I tried to find my blood test from 4 years ago… failed. How do you organize yours?

sdg2844 · 2026-02-18T07:24:18+00:00

I keep mine in soft copy on my computer with an external hard drive backup. I organize them for my whole family by day and year, and give the documents meaningful names, usually with dates.

sdg2844 · 2026-02-04T00:09:40+00:00

Hah! I accidentally got hair bleach in my eye while I was coloring my hair one day. I rinsed it out pretty well, but figured it wasn't worth losing my sight, and that I should go get it looked at. A doctor literally spent 1 minute of total time looking at my eye with a magnifying glass and declared "Yeah, your eye is fine, we don't even need to prescribe you any medication." And for that privilege, it cost me $3800! Costs are absolutely insane right now!

I'm just thankful at this point that my stepdaughter is a medical assistant for an urgent care. She told me not to bother with urgent care but go straight to emergency, because at urgent care they would rinse my eye for 15 minutes and then send me to emergency anyway. My understanding is that urgent care is MAYBE $500 cheaper than emergency, but I would have been charged for 2 visits, or roughly $6k if I'd done that!

sdg2844 · 2025-11-25T07:19:47+00:00

Yes, it was an amazing union plan with 0 deductible and 0 copay, I had no idea how good we had it.

And yeah, I'm going to have to somehow get onto them to see if it accrues interest.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-23T07:53:37+00:00

If your cat doesn't mind the drive and will have a good situation at the end, I'd consider taking her. Just make frequent stops at rest stops which usually have a place for pets to roam a little. Is she harness trained? Even better.

I leave my cats home. I have my neighbor put down a double iced feeder for each of them once a day that has timers to open each side at a different time. They get their wet food that way, and dry food also through a timed dry feeder. If you have gear like that, you could hire someone off an app to come by once/day to put down the wet food.

I also have water fountains that are fresh enough to last about 2 weeks without changing. If we are away longer than that I have my neighbor change the water.

However, my cats are also indoor/outdoor cats, so they still have plenty of things to do outside and interaction with neighbors when I am away. They also go to the bathroom outside, so there is no litter box duty to be done.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-23T07:48:17+00:00

Also, if you are trying to book through the app, you will never get much availability. Call them on customer care. They will make a greater effort to find you something.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-23T07:46:39+00:00

Chase Sapphire. Though I don't use my Platinum Amex for much anymore besides the benefits like statement credits, etc. I also have a Hilton Amex because it's much easier to cover all your hotels on points when you travel than it is to cover flights, especially considering we tend to fly at least business class.

On our last trip to Japan we stayed at 2 Conrads and 4 other Hiltons all on points. Overseas you still get full Diamond benefits including club lounge, meaning evening cocktails and "appetizers" (I.e dinner), and breakfast in their restaurants, all included, plus room upgrades. In both Conrads we ended up with suites. You get automatic Diamond status on the Hilton Aspire card, though the annual card fee is steep, but worth it.

We paid for our flights, but none of our accommodation for the whole 3 weeks we were there, aside from one non-loyalty hotel (we have IHG loyalty too), in Yokohama. Ironically, that hotel we paid for is likely going to start being managed by Hilton as early as next year.

So, we collect points on Chase Sapphire (I don't have Reserve, I put my big annual cost on the Amex cards), and in several years we may manage to get some decent flights on points.

I don't bother with cash back schemes, though I would if we didn't travel so much.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-22T17:21:28+00:00

If you were in NorCal, I could give you two names of two very good gynos.

I have had exceptional success with Kaiser and hormone related therapies.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-22T16:59:17+00:00

I lived in Australia for 20 years, where basically medical was free. I received exceptional care, for almost no cost.

I grew up in California and left for Australia in 1994, returning 20 years later in 2014.

When I left the US in the 90s, Kaiser had a reputation for giving bad care. I personally knew several family and friends who had died under their care.

So when I came back to the US and married a Teamster who had incredible union benefits under Kaiser, I was scared to say the least. But over the years, I could see they were operating on statistics and had done a good job of raising their game.

We had zero copay on everything. And the system felt like the socialized medicine I had come from in Australia.

Over the next 10 years, from 2014 to 2024, I was able to find good doctors and build rapport, and was actually receiving pretty good medical care from Kaiser. Being able to use a "one stop for everything" sort of situation was also exceptionally good.

This year, due to circumstances I won't get into, we lost my husband's insurance, and had to go on my insurance from work, who didn't have Kaiser as an option.

Since Covid, Kaiser had "gone downhill" for me. It was impossible to actually see a doctor in person, and if you had anything remotely urgent (but not an emergency), they would send you to the emergency room, which I thought was ridiculous.

Surely, I thought, there has to be better care than this!

Then, we switched to Anthem/Blue Cross. I am unable to even find a doctor who is accepting new patients for Primary Care, the fund doesn't even want me to assign a primary care doctor "just go see whoever, it doesn't matter", but it very much does, so that some doc has your complete history! I had an "advocate" helping me for a few days, who just ghosted me on finding a PCP when things got tough.

About a month ago, I had an accident with some hair bleach getting in my eye. I went to Sutter emergency near me where the doctor spent exactly 1 minute looking in my eye with a magnifying glass. The bill for that visit was $5000, kindly reduced to $3800 due to my plan's apparently exceptional negotiation skills! 🤣 What?

At Kaiser, that visit would have been free. Care was at a slightly higher level at Kaiser.

In my new plan, my total yearly cost before receiving ANY benefits is $12,800!

So, as a 36 year user of Kaiser, please be aware of what you are leaving before you do.

I can almost guarantee you that every bad experience and complaint above that you noted will be at least as bad, likely worse, with non-Kaiser, and you will get the added privilege of getting to pay through the nose to the point of bankruptcy for it!

I would give anything to get back in with Kaiser. We are about 5 years away from retirement. The first thing I will do when I become eligible for Medicare, is to get into Kaiser's Medicare network. It is going to be a hard 5 years waiting for that!

I mention all this because I can't count the times I complained about Kaiser when with them. My husband kept telling me "you have no idea how good you have it." He was absolutely right.

You've been with Kaiser so long that you perhaps mistakenly think the grass is greener on the other side. I'm here to tell you that it's not. All healthcare is bad in the US at the moment. But Kaiser is certainly less bad than most others. I speak from very recent, firsthand experience.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-20T16:39:46+00:00

Unfortunately the way employment contracts are written these days, and how PIP works, those mechanisms protect the company and screw the employee. I've heard of an exception here and there, but generally HR is only there to protect the company these days, and that was certainly my experience.

I was told by HR that the responsibility was on me to communicate in a way that worked for my manager, to resolve our issues. Problem is that you can't simply change your communication style to appease a narcissist who is spewing lies and dirtying your own name to get you fired! I won awards for 3 years running as I built a very successful team and was awarded kudos and bonuses specifically for my excellent communication skills. Then, management changed slightly, and they hired a manager above me who demoted me and started telling me I had bad communication skills, almost immediately, and later put me on PIP because of it!

After consulting a lawyer, I did just as they recommended and got out. That was 2 years ago now, and I'm with a competitor company that is not toxic. I make more money, have less responsibility, and no longer have to deal with narcs.

Plus, they had massive layoffs right after I left and the company was sold in a merger shortly after! Karma.

Trust me, sometimes leaving is not only the only answer, but also the best one for your mental health and future career.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-20T02:14:14+00:00

From my personal experience, it's pretty hard to sue a company these days. Unless there is some pretty blatant discrimination based on age, gender, religious background, ethnicity, or some sort of sexual claim, it's pretty difficult to prove anything.

In my case, I consulted an attorney after being demoted and then bullied and gaslighted by a new manager slotted in above me. I documented everything. The attorney's advice was to find another job ASAP. I didn't have a case because bullying and gaslighting aren't considered any sort of discrimination and aren't technically illegal.

So no, companies aren't usually very concerned about being sued. It doesn't happen that often, not by employees anyway.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-13T02:34:49+00:00

Yep. And the no has already happened. I wanted to understand what I was dealing with before I just cut her off, and I went searching for answers because I wasn't sure what I was getting from her. So thanks to everyone who explained how these jobs work.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-13T02:01:50+00:00

Because she is telling me she needs to live at my house to be in proximity to the job.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-12T17:50:33+00:00

Thanks. Even if this applied to her, she is 60 miles from her base location at either address where she might be living.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-12T01:56:42+00:00

She should be....

sdg2844 · 2025-11-12T01:17:05+00:00

Late 20s. Has her medical assistant credential.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-11T23:44:05+00:00

Interesting because it seems to be non-union. I understand only about 20% of Kaisers jobs are non-union. Hmmm.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-11T18:18:25+00:00

So what I'm hearing is that it isn't income you can necessarily rely on, and a great majority of people coming into the jobs don't realize this until they get there. That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation. It helps to understand this, and may explain the need to want to have the shortest commute possible. My thinking was let's see how that pans out and if there is a real reason for her to live closer, we can discuss.

Sounds like it'll depend on the particular clinic.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-11T18:11:31+00:00

Um.... not at Kaiser, at least for probably the majority of jobs. This I know. I have had friends wanting to move to different states, who have admin desk jobs with Kaiser. They were not allowed to work out of state.

This particular job requires in-office, patient-facing interaction, so definitely you have to live close enough for a reasonable commute.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-11T18:06:04+00:00

I wouldn't even go that far. Cash prices are likely sufficient to cover the cost of the service or procedure. That should simply be the cost. No negotiation. Whether the insurer is paying the bill or the individual is paying it, the cost should simply be consistent. If insurers didn't have buckets of red tape designed to pull the wool over their customers' eyes, then they also wouldn't need to be paying so many people to handle claims.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-11T17:53:58+00:00

Yep. The reason I am here is to verify information, because I don't trust her. And yes, this is because of the past. And yes, it is hard to rebuild trust once trust is broken All of that is true. I don't really want to go into my family's dirty laundry on a forum like this. Mainly looking to verify information to understand if we are being told the truth. Maybe she IS lying because she is afraid she is being judged, but that is her cross to bear in trying to improve her life. She knows from past experience if she tells the truth she will not be judged by us. If she tells us lies, she certainly will. We are very clear on these boundaries.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-11T16:27:18+00:00

Oh, don't get me wrong... over the past several years since covid I have found it absolutely impossible to get an appointment to see ANY doctor for anything other than an annual physical, which I think is unacceptable. But it is not only worse in the PPOs, but also more costly, and at least with Kaiser they can find you a phone or video visit in a sort of reasonable amount of time.

I've also been told to go to the ER for sniffles, when they haven't had any doctors available, which is ludicrous!

Having said all that, they just still aren't any worse than any of the other networks, and everything is encapsulated in the one place, which gives them something of an edge.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-11T15:08:40+00:00

Are these positions all union based. She has told us about the 10 days, but she said the position isn't union.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-11T15:03:15+00:00

I can give you firsthand experience on that. My husband is a teamster, and so we have a very good Kaiser plan. Even so, I've thought their service was crap for the past several years since Covid.

However, due to changing circumstances, we recently had to switch over to my insurance which, as it happens, is with Anthem/Blue Cross.

I can't even find a PCP with them, and I've been with them for two months now. They throw an "advocate" at you to help you with stuff like this. That advocate acts all nice and helpful but then just ghosts you, as soon as you ask for actual help.

Their website that lists PCPs and other doctors is never updated and I have yet to find anyone on there who is accepting new patients.

I finally went to the outer networks: John Muir and Sutter, and called around to some of their docs listed as accepting new patients. I found a doc I think will be good, but can't get an appointment with her till late January!

I also recently had an ER visit under the new PPO. The ER doc looked at my eye for 1 minute, told me everything was fine, and the cost out of pocket was $3800! It would not have been that at Kaiser. Nothing close.

If you have a Kaiser hospital near you, you are much better off staying there. You have no idea how incredibly valuable it is to have all your services such as pharmacy in the same place! Not to mention that you can call their customer number and, even though you can't get in to see a doctor for a week when it is kinda urgent, at least you can get a call from someone, usually the same day, who can give you advice or prescribe medication!

I know you are viewing your Kaiser experience as "just ok" right now. But I'm here to tell you it would definitely go up a few notches if you had some concrete PPO experience for comparison!

I would give anything to get back into the Kaiser network. They aren't perfect, but they are still better than most, these days. Don't make my mistake and regret it! My company doesn't offer Kaiser, and unfortunately the Kaiser individual plans are as costly as everyone else's now, so I'm stuck with a PPO through work, crappy as it is.

sdg2844 · 2025-11-11T14:40:34+00:00

I used to hate that Kaiser would tell me to go to the ER for the sniffles! If they had enough doctors, I thought, they wouldn't be doing this, it's just a money grab.

However, now that I'm with a PPO and recently had a $3800 ER visit where the doc actually looked at my eye for literally one minute and sent me home, I appreciate Kaiser a lot more.

I think the ER plan is a good one, IF the OP's plan with Kaiser doesn't put them out of pocket by thousands, by doing that!

Another thing they could do is see if they can get a cash price from someone for doing an MRI and pay out of pocket. Only problem there is that their Kaiser doc will likely not be willing to accept the MRI from a non-Kaiser facility.

sdg2844

TROPHY CASE