Code This!

I hate dealing with insurance companies and billing departments. I don’t know why I even bother.

OK, I lied. I know why I bother. Because there is no way I am going to pay for something that is, or might be, covered on my plan.

But recently I am starting to wonder if my insurance denies claims and billing departments bill me in multiples, just to try to get some stuff to sneak through the cracks in hopes that they can get me to pay more, more often.

I have had a heck of a time with a few bills lately.

I took my 5-year-old to a pediatric cardiologist at Primary Children’s Hospital last December. He had been complaining that his “heart hurt” and with my husband’s family history of strange heart mishaps I wanted to make sure everything was all right.

The doctor ordered a heart event monitor for him to wear to track what was going on. No big deal. He wore it for nearly two months and everything ended up being normal.

I was feeling really good about everything. Until I got two random bills from other doctors at a neighboring hospital (The University of Utah) who were claiming that my son had seen them.

I had never heard of them before and I am pretty sure my kindergartner didn’t take himself to Salt Lake for any appointments.

Turns out they read my son’s heart monitor results and were billing me for their services. Unfortunately, because of the way they coded their bill when sending it to my insurance, their claims were being denied and I had over $200 I needed to pay.

Excuse me? First of all I have never even met these two doctors. Second of all, I never gave consent for them to read my sons test results. Third of all, their claims to my insurance were being denied!

I was stuck with a bill from two people I didn’t know, for something I didn’t agree to.

Lame.

After checking with my insurance company I found out it was a simple coding difference. The original doctor from Primary Children’s coded my son’s diagnosis as “chest pains” (which makes sense because his heart was “hurting”). The two new doctors were coding the diagnosis as “heart palpitations.” Which, according to my insurance isn’t something that can be treated by a heart monitor. Therefore they denied the claims.

Good luck trying to call any billing department to tell them they made a coding mistake. According to the University of Utah billing department they can’t change codes. The “coders” have to do that. But when I asked to speak with the coders, no one knew how to get a hold of them. Apparently no one speaks to the coders…ever.

They must be holed up in the middle of the building in a dark, windowless room working without contact to the outside world.

Seriously? No one speaks to the coders? I doubt that.

All I needed to do was pass along the information to them to change the code from “heart palpitations” to “chest pains.”

That’s when the billing department told me that they have to go by the doctor’s notes when determining codes. They couldn’t change it if that’s what the doctor’s diagnosis was.

The doctor’s diagnosis? We didn’t even see either of the doctors who were billing it wrong. Why in the world would they code the diagnosis differently than the original doctor who saw my son in the flesh?

I don’t know what is going to happen with these claims, hopefully I will hear back next week, but I do know that I am going to do everything in my power to get them worked out before I write out a check.

This is not the first time I have had to call and check in on things. I feel like I have comb over every bill, claim and submission to make sure things are being covered correctly.

I am very grateful to have insurance, I just hate the run around I get and that sometimes I have to fight really hard to get things paid.

Cleaning Revolution

My husband says I am finally at his parenting level.

I have had a major revelation when it comes to picking up the toys around our house. A revelation he swears he had before our oldest son was even born.

I just rolled my eyes at him and told him he could pick up all of our toys if he is so superior. But since he is gone 80 percent of each day at work, that isn’t very realistic.

So, I am glad I have stumbled upon parenting genius.

I think I have finally figured out how to get my boys to help clean up their toys! I have realized something so simple, something that you, like my husband, have probably done from day one.

I am now making my children put away one set of toys before moving on to the next. A novel idea I know, but it is working wonders for my pick-up-all-the-toys-all-the-time anxiety.

I used to let my boys dump out whatever they wanted. Sometimes, OK a lot of the times, I would follow them around like I was part of the help picking up what they dumped or dropped. But my efforts were futile. They would storm through the house making mountains of mess that none of us felt like picking up at bedtime. We were tired, overwhelmed and unmotivated.

We live by storage bins at our house. We have a bin for Legos, trucks, Tinker Toys, dinosaurs, super heroes, etc.

The new routine is that they have to pick up their toys and put them in their bin when they are done with them, BEFORE moving to the next bin of toys. If they want to play super heroes then that’s fine with me. As long as all of the other bins are picked up and put away.

I have an 81-year-old neighbor who I visit on a regular basis who told me several years ago that she taught her kids to pick up and put away one thing before moving to the next.

I shrugged her master parenting skills off thinking that they were outdated and unhelpful. Boy was I wrong. I wish I would listen to people.

I haven’t exactly told my kids that we have a new pick-up-one-thing-before-starting-on-the-next rule. I’ve just been enforcing that kind of behavior and they are following naturally.

The best part is they are motivated to put stuff away because they want to get something else out. It’s amazing!

Like I said, many of you have probably already been living like this for a long time. So I want to know what other tricks you have for soliciting your children’s cleaning help. This mom could use all the help she can get!

Restless Mom Syndrome

I can’t wait for the day when I can sit down for more than one minute without feeling guilty. Because for some reason I have it stuck in my stay-at-home-mom mind that if I sit down for longer than it takes to tie my shoes, I am doing something wrong; some child or some chore is being neglected.

In fact as I am sitting typing this blog post I am feeling a little guilty that I am not playing with my boys who are setting up super hero/villain clusters throughout my living room in preparation of a giant battle.

They haven’t noticed I am not playing with them, so why should I care?

The truth is, I miss being OK with sitting and chilling. I miss things like watching hours of television just for “fun” or sitting on a blanket in my back yard soaking up the sun.

What happened to me?

Now I sit down to watch TV and can’t make it more than a half hour before I notice something in the room that I need to pick up or clean. I go outside to enjoy nature and end up sweeping up the patio or raking the flowerbeds.

Why can’t I stop?

I used to have hobbies – doing puzzles, cross stitching, playing the piano, to name a few. And heaven knows I LOVED getting lost in a good book.

But these days I don’t even dare open the cover to a new novel. I am afraid I will be hooked and therefore neglect all of my “mothering” responsibilities as I waste my time reading for pleasure.  You should have seen me (and my house) a year ago when I read the Hunger Games Series. We were a mess!

It’s not healthy for me to think I can’t take time for myself. I’ve got to find a better balance in my life – A cure for my restless mom syndrome.

Most of the time I think, “I’ll sit and relax when I get everything done.” NEWSFLASH: I will NEVER be able to get everything done. The sooner I realize that the sooner I can relax.

I’ve read some great articles recently from moms who talk about “living in the moment” and “cutting yourself some slack.” I love reading other women’s advice on how to deal with being a mom. But for some reason I only remember what they say for a few days. Then I go back to guilting myself into running around like the energizer bunny never stopping, never resting.

I’m worried that some day my battery will run out.

Heaven help me realize that I don’t always need to vacuum the floors and wash all our clothes before leaving on vacation. The beds don’t always need to be made before we leave for school in the morning.  And the dishes don’t need to be washed before I head to bed at night.

How do you make time for yourself and what do you do with that time? How do you let yourself relax?

Toy Taking Drama

We lost our Lego Harry Potter. 

I was seriously upset.

Legos have become one of my favorite things to do with my boys. But during the three weeks that we couldn’t find the two-inch tall yellow-headed figured with the lightning-bolted forehead, messy hair and dark-rimmed glasses, I couldn’t even suggest we play with the building blocks because my 3-year-old would have a melt down.

It was horrible. But honestly, we would never have lost the little guy if my son didn’t have to take something with him every single place we go.

He took it in the van on the way to a local store and somehow he got lost on the way back into the house.

If I can’t break my children of the habit of bringing something with them everywhere we go, I think I am going to lose my mind.

Why do my children insist on taking something with them every single time we go somewhere?

Now I’m not talking about bringing a toy with us on vacation or taking something comforting to a scary place like the doctor or dentist’s office.  I’m talking about bringing something with when we run to the bank or grabbing a toy to tote with us as we stroll around the block.

Seriously? We are going to be gone for less than half an hour. Do they have to take something with?

No matter where we go or what we do, my children think they need to bring a toy.

I guess it’s partially my fault. When they were little and I felt bad for leaving them at a babysitter’s house I would bribe them into wanting to go by letting them bring a favorite toy. It helped with the separation anxiety. But now I think I have ruined my children.

I’ve got to stop them.

Luckily the school sent home a paper at the first of the year saying there were no toys allowed in class. That doesn’t mean we don’t have an occasional breakdown when my 5-year-old tries to sneak toys to Kindergarten.

He threw a whopper of a fit in the elementary school parking lot the day I caught him hiding his new laser gun in his pocket. There was kicking, screaming and biting.

But thanks to the no-toy rule at school at least my oldest has learned that he can’t take something with him ALL the time. Now, time to train the youngest.

Luckily we found Lego Harry in our Tupperware full of toy guns. I don’t know how he made it in there, but I was super happy to see him.

But I am tired of getting home from running errands empty handed and having to call each of the stores we ran to, asking them to check their lost-and-found stacks for our crap.

We have a couple of rules about taking toys. Like no weapon toys at church or the hospital. But I am seriously going to add a bunch of new ones. Starting with a no-Legos-outside-of-the-house rule.

The Forgettable Joys of Pregnancy

 

A couple of months ago my 3-year-old told me my butt was starting to look pregnant. After laughing about that for a little while, I realized he was right. I had forgotten how big my backside can balloon when I’m expecting.

Let’s just say I am going to avoid sideways glances of my profile in full body mirrors for the next several months. In fact, I took down and got rid of the long mirror in my hallway when we repainted our house. I don’t think I will get a new one until at least October.

Now I try not to ever complain about my pregnancy. I am lucky and grateful to be carrying this little boy. But there are a few other humorous, embarrassing and down right uncomfortable parts of pregnancy I had completely forgotten. (It’s probably a good thing I don’t remember these things until I am once again in the thick of things.)

Since I know a BUNCH of women who are currently expecting, I figured I would dedicate today’s blog post to the forgettable “joys” of pregnancy. Here are a few other things I had blissfully forgotten.

Feel free to add to my list in the comments below.

1. Sneeze-peeing: Whenever I feel a twitch in my nose I have to stop what I am doing, cross my legs and bend over. It may look ridiculous but if I don’t, I will lose control — literally.

2. Angled-sleeping: Hello heartburn. Hello tilted, propped-up, three-pillows-under-my-neck sleeping. No matter what side I lay on my throat fills with acid the minute I lie down and I can’t swallow my heartburn. I’m considering sleeping in a recliner.

3. Extremity-swelling: This past weekend my fingers sausaged out just enough to make me panic when I couldn’t get my wedding ring off. You would think that after having two of my boys in July I would remember my bulging extremities; remember the way my ankles resembled those of an elephant.  But somehow I had forgotten how it feels to puff all up.

4. Zombie-living: I have to admit I remembered being tired while pregnant. But I didn’t remember exactly how it felt to have all of my energy zapped from my “normal” self and thrust straight to the growing child in my womb. Trying to stay awake while nodding off has to be one of the most helpless feelings.

What don’t you miss about expecting?

Cartless Shopping

Now that my two oldest are getting too big to fit together in a shopping cart, I am going to invest in two of those leash-your-child-to-you contraptions. It’s the only way I figure I can keep them from rampaging through a store like a couple of rabies-infested wild dogs.

It’s spring break this week, which means I’ve had my 5-year-old home all week. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was that we got to play with him this week. Yet how unthrilled I was to run a few short errands with him Monday afternoon.

Running a quick errand with one child is difficult. Running one with two children is disastrous. At least for me.

Now my definition of a short errand is one where I can be in and out of a store within 15 minutes – 10 if my children cooperate. I’m not talking about an 1.5 hour trip to the grocery store. It’s not like I am torturing my little ones.

But they end up torturing me.

Our first trip Monday was to a rather large party-supply store. I needed to grab a few bags to wrap easter gifts. No big deal, right? Wrong.

Word of the wise, don’t ever take your children into a party-supply store. Their cute chubby fingers can’t resist the bins filled with favors. They’ll end up knocking half of the stuff into the aisles as you frantically try to put it back in the bin it belongs.

Not. Worth. It.

The worst part? When we got to the checkstand my 3-year-old spotted a piece of candy on the floor. He popped it into his mouth before I could yell “NO!” Then he smiled and laughed at how good it tasted. How can I tell him it’s not good for him when it tastes delicious?

After the party store we ran to a thrift department store to make a simple return. This store had carts. They were small, plastic ones but I didn’t care. I plopped both of my boys in the same cart and told them to sit down and be quiet. Big mistake.

They wrestled and climbed on top of each other and then decided to lick each other’s faces all over while I waited in line to make my return. Disgusting. No matter what I did, they wouldn’t stop.

And the check-out lady? She seemed oblivious. There’s something about my children going wild that must calm employees at the register. Because they never seem to move very quickly to ring me up even though I think I am going to lose it.

I think she said something to me like, “Your kids are having fun.” To which I replied, “Yep, but they are driving me nuts.” What I really wanted to say was, “Can you move any slower? Because I feel like smacking you right now.”

We’d been to two stores, shopping for less than 30 minutes, and I had had enough.

It wasn’t as if Monday’s behavior was a fluke. This comes on the cusp of me losing control of them at a religious store two weeks ago when we went to buy a small present for their cousin.

I had no option at this store – no carts. They zig-zagged through aisles behind me as a tried to quietly, yet sternly, whisper “get over here” in a respectful way. All heck broke loose when we entered the store’s small clothing section. While I was checking a size on something they decided to run from mannequin to mannequin rubbing their grungy cheeks on each white dress that was hung. I wanted to kill them.

Then I drug them to the cash register. While I was waiting to buy one, small thing, they snuck behind me and put plastic rings on each of their fingers. They were going to “keep” them. After I told them that was stealing, they reluctantly put them back and stood right next to me.

That’s when they knocked over an entire DVD display sending new releases flying across the floor. I helped a worker pick them up and put the display back up only to turn around and see them knock it down again. I was so mad.

I took them on one simple errand that day and I ended up exhausted.

But I’m too stubborn to run all of my errands alone. I have more time during the day when they are with me and even though it stresses me out, I feel like I need to keep taking them so they will learn to behave. Wishful thinking? Probably.

Luckily for a couple more months I’ll just have one little boy to take with me when my oldest goes back to school. Who knows what I’ll do this summer when I add a third one to the mix. I’ll definitely have to order my leash things by then.

Derby Time

My boys are 3 and 5. Well below the typical Cub Scout age. And yet this past week I found myself whittling away at a rectangular block of wood, trying desperately to make it resemble a racecar.

All because my church is putting on a Pinewood Derby Party tonight for people of all ages.

I heard about the party months ago but brushed it aside. It wasn’t until church leaders started talking it up to my 5-year-old that I had any desire to participate. He got so excited at the idea of making a racecar that I couldn’t tell him “no.”

I tried to get my dad to help him. I remember him and my brother working on their Pinewood Derby cars for hours when I was younger. I think they actually won the grand prize a couple of times.

But time ran out and we needed a car. Fast.

So I spent two afternoons hacking at two awkwardly shaped pieces of wood transforming one into a “shark car,” the other into a “fire jet.”

If it weren’t for my friend Heidi, I don’t think I would have ever thought I could do it. But after I saw the awesome Ghost Buster van and Mermaid mobile she made with her two young kids, I was inspired to grab a hack saw and try making our own cars.

Of course the boys wanted to “help” but their poor little arms couldn’t make the old-school saw move up and down. They mostly played on the lawn while I sawed until my sides hurt.

For double what I paid for the wooden block, I could have bought a precut car at the store. But this frugal mom wanted to save $4.

Thank heavens for my parent’s electric sander. It helped smooth out and camouflage the rough and uneven saw marks. If you look closely you can tell that one side of the shark’s fin cuts in more than the other, and you just may see fire jet’s curves in its slant, but it’s the best we could do.

And my boys LOVE their cars. They have been carrying them around ever since we made them. We probably won’t win any type of award tonight, but we had fun working on our first cars.

Luckily the party isn’t an official Pinewood Derby race so there aren’t any official rules. We didn’t have to worry about design or weight restrictions. Who knows what we will do when we enter a real race.

Up All Night

It happens at least twice a week. I am slumbering soundly when I am jolted awake by an outcry from my offspring.

It’s 1, 2, or 3 a.m. and one of them needs something. Usually it’s something simple, something they could easily fix on their own, but they seem to forget how to do anything in the dark, cold night.

My husband and I end up taking them to the potty or tucking them back in. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather they holler out than wet the bed, but I am left wondering where I went wrong.

I have failed to teach my children how to climb out of bed, walk five feet to the bathroom and go potty on their own. I have also failed to show them how to tug on their sheet corner to pull covers back over their little cold bodies.

They just can’t seem to do it without help.

Every once in a while they actually NEED help from a parent. But they cry wolf so many times I don’t know when to believe them.

The worst is when they wake up sick. I am ashamed to say I am not a good parent when it comes to helping them feel better in the wee hours of the morning.

I should be patient, loving and consoling. Instead I transform into a grizzly she bear who is woken from hibernation and just might devour her cubs.

I can’t help myself and normally after I go back to bed and get a couple of winks of sleep in, I wake up feeling like a complete jerk.

A few weeks a go my oldest went to bed with an earache. He ended up sleeping a record of 2 hours before hollering out for help. At 10:30 p.m., when I was just getting ready to tuck myself in, he shouted out in pain.

We tried relieving the pressure and pain by using an old home remedy of steamed onions and a warm rag. That helped for about five seconds. At 11:30 my husband ran to the nearest Wal-Mart and got numbing eardrops.

By midnight he was a whole new kid. And we were ready to go back to bed. Well at least my husband and I were. My oldest was wide awake. We set him up downstairs watching Netflix on the LoveSac. Thirty minutes later he was up by our bed wide eyed and whining.

We forced him back onto his bed but he wasn’t going to go to sleep. He wasn’t tired and he wasn’t happy. I lied in bed listening to him scream at us for 30 minutes. He wanted me to sleep by him.

We hollered back and forth to each other for what felt like forever. I was so tired I was delusional and immature. I had some pretty stupid comebacks including something like, “Don’t you realize that I have to get up in less than 5 hours?”

Yeah, I am sure that my 5-year-old with an earache can calculate his mother’s sleep total.

My husband hit the breaking point at 1 a.m. and went to lie by him.

We got about 4.5 hours of sleep that night – way too little for a tired, pregnant mother.

But it’s sort of my fault. I should have gone to bed an hour earlier. And, had I laid by him when he was wide awake at midnight, I could have got at least six hours.

I just can’t think clearly in the moonlight. All the sick little boy wanted was his mommy to lay by him while he fell asleep. I should have done that.

I’ve got to learn to control myself when jolted from bed in the night. My boys are 5 and 3. It’s okay for them to holler for help in the night.

But I think I might try having cover-pulling-up contests and potty-break practices to get them trained on what to do when they wake up with minor incidents.

Then maybe we can all go a couple of weeks between nighttime episodes. Until we have a newborn that is.

I’m dying to know, how do you keep your cool when woken up by your babies at night?

No Cookie Dough Love

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I love making sugar cookies and I love my boys. But I do not love making sugar cookies with my boys.

That is one more activity I am going to add to my I-wish-I-had-the-patience-to-do-that-with-my-kids list.

I have tried a few times to make yummy treats with my little ones’ “help.” But it never happens the way I think it should. The way I daydream it will. I guess it’s too much to ask a 3 and 5 year old to whip out their Martha Stewart skills.

My sons have no sense of order. No sense of tidiness. And when it comes to making cookies I swear they think our kitchen has transformed into an evil scientist’s lab. Either that or a Playdoh making factory – especially when we get to the cooking cutting part.

Last Sunday I decided to make heart-shaped Valentine’s cookies with the boys. It was going to be a great reverent Sunday afternoon bonding experience.

Yeah right.

We hadn’t been cooking five minutes before the first splash of flour rained down on my recently mopped kitchen floor and the stress sunk in. Our reverent activity turned into a nagfest as I tried to control them as they dumped ingredients into the Kitchen-Aid bowl.

Things only got worse when we started rolling out dough. I turned my back for a split second and they shoved their hands into the can of flour. I turned back around to a puffy white cloud and four pint-sized flour mountains on top of their “cookies.”

That’s when I lost it. I yelled at them for making a huge mess. All of a sudden our “fun” family activity had taken a turn for the worse.

My husband offered to help the boys finish. I am sure he could tell I was nearing a breaking point. But I was too stubborn to stop our fun-filled activity.

I had a giant ball of dough to roll out, cut and then bake and I realized my children weren’t going to be any “help.” So I gave up on getting their help. I gave up on keeping order.

I gave each of them a ball of dough and let them have at it. They rolled and cut and mixed who knows what into their dough samples for a long time. They each made their own “delicious” cookie filled with all kinds of goodies and topped with cherry fruit snacks.

Giving up on the perfect cookie-making experience did wonders for my nerves but it was a devastating for my poor, innocent kitchen. When we were finished I swept up an inch of flour from off of the floor.

I have fond memories of rolling out dough and helping my mom make treats. Those memories don’t include my mom ever yelling at me for the dough sticking to the table or for flour getting on the floor. How did she do it? How did she keep her cool? We always had a great time. I am worried my children won’t have any memories like that. I wish I were more patient.

I think a lot of times I set my expectations far too high. I should have realized that making cookies with two little boys was going to be disastrous.

Maybe someday I’ll be ready to try making sugar cookies with them again. But probably not until I can get on some anti-anxiety meds.

Gentlemen

It wouldn’t be Christmas unless I sewed something for my boys. Right?

Not that I don’t already have a million things going on in my crazy life, but it wouldn’t feel like I gave it a solid holiday try if I didn’t make them something each December.

So on Monday I hauled my 3-year-old to the fabric store. To my surprise they had virtually no holiday-themed fabric — unless you were looking for Valentine’s pink or St. Patrick’s Day green.  Apparently we missed the holiday sale.

Eventually we found a few reams of Christmas-looking stuff and settled on a maroon velvet print. I also grabbed some satin gold and some gold buttons. I spent the morning cutting out and sewing my sons Christmas vests for church on Sunday.

When my 5-year-old got home from school he was so excited. He loved his vest and said that now he could be, “a real gentleman.”

Little did I know he wanted to transform himself into the epitome of gentleman. The next thing I knew I was in the kitchen working on dinner and getting ready to sew him a pair of black knickers to go with the outfit, when I heard the water going in the bathroom.

At our house, that is never a good sign.

I turned down the stove and poked my head in the bathroom only to find my hair styling gel bottle half empty and my boys’ hair shellacked to their heads. They had splashed water and gel everywhere in an effort to top off their “gentleman” persona.

At first I was really mad. I grabbed a brush and started combing my oldest son’s hair. Bubbles foamed as I ran it across the top of his scalp.

There was no way I was going to be able to comb through this one.

I have never used a blow dryer on either of my sons’ heads. They have always been nervous about its sound and the warm air. But I had no other choice. I didn’t have time to toss them in the tub so I whipped out the blow dryer and blew away the foam.

That seemed to calm me down and then it hit me. They hadn’t ruined their new vests and they hadn’t ruined anything in the bathroom. That’s when I started to feel guilty.

I felt like an evil stepmother who tells her child that they look hideous after they just finished “perfecting” themselves for a special event. I don’t ever want to be the kind of parent who puts them down when they are trying their best.

So I tried to explain to them that if they really wanted their hair to look extra special, I would be happy to teach them how to comb and style it — but we could use a heck of a lot less gel.

Sometimes I get too worked up over the little things. I need to realize that if I haven’t sewn my sons anything for Christmas and the holiday is less than a week away, it’s OK. Granted they loved the vests and I love making things, but sometimes it’s too much.

I also need to realize that losing a little gel to a child who wants to look like a “gentleman” isn’t a bad thing. There are worse things my sons could want to look like.

Next year I might not sew anything for Christmas. And I might buy them some styling gel to wrap for under the tree.

Merry Christmas!

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