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Who the Hell is Complex Care Solutions?

I’ve found them to be remarkably annoying!

Who they are is a 3rd party vendor that works with many of the major health insurance companies.

They seem to be a bunch of paper pushers, whose job is to arrange things like in-home nurse assessments. Yeah, their name says it all. Complex Care Solutions, indeed adds complexity to your medical care.

In my case they forced me into some bullshit video assessment with a nurse practitioner.

After that one contact. Then they embarked on a campaign of twice weekly phone calls asking for me to review their service, or their nurse practitioner. They said they were gathering information for the insurance company. But I ask “Why?”

Surely that information was provided by my “Doctor” during our appointment, wherein he played on his computer for the entire appointment, but didn’t really examine me as a patient. In truth the entire appointment could have been handled on a video call and honestly the level of actual “care” I got, was about as impersonal or useful as WebMD.

They called again today mid-morning asking when my next Doctor’s appointment is.

Okay… That’s it!

Why do they, a third party, need to know that bit of information?

The insurance company will find out when they’re billed.

I called the insurance provider and asked what this was about. More importantly, I asked if this bullshit was necessary to the continuance of my policy.

Turns out, Complex Care Solutions can be cut right out of the equation. Which I did!

I explained that I was talking to Complex Care Solutions more than I talk to my own family. Every time I spoke with these people it was like I was talking to  my own personal mother hen. There may come a time when I’ll need their services but not today!

A) I’m not keeping my current Doctor
B) I’m actively researching and investigating new Doctors
C) I’d like to keep my private medical information, oh I don’t know… private.
D) They got real quiet when I mentioned privacy and cited HIPPA rules. Which thankfully I know due to previous employment (quarterly training will do that). They haven’t violated HIPPA, but as a patient, I have the ability to exercise at least some control over my personal information and who has access to it.

I may be over-reacting but it’s like they’re trying to rope me into some endless bullshit loop of living my life around the medical profession, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies.

Again… I’m not to that stage of the game.

But there’s another aspect to all of this. It’s billing. 

I said it to the insurance company. “Just because I’m insured, doesn’t mean that I as The Insured should abdicate my responsibility to control costs.”

I don’t need their service or the attendant annoyance or billing from their phone calls. Believe me when I say, for each time they call me, they’re getting paid.

I also mentioned that I was less than pleased with my (Doctor of record) billing the insurance company almost $1000 for that single appointment. That’s obscene especially since the “physical exam” wasn’t in any way physical.

I mean, what happened to the days when the doctor looked at your eyes, ears, throat, felt the glands in your neck, did a cursory exam of your skin, listened to your heart & breathing, in the case of men, had you drop trou examined your naughty bits, maybe did a DRE, ordered up your blood work, asked if there was any concern you had, then took a look, made some suggestions, told you if there was any issue the blood work uncovered he’d call you, then swatted you on the ass and said, “Go Play!”

(Okay, maybe they didn’t swat you on the ass,) but it was personal and when you left the place you at least felt like you’d been seen. Maybe you felt a little violated, but you at least had some reasonable confidence that a professional who’d seen thousands of bodies, had in fact examined you and didn’t see anything glaringly obvious that needed immediate attention.

Personally, I didn’t mind being buck naked in the exam room and didn’t bother with those silly paper gowns or any pretense of modesty. It was the same mindset as being in the gym locker room. Who cared? The Doc was doing his job and that meant he was gonna see ya, all of you, including parts of your body you probably haven’t seen.

Today What passes for an “exam” might as well be done in a freaking board room.

Human bodies are messy, organic, and sometimes downright disgusting. I think that’s why, when I wrote the check for a yearly exam, I didn’t mind the expense.

That Doctor probably didn’t want to see another naked body by the end of the day. But it was his job, and his education gave him the baseline normal to compare against. The fee I paid was exchanging value for time spent & experience.

My favorite Doctor, spent our first appointment asking me about every scar on my body. “How’d you get that? When?” If I showed up with a new scar, he’d ask what that was about and if I’d had appropriate care when it happened.

That’s an intimacy that’s been lost, it was being seen and it felt like he gave a damn about me, the human standing naked in front of him or his nurse. Granted, if his nurse didn’t need to see me completely nude, he’d say something like, “Pull your boxers on, I’m going to need my nurse to…” do whatever needed doing.

Admittedly, I was comfortable putting my life in his hands because we had a relationship that was personal, and not based on how many billing codes he could tic on a form.

I knew he was a “Cookie Monster” with a fondness for home made chocolate chip cookies, well anything chocolate. I knew he performed in the Pagent of the Masters in Laguna Beach. I knew he was an avid bicyclist, and that often he’d bike to work. I knew he took his profession very seriously and when he lost a patient to illness it was personal to him. I knew his first whole name, and if I encountered him outside his office I never introduced him as “Doctor”. He was Tom. Why? Because if anyone knew he was a “Doctor” there were always people that tried to get free medical advice. If we happened to be at a social event I, among others kept an eye on him and would be rude to someone that had him “cornered” talking shop. He was respected, and he took care of a lot of my friends too. The man referred me when necessary, to other doctors that worked on him. If he trusted them, then so could I.

There’s nothing quite so comforting as coming out of anesthesia and seeing “Your Doctor” at the foot of the bed conferring with “The Doctor” that did a procedure on you. I remember snippets of their conversation. “Wow he’s got a mouth on him!”, “Yeah, but he’s a good guy, anything well need to follow up on?”, “Nah, he’s good, you might want to make a note that he’s cranky with this type of anesthesia.”, “Okay, thanks. I’ll hang out for a few minutes to see he comes out of it okay.”, “Hey thanks, I’m going to check on my next patient, we still on for… RIY&#%*^@ this Sunday?”, “huadiry7%$#3”

Then “My Doctor” prying one of my eyes open, “Hey, there you are… They’ve got you on O2, it’s the good stuff so breathe deep. There you go, nice & slow, trust me it’ll help clear your head. Apparently you were searing like a sailor at some point.”

“Muff uhh, probably like a Marine Doc. My friends… all Marines.”

I still remember his chuckle and the warmth of his hand on my forehead telling me to take it easy before I started moving around. 

He was a healer, a man I trusted and no matter what, I knew he’d see me through.

That bond of trust, and confidence is missing these days. The humanity has been bled out of medical care.

Now it’s about how many different Doctors can get their finger in the insurance scam. How much can be billed and that’s dependent on sheer numbers of patients. At the same time the rates keep going up for less time spent with a patient the insurance companies keep jacking their rates, and plugging in more “services” that add nothing but opportunities to bill.

I’ve digressed, but I think it’s really important to remember what the title “Doctor” once meant. The profession was once about humanity, care, respect, and dignity.

When was the last time you felt like baking, individually wrapping, and labeling 2 dozen cookies with ingredients, then delivering them to your Doctor’s office before a holiday?

When was the last time you had your Doctor compliment you on weight loss, increased musculature, quitting smoking, your baking skills, or a custom holiday card made up of a photo you’d taken?

When was the last time you felt you’d been seen?

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Microsoft, you’re dead to me.

There’s an article from Nikkei Asia saying that Microsoft will be investing 17.5 billion in Indian data centers. 

Fine, meanwhile back home Microsoft is laying off 9000 American workers while bringing in 6000 H1B workers.

Windows 11 and the recent “improvements” to Office have made both annoyingly complex to work with. There are a lot of companies that rely on Google’s cloud based office type products instead of paying the fees for Office.

If that’s the direction, then your desktop computer is becoming nothing much more than a terminal to the cloud. 

Old terminal.I’m old enough to remember a time when terminals to IBM 360s or DEC systems were the norm and desktop computers were the rarity.

In those days the terminals had zero computing power and the Mainframe or Mini computer was housed in the corporate data center in the basement.

We’re slowly coming full circle.

In the early days, desktop computers were a “Threat” because each computer could have data on it that was not backed up and that the corporate data center had no control over. The advent of networking, servers, and distributed corporate systems ended the days of the Mainframe operators holding department data hostage until they got around to processing it.

Now the “Cloud” is replacing corporate servers and in many ways it makes sense.

Cloud based computing means that the data is once again all in one “Thing”. Desktop and laptop computers don’t have to be as powerful, they don’t need as much memory, or hard drive storage. Corporations don’t necessarily have to have servers on site and overall it means the cost of operation is cheaper.

It makes sense. In fact, I’d imagine that a corporation can get away with a smaller IT staff too. There’s also the matter of data security. 

Most of the data breaches that I’ve been involved with were caused by someone carrying data on a laptop that got stolen.

The data shouldn’t have been on the laptop in the first place. These breaches were usually caused by an HR moron who thought they needed the entire unencrypted employee database with them at all times.

Although there was one breach that originated in a freakin StarBucks. That too was an HR moron, drinking her latte who clicked “Accept” to enable communication from an unknown person via a messaging application. In that case she dumped the entirety of  corporate emails, the employee database and her own financial data to a “BlackHat” who then sold the data to fraudsters.

She lost her job, after trying all the usual excuses, “I didn’t know, I didn’t understand, Well having the data on my computer was easier, blah, blah, blah…”

The company lost it’s edge since all of the projects and hiring needs associated with them were public knowledge. The company employees were poached by competitors and shortly thereafter the company itself went out of business.

Turns out, “Loose Lips sink ships”. Who could have known that?

From a security and maintenance standpoint I can see the allure of putting everything in a secure cloud. If indeed the cloud is secure. 

I question that security with data centers, wherever they are located. Physical access to even a Cloud server allows for the data to be stolen. So the data center itself presents an access point for thieves. Security is about minimizing risk, but nothing is ever totally secure.

I suppose blockchain encryption would make the data simply too hard to crack but if the data is at any point unencrypted, it’s game over.

Which brings me to Microsoft and its Indian data center.

The problem with cloud storage is that you don’t know where your cloud storage physically is. I personally don’t like having my personal data floating around in India. The vast majority of scammers happen to be located in India. The possibility of my data being stored in a cloud, located in India worries me. 

How long until some scammer goes to work at the data center and plugs in some device that creates a breach? It would be a gold mine!

No more stupid phone calls to elderly people getting their bank account numbers. No more silly screens popping up on computer screens claiming, “Your computer has been infected”. 

The data just flows out of the Cloud data center un-noticed, and boom a million people suddenly have all their personal data exposed and being used for criminal purposes.

But there’s another aspect to Microsoft firing American workers and replacing them with H1B workers, in addition to having potentially criminal people with common interest at both ends of the data pipeline.

It’s their programming style. 

Windows 11 and Office do not use typical American thinking.

Americans tend to think and act directly. We generally don’t have the patience to dig through misnamed or misleading menu items.

If we’re looking to highlight a block of data then transform it, we expect the transformation options to be at the top of the menu we open. Indian programming is much more florid.

If we ask what time is it, we’re not interested in specifying what time zone we’re in, nor are we interested in the history of horology. Just tell us what time it is.

Windows and Office have become far too florid providing endless options and nuance when we want to do something simple. Their copilot AI is always prodding and suggesting instead of getting out of the way to allow us to change a damn font, or paragraph style. I don’t want to review the paragraph, or re-contextualize, summarize, or re-write it. I wanted to justify it left and right.

Word for example had become too “Busy”. In my case it got to the point that I’d write something in a text editor then open it in Word and apply formatting. The reason was that all the little highlights, and suggestions actually distracted me from what I was trying to put on paper.

Even WordPress has gotten too annoying to use in live mode. Most of my blog posts, I’m writing with an older style program because WordPress “Blocks” are a pain in the ass if you want to insert graphics. It’s easier and more direct for me to write and insert graphics in the older style than play around with inserting a graphic as a block then resize it, then flip through 3 menus to place it.

This is coming from a guy that knows at least half a dozen desktop publishing programs, and has published periodicals, manuals, and books.

When I want a desktop publishing application, I’ll choose to use a desktop publishing application and access all the power of that application. For a normal letter, email, or blog. Just let me put my thoughts on paper. If I want additional input, I’ll ask for it.

Apple is heading in the same direction and at some point I can see myself eschewing Microsoft and Apple OS in favor of something like Unix or Linux.

I’m not saying that Indian programmers are bad, (I don’t particularly like working with them, because its sometimes annoying and difficult to communicate simple issues,) I’m saying that their thought process is overly complex and that translates to a level of complexity in their programs that I don’t like.

Trite as it sounds, I prefer an America First method of programming. 

Simple, direct, straight forward, minimalist, and functional.

command prompt.PNGIn many ways, I miss the old days of a Terminal interface.

I deleted Windows 11 from my emulation program on my Mac. I don’t recall how long ago that was, but I’ve not missed it or had need to use Windows 11.

Similarly, I didn’t renew the subscription I’d had for Office sometime last year. Again, to my surprise, I found that I didn’t miss Word, Excel, Powerpoint, or Microsoft Mail. All of them had become too weird, too complicated, and frustrating.

I realized that I’d actually stopped using the Office applications because more often than not, I just wanted to do something quick and knew that whatever I wanted to do was gong to take far longer than necessary if I used Office.

In many cases, using the built in Apple TextEdit program gave me formatting and font selection that was more than sufficient for a quick letter. I didn’t even fire up Apple Pages. So when Office renewal came due, I thought, “Why am I paying $99 a year to be annoyed and frustrated when writing a simple letter? Moreover why am I paying for applications that are bloated, (typically 1GB or more) that are not my ‘Go-To’ applications?”

That was the end.

As an aside, Windows 11 also contains a decent text editing program, baked in.

Microsoft, firing Americans, then hiring H1Bs is simply the icing on the cake. I know there are those who’ll say, “But dude, you’ve got to know Office applications.”

Really? Considering that I’ve used every version of Office, since before they were bundled and started with word processors going back to old IBM MTSC systems. Plus I’ve done typesetting and publishing, I think I’ll be able to catch up if, in the unlikely event I get a job that required me to use the Microsoft Office suite. Unless they start writing the menus in Hindi.

Thinking about it Microsoft hasn’t done much in terms of really new or interesting things is a while. I guess that’s why typically I don’t think about them unless I see an article about them, or I run into comments in computer journals complaining about Teams, or Copilot.

Apple should probably take note. 

It’s actually possible to program yourself into irrelevance. OS27 had better be a clean up of bugs, and a simplification of operation across the OS and all the Apple features & Apps.

Otherwise, Mac hardware will be of little value if everyone can buy an Intel PC for $100 then put Linux on it & have a simple, functional and powerful OS without all the bullshit.

Just a thought.

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We really dodged a bullet in the 2024 election.

As the scandal continues to explode around the Minnesota Somalis I can’t help thinking that this would be so much worse if Tim Walz was the Vice President.

I suspect that D.C. The Harris/Walz administration, and the media would be tying themselves up in knots trying to brush it off as a conspiracy theory, misinformation, or they’d be censoring the hell out of it. In any event, not much actual work of government would be getting done because they’d be fighting fires.

Whistleblowers are coming out of the woodwork saying that Walz and others in Minnesota literally ignored irregularities that they were reporting. Some of those whistleblowers are saying that they suffered threats, intimidation, and retaliation for doing their jobs to protect taxpayer money.

Last I heard we’re talking 1 billion dollars in fraud. Some reports suggest that the amount could be higher. 

Like other Americans, I’m asking how the hell that kind of fraud could be ignored. It begs another more concerning question though…

How much fraud is there in other states is connected with the influx of illegal immigrants or more generalized state fraud.

The government shutdown shined a light on EBT/SNAP fraud. It also scratched at the surface of the festering scab of Medicare/Medicaid, and insurance fraud.

Which leads me to ask, “How much of our horribly unbalanced national budget is fraudulent to begin with?“

The IRS comes after average citizens for $600. I guess that makes sense, if you’ve got billions in fraud, then you’ve got to find more money somewhere.

The thing is, it looks like this kind of fraud has been going on for years, possibly decades and we don’t really know how far it goes. 

That continuing resolution Congress just passed is probably still funding this kind of thing. I expect the next budget fight will be contentious and will shut the government down for another extended period. Perhaps it should. With these revelations, I hope that Congress actually does its job and manages the purse strings instead of kicking the can further down the damn road.

It also adds fuel to the fire regarding illegal immigrants. Given what we’ve seen with the Somali fraud, it seems reasonable to look very closely at every immigrant “service” to figure out exactly how much of our annual budget is being sucked up by supporting illegal immigration via NGO’s.

I think It also galvanizes a more nationalistic view on the part of the American people.

We’ve asked for years, “Why are there veterans homeless? Why are the elderly having to choose between their medication and food? Why is it better to be an illegal immigrant in the United States than being a citizen in terms of monthly stipends? How is it possible that Social Security is going broke?“

Now we have at least some inkling of what may have been going on.

If I were an illegal immigrant, I’d be packing my bags.

I think as this scandal expands, so will the ICE mandate. Whereas now ICE clams they’re targeting criminal illegals, I’m betting that soon it will be ALL illegals whether or not they’ve committed subsequent crimes after their first infraction, (crossing the border without permission).

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Wow! The UK is really going hard

Saw an article this morning that astounded me.

The UK is delaying elections again. (Is this a prelude to not having them at all?)

And they’re going hard on AI powered surveillance cameras everywhere, not just in the cities.

This comes in the wake of the UK suspending trial by jury for almost everything but big crimes.

Meaning that if you’re arrested for using offensive language, in public, online, or anything else, you’re sitting in front of and being judged by only the magistrate. Holy shit!

That’s scary and with their two tiered justice system you’re screwed for expressing your opinion. 

For instance, the UK has no problem arresting someone who speaks out against the flood of immigrants, or against the rape of a British child by some 3rd world migrants who think it’s perfectly fine to rape a child if she’s inappropriately dressed or they just need to bust a nut.

What the hell has happened to the UK, other than they’ve gone full on 1984?

More concerning is; Will this be a template for the United States?

Maybe, maybe not. Trump seems to be in full on deportation mode and I suspect that he’s going to start flushing Islam out of our country.

Between the Somali Billion dollar taxpayer scam, Dearborn’s call to prayer, the Islam only city that the Islamists tried to build, and the Afghan “refugee” that killed one National Guard soldier and severely wounded another on the street in Washington D.C. Plus the discovery that the Biden administration apparently didn’t vet millions of immigrants that they claimed to have… It’s possible Trump might just say “fuck it” and kick them all out.

I don’t know if he can, but if DHS moves fast enough, they might be able to purge the infection before the courts and Washington Democrats can react. So once these people are expelled, perhaps all the politicians will be able to do is yell about it.

I’m actually all for it. I’m sick of walking in a shopping center or a mall and hearing zero spoken English. Now if we can only change his mind about H1B visas.

I think that Americans seeing what’s happened to the European Union might take it as a cautionary tale. Trouble is that there is fully half the nation that’s still under the impression that these immigrants are just innocent people looking for a better life. Yes, there are probably a fair number of folks that fit that category, but there appear to be a lot more that don’t.

And why is it that so many of them appear to be fighting aged men? What about their families? One thing that might work really well would be to deny all outbound cash transfers from the US to foreign individuals.

If people can’t send money to their country of origin then that might “sour the milk”, so to speak.

Our banking regulations prevent Americans from sending large sums inside the country without IRS and treasury inspections. So how the hell are these “Refugees” allowed to do it?

Come to think of it, that might also put a real crimp in the scammers operating in India and other countries. They’ll not put in the effort if they can’t get the cash out of a 90 year old grandma.

I don’t know where we’re headed and I am very concerned about government over reach. That being said, I think it’s time we stop hemorrhaging money, especially when that money is being used to fund people and countries that hate us and want to see us destroyed.

Maybe it’s time for the government over reach that’s been turned against Americans for so very long, to be turned against the people that actually have malice towards us.

 

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That was a surprise.

Majorie Taylor Greene has resigned from congress.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. In many ways she’d become a distraction and in other ways I think she was really trying to make things better.

Her epic confrontations with Jasmine Crockett were always amusing. She’s someone I’d really like to see gone from Congress too. She might have overstepped herself with the latest gaffe about the Dr. Epstein that contributed to Lee Zeldin’s campaign.

Crockett is trying like hell to walk it back but everyone knows she was trying to conflate Dr. Epstein with Jeffery Epstein. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people, really stupid people, that will run with Zelden accepting money from an Epstein and believe that it was the bad one. Now it looks like Crockett will retain her congressional seat because the Texas redistricting wasn’t good enough. That’s a pity because Crockett is one of the most unlikable, nasty, uninformed members of congress. She really needs to go.

MTG bailing as she has, reminds me of a local guy that used to represent my district in congress or the senate. He went to Washington trying to help, I believe he really wanted to make things better but after one term he threw in the towel. Rumor was that he got to Washington and realized that none of Congress was about doing the right thing for the people. He came back to California and got elected as a supervisor where he can actually do some good. Small as those achievements are with the state of California politics.

Jasmine crockett shouting 323714118.I hope MTG does well in whatever she chooses to do after she resigns.

I’ve been amused at the democrats being all pissy about Trump and others calling out their stupid “PSA” telling our military not to follow illegal orders. 

The subtext was that Trump is giving illegal orders and the military shouldn’t follow those orders. While Trump may have given some questionable orders, thus far they haven’t been illegal or immoral. That, as I recall is the test the UCMJ calls out.

Which means these idiot politicians are technically calling for a coup d’ état. By definition that makes what they’ve said treasonous. 

Of course they’ll never face trial, much less the punishment for treason. Honestly, I think they should. 

Back in World War II, there was a phrase, “Loose Lips sink ships”.

It was cautionary to remind people that loose talk could have dire consequences. If perhaps these politicians faced trial over their loose talk maybe it would cool down the rhetoric. So would a firing squad.

To be clear I’m not suggesting that anyone take up arms against these politicians. I’m suggesting that they be tried, and if convicted, they pay the price.

In their little “PSA”, these politicians claimed they’d have the soldier’s backs. That is an outright lie. These politicians are the same politicians that would think nothing of the soldiers they fed into the gristmill of war. These people would happily deploy American Troops to Ukraine and embroil us in a war with Russia.

They also have zero direct control over UCMJ proceedings and could only “Advise”. In other words, they not only wouldn’t have soldier’s backs, there is no way they could have soldier’s backs. But they’re more than willing to disrupt chain of command, and destroy careers for their personal political gain.

I personally find that despicable. Which is why I’d love to see them put on trial.

In the California Governor’s race, we’ve gotten a field of Democrats, all of whom are somewhat questionable. That being said, the Republican candidates aren’t especially stellar either. Once again, the people of California will not have a decent choice for Governor, not that it would matter anyway given the California Legislature will still be majority “Tax and Spend” Democrats. These folks implement policies and programs that don’t work, then continue to throw money at demonstrably failed policies and programs. 

Honestly, if they showed the slightest bit of introspection and pulled back from failures I’d be fine with them being in power. But they don’t. They continue to burn money and then actively defy any voter initiatives that they don’t like. To my way of thinking, that’s not representational governance, that’s simply living in an elitist fiefdom.

I, and I suspect a lot of America wants to see accountability. I even believe that if that accountability were to be equally distributed on both sides of the “Party Divide” it would go a long way toward healing and unifying the country.

I’m sincerely hoping that now we have the disclosure pending regarding the Epstein files, we’ll see some well deserved prosecution. I’m not holding my breath mind you, but I still have a sliver of hope.

I’d like to see trials and prosecution about the whole COVID debacle too. There were a lot of people who got rich from that mess starting in Washington and going all the way down to the local levels.

In short, I’m done with “Hearings”. Now I’m about justice, retribution, and punishment.

If that means politicians across the nation being arrested and held without bond because they’re flight risks, I’ve got my popcorn ready. Hell, I might even sign up for cable just to watch the nightly recaps of the trials.

Again, I’m not holding my breath. Sadly, I don’t really believe in the judicial system anymore.

On the plus side, the Supreme Court refused to hear a case that would overturn Gay Marriage. So there’s that. Oddly, the Liberal Democrats have been largely silent on it. Just a year ago, they were saying if Trump got into office, he’d undo Gay Marriage. 

Where are those politicians and pundits now? Why aren’t they lauding the SCOTUS decision?

Oh right… They just wanted to terrify the LGBT(insert alphabet here) community into voting against Trump and keep them on the streets protesting.

Aren’t all of us tired of being “Used” by politicians yet?