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Poor Ol' Rooster

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#1126

Post by Foggy »

I told y'all a funny story about how dangerous ol' Wifehorn is around computers, but here's the other side of the nickel.

One of her clients has a 14 year old son who has some sort of urological problem, and Blue Cross told her they only had one pediatric urologist in network, and she's a femalian, with pronouns she and her. But the boy didn't want to show his pee pee or talk about his pee pee to a lady (he's 14 :?) and if you go out of network you have no insurance coverage and it costs a ton more.

But Blue Cross was not going to cover it if he went to a male pediatric urologist, and that was their final decision. And mom was distraught.

So, umm ... whaddya do? How do you get a male urologist for your son? :confuzzled: :think:



Well, here's the ticket - you call ol' Wifehorn on the phone and tell her about it. And that actually works, because ol' Wifehorn 1) is a expert on this stuff, and 2) she cares. She really, deeply cares. And she spent an hour and a half with the lady, coaching her on exactly what she should do, which was complain to the state Department of Insurance, and exactly what she should say to get them off the dime.

And she did what ol' Wifehorn told her, and the Department of Insurance contacted Blue Cross and got confirmation that they only had one pediatric urologist in network, and they told Blue Cross that was inadequate network, and they got Blue Cross to add the male doctor the kid wants to keep seeing to the network just for this one kid, and Mom is incredibly, incredibly happy with the outcome, and ol' Wifehorn is a huge hero.

Heroine. Whatever.

And that's how she built a book of more than 600 clients without doing any real advertising. Our business grows by word of mouth, and you can imagine what that mom is going to be saying about ol' Wifehorn to all her friends and family.

Other insurance agents don't provide that kind of service.

A lot of them wouldn't have had a clue what to tell the client, and they wouldn't have spent an hour and a half training the client on exactly what to do and say (and she would have done it herself, but it's better if the client can do it). She does that - she goes the extra mile for her people - again and again, just because she has spent ten years learning how to deal with unusual situations, and she wants her people to be okay. She wanted to make sure that 14 year old boy doesn't have to see a female urologist, and by gum, she knows what to do to make it stop.

It's awesome to see what she does. :shock: ❤️
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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#1127

Post by Tiredretiredlawyer »

Brava!!!!!! Protectress of Health Insurance Deep Secrets and Amazing Advocate for Insurance Clients!!!!!
"Mickey Mouse and I grew up together." - Ruthie Tompson, Disney animation checker and scene planner and one of the first women to become a member of the International Photographers Union in 1952.
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#1128

Post by Foggy »

Yeah, and the thing is, this is at least her fourth or fifth different area of expertise in her life.

When I met her the first time, she was the top salesperson for Honeywell in our area (Southern California). We dated for a year and split for 6 years. :shock: The second time around, she was running a computer school for children (in '94, no internet in the shop yet). She became an outstanding professional florist for 6 and a half years, and then she did life insurance for a year, and then Obamacare began. She does life insurance still, but not much.

And she loves health insurance (I think it's :bored:).

I have literally - on more than one occasion - heard her on the phone with one of her clients, answering questions and providing really useful information for more than an hour, and her clients, AFAIK, are utterly incapable of asking a question to which she does not have the answer instantly.

I keep waiting for her to have to say, "Wow, I don't have the answer for that right now, let me look it up and I'll give you a call tomorrow."

But she has all the answers right in her head. And she knows a bunch of people in the insurance companies, sometime she gets stuff done that way.

Open Enrollment is over and done with, so our phone is only ringing 10 times a day, not 50+. So she has more time for assisting shy 14 year old boys, and it keeps life interesting for her until we can get back up to Bathysphere or wherever it is.
Edit: She knows everything (almost) about the structural situation regarding health care in our area. She can tell you off the top of her head which insurance carriers have contracts with which hospitals, and when they expire, which medical groups are aligned with which carriers, and what's going on in any negotiations for future contracts, and she just keeps her thumb on the whole industry in this area.

And she'll ask about your medical issues and tell you which insurance and which doctor or group you should have. She knows a hell of a lot more than just insurance now, and she's here to help her clients.
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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#1129

Post by neonzx »

That is very inspiring ol' Wifehorn goes above and beyond the basics and puts in the unpaid $ extra time/effort. Seriously.
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#1130

Post by Foggy »

I do back office. :oopsy: I spent the early years driving her all over the place, when we were desperately trying to find clients. I'm talking three counties and hundreds of miles, but we scraped up enough to get started and it's been uphill since then.


It's pretty funny, I also answer phones (and a lot more) but the clients know that if I answer, they can't talk to her for whatever reason. And it's like they lost the lottery.

"Health Plans Carolina, this is Bill speaking."

"Oh. :( Bill. :( Yeah, umm, I don't suppose ol' Wifehorn is around?"

"She's not available right now, but I can take a message."

"Oh :( ... oh, just tell her Maggie called." :mad:

*click*
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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#1131

Post by bill_g »

Fresh Foggy sighting!!!

Image
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#1132

Post by neonzx »

bill_g wrote: Sat May 20, 2023 11:27 am Fresh Foggy sighting!!!
The Green M&Ms have nothing on the fresh Foggy footwear! :mrgreen:
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#1133

Post by northland10 »

I am getting a chuckle from Foggy's avatar with the associated location.

I am not sure if this was discussed elsewhere. I have been running behind.
101010 :towel:
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#1134

Post by Foggy »

Off Topic
Yeah, I took the photo last Thursday on the way home from Wilmington, after delivering Numbah Two Son to his apartment, for summer school. The genius still doesn't have a driver's license. :roll:

Of course, it means 404 miles to the Tennessee border on Interstate 40, which goes through Tennessee and proceeds all the way to Bakersfield, California, home of *checks notes* ... Kevin McCarthy. :blackeyebig:

Bonus:

When I started the car moving again, on the freeway, after pulling off the road just to get that photo (and I have a much better *.dng version to work with elsewhere), I quietly said, "That was fun!"

And I looked over, and ol' Wifehorn's eyes rolled completely around in her head twice.

:cheer1:
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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#1135

Post by neonzx »

Foggy wrote: Mon May 22, 2023 2:37 pm
Off Topic
Yeah, I took the photo last Thursday on the way home from Wilmington, after delivering Numbah Two Son to his apartment, for summer school. The genius still doesn't have a driver's license. :roll:
:shock: We all totally need to focus on this young man. 14, driver permit, 16, license. LIBERATION!!! This is how it supposed to roll.

Then abandon fam for California in a VW bus. or sumthing like that. :batting:
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#1136

Post by Foggy »

Yeah, he's a genius, in case I didn't mention it. :roll:

And he did very well in driver's education all those years ago, but he didn't really want to drive, and his friends don't mind driving him around, and he lives within easy walking distance of the university, and he's a lazy pedipalp. So I drive him back and forth to the beach school. Where he does, in actual fact, get straight As for his grades, and he's getting invited to math conferences and stuff.

We're really super proud of him, but he can't drive a car.

I blame W4, to be honest. :liar: :lol: :biggrin:

She's not around, is she? :hide:

Hay, I drove his big brother to high school every day for four years (Numbah Two spent junior and senior year of high school at a boarding school). So a few times back and forth to Wilmington isn't bad. It's exactly two hours each way, unless there's beach traffic, and I avoid the beach traffic. It's a gorgeous drive, actually.

He'll be 22 in September. I don't think he's going to have his license by then, but :shrug:
Edit: Ol' Wifehorn: "You'd be surprised how many of his friends don't have driver's licenses."

Me: "Tsk, tsk, all part of the unraveling of the fabric of Western civilization." :oldman:
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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#1137

Post by neonzx »

Foggy wrote: Mon May 22, 2023 2:57 pm Yeah, he's a genius, in case I didn't mention it. :roll:
:snippity: :snippity:
If you thought I was poking fun at the kid, I was not. These are different times and in my day and your black and white TV days, a driver license was a right of passage sorta. Today not so much. I don't even drive much anymore -- less than 5k miles a year. I think I have the cheapest car insurance rates in Florida. I often use ride-shares.

But I still have my license. And drive my vehicle occasionally to keep everything lubricated. One day it is possible I will need to step in around some fudged situation.
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#1138

Post by Foggy »

In this we are on the same page. I got my learner's permit and my license on the earliest possible dates, and I have been a driver all my adult life.

The Moon is about 250,000 miles away, if the damned thing would hold still. I have a van parked out front with 220,000 miles on it, and I drove every mile, from 2006 to about 2015 (but rarely since then, but another 60,000 on the Camry). I have driven the distance from here to the Moon several times over, if it would just stay still. :mrgreen:

I can't imagine not driving. I hate being in the passenger seat.

I'm a liberal knee-jerk urban weenie, it's true, but I'm also a red-blooded American male, and that means I'm a car person. I started my adult life with the Compleat Idiot's Guide to Volkswagen Repair, a few tools, and a 1968 VW bus, upon which I learned to perform oil changes, tune-ups, brake jobs, and miscellaneous other things.

I owned, and worked upon, many, many different cars. In those days, a male American without a car (and a license to drive it) was like being in the Old West and not owning a horse. How the hell do you get around?

Yes, I hitchhiked. I drove across the country from one side to the other in six days. A couple years later, I hitchhiked across the country in four days. :biggrin: I got a million hitchhiking stories.

But I always preferred to have a car, when I wasn't homeless or anything. I still drive 4 to 6 hours a day on an infrequent basis.
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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#1139

Post by AndyinPA »

My granddaughter is 13 and has already said she has no interest in learning to drive. Living in the middle of the city probably informs that decision as, according to her, none of her friends is interested either. I read an article recently that says that's becoming very common.
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#1140

Post by Foggy »

Yes, our member Whatever4 is a non-driver, who hasn't let it slow her down for any of her wide travels. She came to visit us in Raleigh in 2012, just before the first Myrtle Beach Meetup, when my son was just 11 years old, and she was a living example that you don't need to drive a car at all in the 21st century. He was at an age where he was soaking up new experiences like that, and I reckon he took it to heart.

And if he was going to "rebel" against me in any way, I suppose this would be not the worst way to go. I'm a car person; he's not; and that's okay today. :think:
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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#1141

Post by Foggy »

My other grandfather, the one I never talk about, the lawyer ... had a home just north of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and another one in Key West, Florida, and he used to buy a brand new Cadillac every other year so he could drive back and forth from one to the other at 80 mph, back in the 60's. He wouldn't fly because he had been a pilot in World War One, when airplanes were a little lot more unreliable than they are now, and he had a few close calls like most pilots of the day, and after the war he never flew again.

When he died (in Florida) my grandma flew home with his body, and she started flying all over the world. She lived like twenty years after he was gone, and she was a hoot. :lol:

So I got my love of driving from my ancestors, which means I came by it honestly. :batting:
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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#1142

Post by Whatever4 »

Foggy wrote: Mon May 22, 2023 2:57 pm :snippity:
We're really super proud of him, but he can't drive a car.

I blame W4, to be honest. :liar: :lol: :biggrin:

She's not around, is she? :hide:

:snippity:
Edit: Ol' Wifehorn: "You'd be surprised how many of his friends don't have driver's licenses."

Me: "Tsk, tsk, all part of the unraveling of the fabric of Western civilization." :oldman:
I’m always watchin’ when I gets a heads up. :kiss:

Think of the money you are saving without a young man on your car insurance.

Was just up visiting Listeme and Verbalobe at the Rehabbin’ Cabin. After 10 years of sleeping in the kitchen, they’ve finally finished the upstairs bedroom and moved up there! The house is finished!!

We managed the trip fine without driving in one of the most rural parts of Maine. If Bob never learns to drive, he’ll be fine. Unless he moves to Boseman or something.
Optimism is a good characteristic, but if carried to an excess, it becomes foolishness.
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#1143

Post by Whatever4 »

Foggy wrote: Mon May 22, 2023 7:08 pm Yes, our member Whatever4 is a non-driver, who hasn't let it slow her down for any of her wide travels. She came to visit us in Raleigh in 2012, just before the first Myrtle Beach Meetup, when my son was just 11 years old, and she was a living example that you don't need to drive a car at all in the 21st century. He was at an age where he was soaking up new experiences like that, and I reckon he took it to heart.

And if he was going to "rebel" against me in any way, I suppose this would be not the worst way to go. I'm a car person; he's not; and that's okay today. :think:
Yep, never had a license. I did, however, drive a vehicle once. My dad decided that I needed to know how to drive in case of emergency. If I was out in the wilds of Central PA with my mother, for example, and something happened. So he took me out on a backroad that snaked by several farms in a somewhat roller coaster fashion. I make have run through a flock of chickens. When we reached the end of that road at the busier state road, we pried Dad’s fingers from the dashboard and promised never to do that again.

He’ll be fine.
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#1144

Post by Phoenix520 »

:rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao:
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#1145

Post by MN-Skeptic »

One of my husband's favorite stories was when he was probably about 14 years old. Growing up in small town Iowa, of course he knew how to drive at that point. Anyway, a farmer had driven his tractor in to the shop to have work done on it. His wife was working in the nearby town and couldn't pick him up and he needed to get home to milk the cows. So my husband's father - a mechanic at the shop - asked my 14-year old future husband to take the shop's pickup and drive the farmer home. He just told my husband to sit up tall (since my husband was 6'3" and broad-shouldered when I married him, I don't think that looking like he was a legal driver at age 14 was an issue!), and to drive carefully. In that part of Iowa, country roads would have 90° curves that you had to take slowly. Anyway, the farmer was so grateful that my sweetie got him home safely, he gave my husband a bunch of meats and sausages from recently butchered livestock. Even decades later, I could tell how proud my sweetie was for doing that favor successfully.
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#1146

Post by neonzx »

MN-Skeptic wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 12:24 pm One of my husband's favorite stories was when he was probably about 14 years old. Growing up in small town Iowa, of course he knew how to drive at that point. Anyway, a farmer had driven his tractor in to the shop to have work done on it. His wife was working in the nearby town and couldn't pick him up and he needed to get home to milk the cows. So my husband's father - a mechanic at the shop - asked my 14-year old future husband to take the shop's pickup and drive the farmer home. He just told my husband to sit up tall (since my husband was 6'3" and broad-shouldered when I married him, I don't think that looking like he was a legal driver at age 14 was an issue!), and to drive carefully. In that part of Iowa, country roads would have 90° curves that you had to take slowly. Anyway, the farmer was so grateful that my sweetie got him home safely, he gave my husband a bunch of meats and sausages from recently butchered livestock. Even decades later, I could tell how proud my sweetie was for doing that favor successfully.
Iowa, yeah. It is most entirely farmland/rural. That is why the driving permit age is 14. Some of these kids could not even see over the steering wheel. Those kids worked the family farms.

Thanks for the story. :towel:
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#1147

Post by keith »

Inlaws family story goes that when my FIL tried to teach my SIL to drive she drove it through the garage door and vowed to never drive again. Her oldest daughter never did either. The two are now liviing together and we get to be their chauffeur when required - which isn't all that often or onerous since Melbourne has a great public transport system.
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#1148

Post by AndyinPA »

The first time my husband tried to teach me to drive, I hit a bathtub.
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#1149

Post by jemcanada2 »

Whatever4 wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 10:13 am
Foggy wrote: Mon May 22, 2023 7:08 pm Yes, our member Whatever4 is a non-driver, who hasn't let it slow her down for any of her wide travels. She came to visit us in Raleigh in 2012, just before the first Myrtle Beach Meetup, when my son was just 11 years old, and she was a living example that you don't need to drive a car at all in the 21st century. He was at an age where he was soaking up new experiences like that, and I reckon he took it to heart.

And if he was going to "rebel" against me in any way, I suppose this would be not the worst way to go. I'm a car person; he's not; and that's okay today. :think:
Yep, never had a license. I did, however, drive a vehicle once. My dad decided that I needed to know how to drive in case of emergency. If I was out in the wilds of Central PA with my mother, for example, and something happened. So he took me out on a backroad that snaked by several farms in a somewhat roller coaster fashion. I make have run through a flock of chickens. When we reached the end of that road at the busier state road, we pried Dad’s fingers from the dashboard and promised never to do that again.

He’ll be fine.
We’ll have to create a Fogbow club for non-drivers! I’ve never had a driver’s licence either. I only drove once as well with a similar ending. :lol: :lol:

My boyfriend at the time thought it would be a good idea to teach me to drive so he didn’t have to drive if he’d had too much to drink. He was teaching me on the dirt roads along the canal. Not a good idea along a large canal (Andy PA has been to the canal in her travels). I scared him enough that he only let me drive once. :lol: :lol:

We won’t even mention the jokes about him teaching me to park when we got to the canal or watching the submarine races. :rotflmao: :rotflmao:
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#1150

Post by MN-Skeptic »

The only time I ever heard my father swear was when I was learning to drive. No, I didn't hit anything. But I was just 16.

My former boss' wife never drove, basically because she had absolutely no sense of direction. Even after shopping at the nearby mall for many years, she would get lost in it.
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