Houston Running: March 2009

Houston Running

One of the leading sources for the discussion of Houston-area (and Texas as well) road racing. Focus and attention will be given to Houston-area runners, specifically HARRA members, that compete in outside-of-the-area events as well as those who do interesting things that aren't captured in the various media outlets, such as Inside Texas Running, Runner Triathlete News and Roberta MacInnis' Running Notebook in the Houston Chronicle (all fine publications and columns but with limitations too).

About Me

Name: WalkSports.com

Location: Spring, Texas, United States

I'm a mid-to-the back of the pack runner who probably enjoys promoting runners more than I do running myself ... I've completed 21 marathons (with a 4:47:32 PR! in Austin) and 52 half marathons (with a 2:09:58 PR! in Oregon) since November 2003 ... I've done a marathon in 12 states, half marathon in 23 and an event in 30 states and one Canadian province ... I have a 13-year-old daughter, Waverly Nicole, who completed her first half marathon in January 2006, made only two B's each of the last two years, was the only sixth grader to sing a solo (Carrie Underwood's Don't Forget To Remember Me) in their choir program (adding Taylor Swift's Tim McGraw in '08) and scored a 19 on the ACT in December 2007 as a seventh grader ... Waverly and I are members of the following clubs -- the Seven Hills Running Club, HARRA and The Woodlands Running Club ... I'm Marathon Maniac #308 ... I edit HARRA's Footprints in Inside Texas Running and write a column for Runner Triathlete News called, "Talking the Talk" ... I'm also the running columnist for the Courier of Montgomery County ... I'm a three-time winner of TAPPS' Sportswriter of the Year Award as well as TABC's Golden Hoops Award.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Need 2 Runners for Saturday-Sunday's TIR

If you can see this message and you can and want to run this weekend, PLEASE let me know!

Thanks, Jon!

Inefficiency in Government

Certainly this topic didn't surprise you, did it?

I work at a hospital and part of my Interim Director responsibilities is to be in charge of the areas involving cash, billing and our coder in the Patient Financial Services area.

One of the unfortunate things that we bill are for Sexual Assault Examinations. These are billed to the state's Official of the Attorney General (OAG). We do not bill the patient. (Yes, I know what they do in Alaska.)

When I came to the facility and an employee was just assigned this "insurance" or "payor", there were numbers of accounts that hadn't been followed up on timely to ask the payment source on why they hadn't paid the claim.

So in August, knowing that we had likely missed the timely filing deadline for payment, I instructed the biller to pull together all of the appropriate information nonetheless and submit it.

We just found out today - Wednesday, March 4 (*that* delay is normal) - that the claims had indeed been denied as we thought that they might be. (Yes, the hospital has to eat those dollars - and no, hospitals aren't making money hand over first.)

Our facility is less than three (3) miles from the State Capitol.

There were five (5) claims that had been denied.

We received 10 envelopes. Five of them were sent regular mail - approximately .59 - with a copy of a standard, signed form letter, the original claim and a copy of the policy with the offending portion highlighted.

The other five were sent certified mail. These were the originals (well, the letter was the original)! The cost on each one? $5.49!

They just spent $30 of the taxpayer's money when they could have called us and we would have gone and picked them up.

And you wonder why we have some of the problems that we do?