threadmonster

[threadmonster]

The Haikyuu!! Fly High game hit the US app store earlier this week and I didn't expect that it would have English dubbing? I still prefer the JP audio but holy shit that's actually really cool????

[threadmonster]

It's been awhile since I started watching an anime as it airs. I want to read The Summer Hikari Died so baaaaaddd but I don't want to ruin the watching experience so I have to waaaiiiiitt

[threadmonster]

bonjour

[threadmonster]

So I've always written self-insert fics for myself because honestly it's therapeutic! But that also means that if I go back to read them it's suuuuupppeeeeerrrr embarrassing like "wow, I guess I'm a fucking idiot, [thing we worked through in therapy] should have been obvious. Damn."

Bonus: it was written over a year ago. It was. It was all right there.

[threadmonster]

As someone whose job is relevant to this topic I would like to add a couple of tips (some things may vary from state to state but these are federal laws)

For ER visits there is EMTALA, layman's terms, means that they are not allowed to ask for your insurance information until after you have been treated. This protects from potential discrimination

I don't know if this is part of EMTALA or not but you don't have to pay the copay upfront, especially if your insurance plan does not have a specified amount. (Your card may list ER visit copays). If your plan goes off of co-insurance (a percentage) definitely let that shit go through first. Unreliable. Then you're waiting for a refund.

There is also the "no surprise act," which is this funky little guy that means you have the right to know the estimated cost of your tests and procedures. Registration staff may not always be able to tell you what that amount looks like for you depending on how their software communicates with a specific plan. These are not perfect, so unless you know that you have a specified copay for some, just let it go through. If you are very concerned about the costs of an outpatient test/procedure, discuss it with your insurance. Yeah it sucks, but if you don't have it scheduled then hospital staff can't even give you an estimate.

With OP services, if you don't have medical coverage you'll likely be told to pay a percentage of the cost upfront to protect the hospital from not getting paid at all. Personally, I'm chill with "the cost is $1000, so we're asking for $500 today but I will literally accept one dollar or a penny or just straight up note the account whoops you forgot your wallet."

Sometimes you may be denied outpatient services for this, because again, the hospitals have to protect themselves from loss in non-emergent situations. But honestly, if you wanna say you have Medicaid pending or something, at least in Ohio, we can't ask you for money. The keyword is "pending" because I can't verify that through the program I use. On the front end we're too busy to even attempt to prove or disprove that.

Also! Definitely prioritize bills like housing, food, credit cards, and loan debt. Make sure you know what specific visits your payments are going on. If the balances go into "bad debt" aka collectors just shrug and move on and don't confirm any information with collections.

Post on my dash about medical debt reminded me of the time tumblr saved me two grand. I don't think I told y'all about it because I am out of the habit of posting everything I do on tumblr lol

So. Last December, I had a bad cavity filled, and about a week later, I woke up with half of my face paralyzed. Which, as I'm sure you can imagine, freaked me the fuck out. Fortunately I had some level-headed Discord friends who a) told me what Bell's palsy was so I could look it up and b) reminded me to call my dentist for an emergency appointment. Dentist was also pretty sure it was Bell's palsy, but urged me to go to the emergency room to get checked out, because one-sided facial paralysis is also a possible indicator of a stroke. And you don't fuck around with strokes.

Bell's palsy, if you, like me of 6 months ago, don't know, is a harmless paralysis/muscle weakness on one side of the face that can be caused by a variety of things. It usually goes away on its own after a few weeks but also you can speed up the process with steroids.

I was pretty sure I was not having a stroke, because I'm Red Cross first aid certified and I know the symptoms of a stroke, and while one-sided facial paralysis is one of them, I didn't have any of the others. Also, I had quit my shitty job in October, which meant I had a shiny new marketplace health insurance plan and hadn't even touched my deductible. But I called my parents from the car and they urged me to get checked out and promised to help me pay off the emergency room bill if I needed it, because they're good people and they love me even if they drive me crazy sometimes. So off I went to the nearest emergency room.

Emergency room staff also didn't think I was having a stroke, because I waited ALL AFTERNOON, periodically having a new person come up to me and ask me to smile, hold both arms out to the side, press down on their hands, and tell them what month and year it was. (They don't ask who the president is anymore. Hmm, I wonder why.) One guy had me drink a cup of water while he watched. I cannot stress enough that I did not have any medical tests other than a physical examination: no CT scans or MRIs, no IV drugs or blood draws, nothing.

I get diagnosed with Bell's palsy and given a prescription for Prednisone. And then they give me a phone number and tell me to talk to this person about administrative stuff. So I call, and the dude on the phone verifies my name and date of birth and insurance information, and then he says, "It looks like your copay today is going to be $2400. How would you like to pay?"

I am, to this day, kind of impressed that he didn't even stutter over that number, but I assume working in a medical call center drains your entire soul. At this point, it's about 7pm, and I've been in the hospital since 2pm, and I'm stressed because half my face doesn't work, and I know that I can't afford $2400 because I quit my shitty job with nothing lined up back in October. But, I still remember every tumblr post I've ever read about health insurance and the medical system and how you can negotiate down a bill. I am not looking forward to this process, it sounds like a pain in the ass, but the alternative is paying $2400, so I say the magic words: "Send me an itemized bill."

I kinda expected the guy to try and get me to pay up front, but he just says "Ok" and finishes up the process. I get discharged, go to the only open pharmacy at that time of night to get my Prednisone, have the pharmacist tell me the prescription isn't written right and he can't fill it, go home, and have a screaming sobbing meltdown because I have used up every single milligram of cope in my entire body. (I got my steroids eventually, and the Bell's palsy cleared up in a couple weeks.)

A few weeks later, I get the bill in the mail. I brace myself and open it...

$300.

Turns out, after going through insurance and processing and everything, they couldn't actually find $2400 worth of stuff to charge me for. Shocking! Who could have predicted!

I might have been able to argue it down even more, but I was fed up with entire thing, so I paid the $300 just to be fucking done with it. Sometimes the cheapest way to pay is with money.

What if I had paid that $2400 up front? Do I think they would have been like, "Oh, oops!" and refunded me $2k? Well, possibly, but I am not optimistic.

So, thank you to everyone who has ever posted about navigating the US healthcare system on tumblr. Because of you, I knew how to handle this situation even when I was tired and stressed.

Don't forget to ask for an itemized bill, folks.

[threadmonster]

Do people still say "hammer space" or has it been lost to the ages? (I was watching Sonic X earlier, that's the context)

[threadmonster]

People on TikTok losing their absolute shit about the "marriage announcements" when no one is citing the source has me wanting to scream.

My biggest thing with this concept is don't y'all go fucking disrespecting Furudate. He has put so much love and care and research into Haikyuu!!, no one gets to fucking say shit about any potential canon pairings. Honestly, people flipping out over Daichi being a cop was annoying enough. I don't know anything about the police force in Japan, all I know is it was definitely giving Americans projecting about the American police force.

Shipping in the fandom used to be so much fun, and I was literally so insane over every pairing. Like the rare pair blogs were my jam. But shipping in general is so... Awful...

This is not in any way the same energy from the fandom flipping out over Oikawa's knee or Nekoma losing to Fukurodani and worrying about the dumpster battle. This isn't fun to watch people lose their shit over.

And yeah, this is a stupid rant but it is giving me so much distress, mostly over the fact that idfk how people are going off like this without a single one of them citing sources. It's like having FOMO, except I don't know if I even want to be included.

It hurts to love a series so much and knowing it still gets new content, but being at a total loss as to how/where to find it.

At least with K, it's my own fault for not being up to date, because it's all actually very accessible.

So there's going to be a Haikyuu!! update on what the characters are up to these days and fans are just expecting there to be marriage announcements (?) is that correct? Hoping? Joking? Because I dunno here.

[threadmonster]

So there's going to be a Haikyuu!! update on what the characters are up to these days and fans are just expecting there to be marriage announcements (?) is that correct? Hoping? Joking? Because I dunno here.

[threadmonster]

....but was anyone else in the belief that "fanservice" is not strictly the pervy or sexy stuff? Or am I just... Bad at memory...

[threadmonster]

I take the headcanon "Mira is gay and is in love with Rumi" and raise you the more sophisticated "Mira is aro/ace and simping over a dude's abs is actually very aro/ace behavior, especially if she is more aro than ace."

[threadmonster]

Anyone else fuck with individual songs? Who is the artist? I dunno. What album is it from? Shut up. What year was it released? *tim allen grunt* What's the title of the track? Fuck you. But it goes like this: *poorly memorized chorus*

I love that song. Do not ask me anything about it.

[threadmonster]

I like how most of the fandom agreed that Psy turned the Honmoon golden back in 2012 with Gangnam Style.

And I love the silly theory that Psy is Bobby.

[threadmonster]

Me: "I want an ablation because I need to stop bleeding and that should be a quicker process"

Insurance: "actually, you're fine take this blood thickener that has more cons than pros for 3 months"

Me: "ookkaaayyy... Can we just remove the organs then? .... I'm... Genderqueer*?"

Insurance: "oh, yes, certainly."

Like I'm glad I'm getting what I want but what the hell???? I mean I already did a bunch of required tests too but.... Whatever man ┐⁠(⁠´⁠ー⁠｀⁠)⁠┌

*some insurance companies and medical professionals are scared of denying meds or procedures if gender affirming care is in the dx codes.

[threadmonster]

Happy birthday to Oikawa Tooru

[threadmonster]

Reblog to give prev the power to write their fanfiction

[threadmonster]

Guys, apparently my life is a slow burn fanfiction and I'm gonna need the author to wrap this up with a good ending. What the hell.