Pat's Place

Wow, three strikes for medical billing technology over the course of just a few days.

First we have the insurance network that communicates the wrong contractual information about a provider, resulting in incorrect instructions sent to me.

Second there's the doctor who bills insurance from two years ago instead of using the card her office took pains to copy at my office visit.

And third, there's the billing system that made a cash copayment paid at time of service simply vanish (yes of course I kept the receipt!).

Today's musings are directed toward the Brown University Athletic Department and the Meehan Auditorium event staff. In recent years they have shown themselves to be hostile to team spirit exhibited by fans cheering for the visiting team. One year--and I was there to see this happen--they refused admittance to Cornell's Big Red Band, which routinely accompanies the men's ice hockey team to away games. All but five band members were forced to leave their instruments on the bus. Brown has gotten a little better since that time (they allow bands to bring instruments now), but...

I don't normally read the Boston Herald, but I saw a pointer to one of its article on Slashdot. The article is about the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety (EOPS) plans to roll out "Automatic License Plate Recognition" (ALPR) devices, and I'm a little concerned.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1353264

June 14, 2011

Scientists today announced news that our Sun may be entering a period of hibernation, interrupting its steady, 11-year cycle of sunspot activity and resulting in cooler temperatures on the Earth. Terrestrial climatologists have been scrambling to interpret the new data and relate it to their current computer models of global warming. According to these scientists, the results are not encouraging.

"Greenhouse gas emissions by industrialized nations have been trending toward improvement over the past several years," said one researcher, adding "we're going to reach an interesting point given the news about the sunspots."

Another junk charity showed up on my radar today. I'd love to know what list of suckers I'm on, and why, since I don't contribute to these lost causes. Today's call was from the New England Association of Chiefs of Police (NEACOP). Or rather, it was from their fundraiser, who receives 80% of contributions made, while beneficiaries receive only 3% of each contribution, according to their 2008 IRS Form 990.

In fact, the beneficiaries aren't even the individual, injured officers the telemarketer claimed...instead, the only beneficiaries in 2008 were the Special Olympics ($12,000) and The Jimmy Fund at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ($12,000). Both of these are outstanding charities, and I personally contribute to the Jimmy Fund. But if I want to give them $100, I'm going to write them a check for $100--I'm not going to write the New England Association of Chiefs of Police a check for the princely sum of...$3236.

Two days, two junk charities. Massachusetts Fraternal Order of Police continues to call me, despite the fact that they've never gotten a dime from me and I grill their phone reps every time they call. Today I got an EIN: 54-2075864. Plug this into Guidestar.org and you'll see a perfect picture of an organization that has no business calling anybody. In 2008 they took in just under $3M. And in 2008, they gave out $30,000 (yes, just over 1% of total gift money) across 30 scholarships. The other 99% of gifts paid for professional fundraising expenses and staff salaries.

And another junk charity tries to get money from me. A telemarketer for the "Foundation for American Veterans" called me, explained that they buy stuff for veterans, and asked me if I'd send money their way if they sent me an envelope. At that point I feverishly tried to get information from Guidestar.org so I could verbally throw some facts back at him. Too slow, so I fell back on asking for their IRS form 990 and pointed out that they're required by law to provide it to me on my request. The telemarketer quickly thanked me for my time and hung up.

Over the weekend Adobe announced a critical security issue in a few of its products. This is a particularly serious issue for machines running recent versions of Flash, Reader, and Acrobat, because it's easy to stumble across something that can compromise your computer: you can pick it up just by clicking on a URL shortener link (e.g. tinyurl.com, bit.ly, etc.) that sends you to a hacker's website, or by just unknowingly visiting a hostile website or opening an unexpected PDF file someone sent you.

I had a TSA Checkpoint Experience^TM at ACY (Atlantic City, New Jersey) last Monday. I made the mistake of wearing cargo pants through the checkpoint, not realizing that this article of clothing is a sure sign of a terrorist. I made it through the magnetometer just fine, but I was stopped upon passing through it by an over-zealous TSA agent. In my heart, I just know that the agent would rather have sent me packing, or made me run my pants through the X-Ray machine; and that he was disappointed that he had to settle for a pat-down.

Greetings LA Times,

I received your email asking me to sign up at your new website today so that I could continue receiving emailed headlines. I was a little surprised to see that you've set up single sign-on through Twitter and Facebook, and more surprised to see that you offered explanation neither on *why* Twitter asked me to make sure I trust you, nor what you would be doing with the broad access to my Facebook data that Facebook provides. (Yes, I read your privacy policy, and it doesn't seem to address the new signons.)