Stressed

Portrait of the Blogger as a Middle-aged Man:

First everyone showed up all at once. Then no one showed up. Even a patient who needed her sutures removed didn’t show. With gas as high as it is, people find creative ways to meet their own medical needs. Swiss Army Knives, I’ve learned, are truly multipurpose.

The old malpractice carrier, the one I had back in 2000, can’t find any record of my existence. But they’re sure I didn’t have any claims against me. Will that be good enough for the new carrier? And if it isn’t, what exactly do they expect me to do about it?

They’re fine with the ambiguously worded letter from the old carrier. But now the new carrier’s actuary wants to know precisely how many hours a week I spent seeing patients in Oregon.

How can I do that? I started out seeing patients one day a week. When I realized how much we were hemorrhaging money up there, we cut it back to twice a month, then two half days a month, then one half day a month, and then we cut it out altogether. Something like that. I can’t even remember how it progressed or when we made the transitions.

But their actuary needs to know.

Now.

Karen to the rescue. She found records of our gas/mileage patients to our receptionist, who used to accompany me to the Oregon office. From those records, Karen backtracked and figured out how many times a month we were going and when we made the transitions.

But now the property management company for Dung House wants an application from Karen. Every adult in the household, yatta yatta yatta. Between patients, I fill out a new application and fax it over. But now they want a letter from my new employer proving that I’m a new employee.

I call the Palo Alto office and speak to the woman who has been demanding we get everything to her yesterday. No, she won’t give me a letter. That’s HR. I call the HR woman and get an answering machine.

Half an hour later, I call the HR woman back, get her on the phone, explain my situation. Problem solved.

Soon after I get home, the property management gal calls to say, We’d love to have you. We’d love to be had, I say. Karen takes down the info — how much money they want, where they want it, etc.

Thirty minutes later, I think, What could possibly go wrong? Really, what’s the worst thing that could happen to this deal? And it occurs to me to double check the air conditioning situation. I know the cats are okay; I just had that conversation with the property management gal. But what about the AC?

Surely I’m just being paranoid.

No, I’m not being paranoid. Dung House does not have AC*. I asked everyone the same two questions: Do you allow cats? Do you have central air? And somehow this one slipped through — the one we want.

Did someone tell us the wrong thing? We were both so sure of it, we didn’t even think to make sure the property had a unit. And it was a cool day . . . no help there.

It was after hours, so all I got at the property management phone number was a recording. I called the owner and that’s how I found out about the AC. But the connection was terrible, so I couldn’t talk to her about it.

I called back the property management place and told them, sorry, this won’t work. Not unless they’ll let us put in a window-mounted AC unit in the master bedroom. I guess this is as good a test as any to see if the owners are psycho. Why wouldn’t they allow a window unit? Do they screw up a house somehow, I wonder?

So we still don’t have a place.

D.

*Heat is a big deal for people with MS.