I don't even want to know how long it takes for some of my friends in that part of the country to get back to work - Mardi Gras started a little early this year.
The kids and I watched the game at a friend's house (they have kids my kids' ages so it lets me watch the game). Momma is stuck in Baltimore for only another few hours (hopefully) so the kids got a surprise extra day with dad. You can read that as you will - probably any interpretation of it is an accurate summary of the weekend ;)
Busy weekend for me doing the 3 kid single parent thing. Karate, soccer, basketball, church, clean the house, super bowl. . .all-in-all a good weekend.
Now, the lawyer in me is requiring that I place a disclaimer in the blog this week. Given all the hoopla over the phrase "Who Dat" and the NFL's laser-like focus on protecting its brand. I must emphasize:
when I say "who dat" I am using it in the common vernacular reflecting the Cajun/French heritage of the indigenous peoples of the lower Mississippi valley.
And by the New Orleans Saints, I mean not the professional sports franchise that is a member of the National Football League. Rather I mean the fine people of the great state of Louisiana who have been canonized and beatified by Papal decree after meeting the requirements laid out by Pope John the XV in the 10th century. And by super bowl, I do not mean the trademarked name of the championship game played between the top 2 teams in said National Football League; I refer to that event as the final game of the NFL season which, to the best of my knowledge, is not a trademarked phrase. However, should said phrase be later found to be trademarked or otherwise encumbered by some claim of ownership or artistic licensure, I hereby agree to refer to said game by whatever phrase is legally permissible at the time. In no way is the AGD, Dr. John Gammichia or any reader of this blog liable for my reference to the game and my descriptions of plays or commentary of the game is entirely a work of fiction and any similarity to plays, players or broadcasts of said fictional game is entirely coincidental.
Whew, that took me a good 7 minutes to compose - and I bill in 1/10 of an hour increments so that was billed at 12 minutes at a rate of $100/hour because I like you guys and am giving you my discount rate - so please remit $20 to the AGD Advocacy Fund in honor of that awesome legal paragraph.
OK, now that the legal particulars are out of the way. I thought it was a good game. Brees played good, Manning played good. The defenses played good. The Who played good. The commercials were 'meh'. Oh, and anyone see the really controversial Tebow ad???? OOOOO a guy joking around with his mom. It just dripped of political conservatism. Right after the ad I felt this strange urge to go out and buy a gun and join the Tea Party Movement.
Seriously, if the media hadn't played up the ad as being anti-abortion would anyone have even noticed?? I'm betting the Focus on the Family website got tons of hits over that ad. Apparently the adage is true, there is no such thing as bad press.
Dental topic, dental topic, dental topic. . .how 'bout dealing with patients that have insurance and trying to explain how insurance doesn't cover everything. Isn't that fun. Let's take a for instance using a fictional insurance company, let's call it Triangle. Now, Triangle Dental Insurance Company has separate companies in all 50 states. Then within each state is has a couple of different master plans. Then each of those master plans can be personalized to suit the employer that is buying the plan. This leaves the dentist with around 200,000,000 different coverage tables.
Now, said dentist sets up his practice focused on treating the patient, not on doing only what an individual insurance company allows. Accordingly, he takes routine x-rays 1 time per year on healthy adults and every 6 months on minors. More frequently based on caries risk. Fluoride is dispensed routinely to children and as needed to teenagers and adults based on caries risk.
Most of the time this is not an issue because most insurance companies pay for these treatments at this frequency. Then you get the outlier that apparently changed its policy to x-rays every 2 years and no flouride. Patient comes in that is a caries risk and you take radiographs and place fluoride because there are some incipient lesions that you might be able to remineralize. 2 months later the patient's parent calls upset because the insurance company says that the fluoride isn't covered and you have to justify your treatment.
I don't mind patients questioning what we do, it is my job to educate patients.
What I don't like is having to defend against an assumption that if it isn't covered it isn't needed. I know, it is an age-old problem, but I'm curious how your offices handle it. If you read this blog and are not a dentist, how would you like this to be explained to you?
That's all for now, the voices miss Susan and are ready for her to get home safely.
Have a great week.
ric
2 comments:
When the party of the first and the party of the third are sub servant to the party of the second and it's decisions,then the party of the first and the party of the third are destined to be disadvantageously influenced by economic issues rather than issues involving the health of the third party and the economic profitability of the first party thus placing both the party of the first and the party of the third in conflict with each other rather than the true villain of the triangle which is the party of the second which has it's own interest and profitability in mind rather than that of the first or that of the second party. In summation -insurance companies create a vacuum --(suck).
Anon 2:54 - well said
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