W-

WHAT

Yup, super handy trick to know!

tagging as reference for future me u3u

hey guys psa regarding hospital bills

don’t just pay it. do not automatically pay the hospital bill when you receive it. call your health insurance provider and POLITELY say, “excuse me, i just received a bill for $1200 for my hospital visit/ER visit/etc., is that the correct amount i’m supposed to pay?” because hospitals bill you before your health insurance and they will take your money no matter how the amount due may change based on your health insurance looking at it. 90% of the time, if your health insurance is in any way involved in the payment of that bill, you do not have to pay as much as the hospital is billing you for. call your health insurance provider first, and POLITELY request clarification, always remember that the person you are talking to is human and this is just their job, and then you will very likely find out you actually only owe $500.

don’t shout at anyone about it, don’t get mad, just understand that this is The Way Things Are right now and call your health insurance provider before paying the bill your hospital just sent you. there’s a chance the hospital bill might be correct, true, but call your health insurance provider.

THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT. after my car accident last year the hospital billed me ~$8000. They sent me letters asking me to pay, and I called them back saying my insurance was processing the claim. This is also what I told the collection agency when they kept calling me about the $1000 emergency room fee (billed separately from the hospital fee, mind you). Once everything got straightened out, all I was actually liable for was my $200 emergency copay.

!!!!!!! things my ass didn’t know !!!!!!!!

Yes this is a life lesson my adulting ass didn’t know I needed and I’m out 80 bucks for an anti-nausea pill. 😒😒😒😒😒

Reblogging for American friends.

Also, it is important [for people receiving medical care in the USA] to carefully read all of the items on the medical bill and look for errors and overcharges. I know that the normal feelings of avoidance and dread can make it hard to look at scary hospital bills, and that’s okay! But as the OP mentions, private orgs like hospitals don’t monitor overpayment of bills - they are motivated to charge you extra - and it is basically impossible to get your money back. Read the bill carefully and make sure that the charges are correct, using the links below for help if you need. If they haven’t sent you an itemized list, you can ask for one. Sometimes you will be charged extra for items or treatment you didn’t receive. Most people don’t know that you can dispute medical bills! But in 2009, Consumer Reports stated that 8 out of 10 medical bills scrutinized by a watchdog had errors, and generally you are not obligated to pay for someone else’s error.

You may be charged for using medication that you actually brought into the hospital with you - that’s easy to dispute! You may be charged for the consumables used during your stay such as sheets, gloves, gowns, etc - the hospital should actually cover that under its running budget. You may be charged for a brand name drug if the generic was available for cheaper - the links below explain how and when you can dispute this. You may be charged a surprisingly expensive “oral administration fee” (where a nurse puts pills for you to take in a little clean paper cup and then hands it to you) but that’s worth disputing if you were actually able to take the pill out of a bottle and put it in your own mouth. And so on.

8 Things You Should Know About Challenging a Medical Bill (FORBES) (includes links to sites that help you calculate how much a procedure/treatment usually costs in your area, if the costs seem super high)

7 Tips for Fighting and Paying A Huge Medical Bill (FORBES) This explains briefly how to negotiate costs, and payment plans.

10 Common Medical Billing Overcharges You Can Prevent (Bill Advocates) A breakdown of errors and overcharges to double check.

Check medical bills for errors: Overcharges are fairly common, and correcting them can save you thousands of dollars (Consumer Reports) More of the same with links to some groups.

ALSO After you’ve talked with your insurance and the hospital and gotten the “Things Insurance Will Cover” and “Screw Ups The Hospital Made” sorted, sometimes there are things that insurance doesn’t cover.

If you have things (like lab work or the like) on the bill that insurance won’t touch, talk to the hospital to see if they have out-of-pocket discounts! (a 1400 dollar run of tests was reduced to 900 because my insurance wouldn’t look at it) And, this is really important:

IF YOU THINK IT MIGHT BE DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO PAY, TALK TO FINANCIAL AID.

My mother worked as a top billing manager in Michigan for about 20 years and was with patient accounting, ER admissions, and other administrative roles for 10-15 years before. She helped to set up some of the rules and policies they use all up and down the East coast and was part of the team that developed the roving admissions cart.

Every last person in her patient accounting office, herself included, would work with someone willing to pay but unable to pay at once. They’d give discounts, work out payment arrangements, sometimes slash bills by over half if these arrangements were followed to the T.

Because, and I want you to understand this, THEY DON’T EXPECT YOU TO PAY.

You’re required to and you can be taken to court for unpaid bills. You can be garnished for it. But the people working in the patient accounting offices, if they’ve been trained properly and know how to do their job, don’t expect people with no insurance or without full coverage to be able to pay their bills. They expect bills to go unpaid. This makes most patient accounting offices some of the best places to find people that will work with your limited income or resources. My cousin had a thousand dollar bill from when she had her baby. She was only able to pay about $50 out of pocket each month and after a year of on time payments, the hospital forgave the rest of her debt.

And sometimes people in patient accounting will do that, but never expect it. I can’t remember the rules on that (it’s possible it has to go to internal collections first, but like I said, I can’t at the moment remember).

Always work with your hospital’s patient accounting staff. And if you get a bad one, unsympathetic to you and your needs, uh oh, the call dropped. Call back. Get someone else. Consider calling the supervisor, because people like that don’t last long in the job in the first place.

Hey there. 

I need you to stop and read this for a second. 

My best friend and I are creating an app to help closeted LGBTQIA+ kids in abusive situations. 

The app is finished, and we plan on submitting it to the Technovation competition in April. 

But there’s one problem. 

We can’t get the app to help people if we don’t have the data. 

The competition states we must source our own data through a survey, and if we don’t get enough participants, we can’t submit or release the app until we prove that there’s a need for it. 

We already polled our school’s relatively small GSA, but that gave us biased answers that weren’t enough to successfully draw a conclusion. 

Please, take this survey. No matter your sexuality, gender, preference, race, or anything of that matter. We need data to make this work. 

More importantly, we need you to make this work. 

The difference between this app helping people, and sitting in a trash folder on my computer is the amount of data this survey collects. 

If you can, please help us out. 

Hey everyone, I took the survey and it literally takes less than a minute. This is a simple and easy way to help out the LGBTQIA+ community. Take it and reblog! - Casper

@autismserenity can you help boost this?

You can get a Band-Aid to stay on your finger by cutting the sides down the middle and wrapping them across each other in an X shape. This method keeps the bandage more securely attached and leaves less wiggle room for dirt to get inside. Source

It is our duty as feminists to protect and respect women in Hijabs

Now. More. Than. Ever.

Question: if I see someone pull off a Hijab, what should I do? I know there are reasons they are worn so I want to if i should stand in between them and who did this, should i protect them from view somehow, or something else? This has been happening a lot so I feel it’s something everyone needs to know.

Good question! I cannot correctly and effectively answer, as I am a white, non-Muslim person; however, I will reblog in case any of my followers can answer. 

I asked my Hijabi friend, so here’s one Hijabi’s answer: 

“my opinion is, definitely try cover them or give them something to cover themselves with. And perhaps shoo off the person, without putting oneself in danger! God forbid, if that happened to me, I would like someone to come and comfort me and give me something to cover my hair with and then help me report it to the cops “

(Followers, if any of you are hijabi and would like to expand on this answer or offer alternatives, please do.)

If u see it happen to 1 of us, pls cover our head + hair with a coat or shawl or any piece of cloth, while hugging us in comfort. Please don’t get hurt by lashing out @ the perpetrators in any way, coz if they dare to do that, they’re probably too far gone in their own hatred to listen to any reason. Much love + Thank You to anyone who supports us.

yes !! everything said here is important af. if you see someone pull off a girl’s hijab immediately cover her hair and provide comfort. don’t talk to the perpetrator but try to get the woman out of there if you can. maybe if you have a scarf on you at the time give it to her so she can wear it until she’s alone and can replace her hijab. please please protect muslim girls because we already had it hard before donald trump became president and now its gonna be worse with people going around thinking their violence and cruelty is justified 

for my other white ppl who might have a hard time, it’s my understanding that a hijab is like a major item of clothing, not an accessory like a hat or a scarf. so think abt it more like if someone just ripped someone’s shirt or skirt off. u don’t want to be left there exposed or have to walk home without it.

everyone, even outside America needs to protect our Muslim sisters in these times.

this is such a good idea

Some bars also have a “ask for Angela” policy

Humans are capable of using echolocation to navigate, and people who are blind can experience heightened effectiveness of this ability. Many humans have learned to accurately determine the location and size of nearby objects by tapping a cane, making clicking noises, or snapping their fingers and then interpreting the reflection of the sound waves. Source

Have you ever tried to cast the perfect person for your character of color only to see the same couple of face claims over and over again? Well I have a solution for you!

Face Claim Diversity Presents: The Face Claims of Color Directory!

The directory can be found here!

An informative slideshow about memory and amnesia. Mostly because I had some requests. 

Other slideshows can be found here.

Also this has been sitting on my computer for at least two months I am so sorry. Still not medical advice.

hey just a wee thing if you’re an aspiring creator of historical fiction like moi

if you’ve ever sat down to write your story and thought ‘ok but what is the historical backdrop for these characters on this particular month, or this day, in this country, in this city’

the british newspaper archive [link] has literally millions of archived newspaper pages going all the way back to the 1700s

so if you’re like me and thinking ‘ok but what was going on in edinburgh in may 1914??’ this archive has got you covered, pal

Attention ALL artists!

You sure have seen this post. It has spread like wildfire over the past few days so I doubt there is any artist out there who hasn’t seen it. But even if you didn’t, you should read on because I’m about to tell you a handy little thing that can help you to protect your art from such assholes as the anon who submitted this bullcrap, as well as art thieves in general.

The magic word is Metadata.

Metadata is like an invisible signature that is embeded into a file. It can contain all kinds of information, like Title, date, keywords for online seach engines, and copyright information. And the best thing is, since this information is “hidden” in the code of your picture, it’s hard to remove it.

There is a nice basic tutorial on how to add Metadata, or “additional file information” to your images in photoshop. It’s really, really easy so check it out!

“Adding Your Contact And Copyright Info To Your Photos With Photoshop” on PhotoshopEssentials.com

I’m not sure if you can do the same with any other art program. If you know how to do this in other programs / can confirm that it works the same way there, please tell me so I can add the information to this post.

Adding the Metadata will not stop idiots from taking and reposting your art. It also won’t make them stop editing out your signature. It WILL however, help you prove that you are the original artist whenever you have to. Always remember my friends. You, the artist, are protected by law. No one has the right to take your intellectual property and hard work and repost, use or edit it without your permission. Ever.

SO IMPORTANT also here’s how to set photoshop to add the metadata automatically

idk I just love how we Young People Today use ~improper~ punctuation/grammar in actually really defined ways to express tone without having to explicitly state tone like that’s just really fucking cool, like

no    =    “No,” she said. 

no.    =    "No,” she said sharply.

No    =    “No,” she stated firmly.

No.    =    “No,” she snapped.

NO    =    “No!” she shouted.

noooooo    =    “No,” she moaned.

no~    =    “No,” she said with a drawn-out sing-song.

~no~    =    “No,” she drawled sarcastically.

NOOOOO    =    “No!” she screamed dramatically.

no?!    =    “No,” she said incredulously.

I’ve been calling this “typographical nuance” and I have a few more to add: 

*no* = “No,” she said emphatically. 

*nopes on out of here* = “No,” she said of herself in the third person, with a touch of humorous emphasis.

~*~noooo~*~ = “No,” she moaned in stylized pseudo-desperation.

#no = “No,” she added as a side comment.

“no” = “No,” she scare-quoted.

wtf are you kidding no = “No,” she said flatly. “And I can’t believe I have to say this.”

no no No No NO NO NO NO = "No,” she repeated over and over again, growing louder and more emphatic. 

nooOOOO = “No,” she said, starting out quietly and turning into a scream.

*no = “Oops, I meant ‘no,’” she corrected, “Sorry for the typo in my previous message.”

a good thing to do for your friends with anxiety disorders: if you have a question you need to ask them or something you need to tell them, explain the subject of the question/the statement in the same message as your opening one!

so basically: instead of saying “can i ask you a question?” and sending just that (which, as a person with an anxiety disorder, makes my anxiety go into hyperdrive) go “can i ask you a question about ___?”

it’s a little thing but honestly few things make me anxious like “i have a question for you” or “there’s something i need to tell you” without immediate explanation. thanks!

“call me, nothing is wrong, just wanna talk on the phone” would be so much better than “Call me.”

Actually please to all of this please.

YES PLEASE.

YES THIS OK????? Like I have trained my husband to say “nothing bad, I just need to call you because it’s too much to type.” It helps SO MUCH. Just let me prepare myself, because I guarantee my imagination will take me to much much darker places.

Might I add, if someone with anxiety has just said something to you that’s a lot to process, and you need some time to think about what to say in response, please consider a quick “I’m not ignoring you, I need to think about what to say and I don’t want to say the wrong thing.”

Because that definitely saves your friend with anxiety a lot of strife and assuming they’ve ruined your friendship forever. Nothing is crueler than a “Seen 2:25pm” when it’s 10am the next day and you’re waiting on a reply to a huge confession.

Normally I don’t acknowledge my anxiety very much but to any of my friends this would genuinely be helpful. Thanks 

I was turned down for a job at the place I was temping and just a couple hours later, a friend in the department that had turned me down had to go in to a meeting with her boss and team lead AND HR, and she had no idea what it was about. all they told her was that she could bring her union steward!!! (Translation: oh boy are you in a shit-ton of trouble, plus everyone will be prepared to discuss it except you.)

I was never so happy to have been turned down for a job omg

Attention Women

If Uber has ever made you feel uncomfortable or if you heard of or personally experienced sexual assault while using Uber, consider Chariot for Women.

Chariot for Women is very similar for women but it is strictly for women (and boys under the age of 13) and all the drivers are women. There are many security features established such as the driver must confirm their identity before every drive and there is a safe word given to the driver and passenger.

Also 2% of each fare is donated to women-focused charities.

The app is being released on April 19. I strongly consider everyone to check it out.

The article: http://www.dose.com/style/28133/Here-s-Why-Women-Everywhere-Will-Delete-Uber-On-April-19

Their Website: http://www.chariotforwomen.com/about-us.html

Please share for everyone to see!

ok but is it for trans women too or

nice

Making a comic in MediBang

@rinkhet

This would make things so much easier, where can I download it?

It’s free! http://medibangpaint.com/en/

osointricate:

to hell with adulting, most of this is awesome advice for surviving hurricane season in florida