name.  However, if a provider's office submits paperwork with my name hyphenated, it gets rejected.  It's not hyphenated.

Well.  When I went to social security a few days after I got my new license, they had to do what my license said.  So now my official name is Loranne [maiden name] [last name].

I so miss my middle name.  It's Denise.  Hence LD of LD swims.

I told my sweet hubby that if I am feeling up to it at the end of the week maybe we go to DPS to try to get this fixed cause I'm sick of this stuff.

So the business office calls - back to that.  They have my name as hyphenated.  But my advocate and the side of the clinic that took care of the insurance requirements for me had it right, not hyphenated, just a space.  But, yes, my employer had no choice but to include my maiden name on everything because that's what my social security card shows.  So Cigna has to have both the maiden and the married names.  But with a space, not with a hyphen.

Business office wants to know what's correct.  Yes, just a space, no hyphen.  Well, why is that?  I explain.  She says, ok, then it should be hyphenated.  I say no, put it this way, my maiden name is my middle name and my insurance co wants to see the middle name, too.  Oh.  Ok.  This is weird.  Yes.  Yes it is.  And it's aggravating.

Since I never intended to keep my maiden name!

Then she tells me what I will have to pay. 

Let me premise this with my deductible is $2000 and my OOP-Max (Out of Pocket-Max) is $4000.  After my deductible is met, I pay 20% and the ins co pays 80% until OOP-Max is reached.

I've already gotten ~$600 of the deductible covered because of the appts I've had this year.  So I know I'm going to be paying at least $1400 of the deductible.  I've gotten everything ready for paying all the way to $4000, too, just to be safe.

No.  I pay $1280.  Are you shittin me?  NO WAY!  That's awesome!  I was prepared for having to pay 3k and now it's not even half that.

So I say, that's not even all of my deductible.  And she says, no, it's not, that's why we are just going with the 20%.

Hmmmm.

I don't think it works that way.  But I'm not going to argue.  When they realize they charged me wrong, they'll bill me.  And at least I can keep my pennies earning interest until then.  I can also do a payment plan where I will pay half due and then a min of $100 a month until I'm paid off.  All interest free.  I like to earn interest on my pennies and there is no penalty for not paying in full directly so I'll take the payment plan, too.

This all worked out a zillion times better than I had anticipated.  I'm pretty sure there's a mistake here but it won't be caught until they make the claim to my isn co.  And I'll pay it when I get the bill.  I just didn't see the point in arguing it yesterday.

So that phone call is done.

I'm thinking I've got all my info now.  I can't think of any surprises on Mon morning now.

And an hour later the phone rings again.  It's the other pre-op nurse.  She wants to know if I can come in at 6am instead of 8am.  My surgeon wants to move his day up and I'm first on the schedule.  6am means we won't have any traffic to contend with at all so I'm fine with that.  I also was able to ask my questions I wished I'd thought to ask on Thurs and that included when will surgery start.  She said probably around 7 but that will depend on when the surgeon actually gets there.  As long as I'm there at 6, I won't be the reason surgery is delayed.  I also asked what to expect Mon morning.  She said the building doesn't even open until 6 so if I get there early, we won't be able to get in.  Once in, I will check in and that should take 15-20 minutes.  After that, they will get me ready and then it will just be sitting and waiting.  She said, really, I'll probably be ready by 6:30 and then it's just waiting for the surgeon to get there.

I already asked about the tale end stuff when I had my pre-op class weeks ago.  And I told my sweet hubby what I knew then.

So.  Now.  To all y'all that are banded.  What do you wish your husbands/responsible parties had asked before you left?  What can I tell my sweet hubby to try and take care of, ask, do, etc?

So far I am surprisingly calm about this.  Periodically I get these butterflies flitting through my belly but it's about the surgery aspect, not the lap-band aspect.  And then I think about the lap-band and the fact that I have had surgery before and been put under a few times before and have never had any problems with it.  And then I am fine again.  I asked my sweet hubby this morning if he was nervous and he said yes, but he is confident that this team knows what they are doing.

In other news, we had to leave work early for an appt we had around noon.  We were told to expect this appt to last three hours and so told our bosses we wouldn't be back.  But it ended up lasting just over one hour.  So with some time on our hands and no traffic yet, we decided to head north to "Gallery Furniture".  Gallery Furniture is owned by a guy nicknamed "Mattress Mack"  He now runs an empire and is one of Houston's greatest philanthropists.  But when he started, he sold mattresses out of the back of his truck.  He is a great guy that truly makes Houston a better place - and even Texas, for that matter.

We have been toying with the idea of buying a Tempurpedic mattress set for awhile and about two months ago started to fall in love with the idea of a Tempurpedic "Ergo" bed (i.e. adjustable).  About a month ago we finally got tired enough of our bed that we currently have that we finally both agreed, yes, it needs to be replaced.  So we started shopping.  We went online and put our order together through http://www.tempurpedic.com/ and we went to some other Houston furniture stores.  All the prices were the same.  But we hadn't been to Gallery yet.

Soo we went up there yesterday.  One of Gallery's claims to fame is "buy it today get it today".  So at 2pm, we bought a bed.  At 5pm it was delivered (for less money than any other place was charging) and set up.

We bought the cloud surpreme and it really does feel like you are floating on a cloud.  It's super soft and super supportive.  And it's adjustable.  I know that will help with next week - but that also helps with allergies and even just better rest.  We also bought tempurpedic pillows and after last night, we aren't too pleased with them.  They feel better for sitting up watching tv but for sleeping, they're just hot and maybe too supportive, I guess.  I don't know what is wrong with them, but sweet hubby and I both agreed we weren't thrilled with them.

The one thing that is really going to take some getting used to is our old mattresses were high profile.  You literally had to climb into bed.  Now, you just sit down and swing your legs on, like a normal bed.  The old mattresses looked so stately which was perfect for our bedroom and the decor.  But sometimes climbing into bed was really hard to do, too.

So there you have it.  My out of pocket appears to be a lot less than I expected, for now.  My start time was moved up by two hours.  And we bought a fantabulous new bed that is super comfy and nice.

Now I'm off to get me some new plants to get in the ground.  I know if I don't get my new plants in the ground this weekend it isn't likely to get done this spring and that would make me sad.  Both the back yard and the front yard need some replacements and lots of color!