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Simulated aggravation only; This is me pretending to be the abominable snowman at the Salt Lake City library
Warning: this is a rant. If rants bother you, please skip.
Kate attends a special district-sponsored speech preschool once a week. Since it is a public school thing, she needs proof of immunizations which I dutifully collected last spring. Recently, I was annoyed to get a notice stating that she would soon be excluded from school if she didn’t provide proof that her immunizations were current. I called her pediatrician’s office and they reassured me that she is up to date and won’t need more shots until she enters kindergarten. I tried to contact the nurse to learn if there was some mistake–but this proved to be difficult–she is only there once a week! By the time you forget once, and remember after 3 p.m. once, well, it’s about time for them to start excluding your student from school. Thankfully, today I finally reached her. She explained that Kate’s records were unacceptable because she had a record of receiving only 3 of the Hib vaccine and Kate now needed a fourth. I begged her to stay on hold while I called the pediatrician’s office. (I can’t believe how easy it is to make a conference call on my new cellphone. Very cool!) With a surprisingly short delay, I soon got a nurse on the line who confirmed again that she was current on her immunizations and had had all 4 Hib vaccinations at this point.
Then the sticky part: the school nurse needed the date of that 4th immunization. The nurse refused. Because of HIPAA, she could not disclose the date of that immunization. Her explanation was ludicrous: someone could steal Kate’s identity with that information. Um, no. Look, I don’t want you to tell me her birth date or her social security number, all I want is one piece of information: What was the date of her 4th Hib shot? No way. The nurse was adamant. I could make a copy of my photo ID, download a form from their website, and fax it to them, or I could come in person to their germy office with my photo ID and fill out a form and pick up their printout. I said thank you, far too curtly, and ended that part of the call. [Pmom: Please remember it is not right to take regulation aggravation out on the messenger. Her explanation of the reason for the Hipaa rule was ridiculous, but it is probably true that legally she was not allowed to release the information you sought.]
The school nurse and I were then alone on the line and I continued to have the blaming the messenger problem: Pmom (aggravated voice) “So, let me see if I’ve got this straight, despite the fact that I just did this 6 months ago, what you want me to do is drive to the pediatrician’s office, haul my children inside with the germs, and pick up the form that confirms what we already know?” The nurse was nicer to me than I deserved. She said that since she had heard that Kate’s immunizations were complete, I could wait and pick up the record the next time that I was at the pediatrician’s office. That was a good common sense solution to this mess. (I wonder though, if I hadn’t been using my aggravated voice–as let me be clear, I should not have been–would she have offered this solution? I also wonder why the pediatrician’s records that I collected just six months ago were not sufficient. Was some part of the paperwork lost or did Kate get shots during the summer that I forgot about?).
Anyway, given the public’s interest in knowing that school children have been properly vaccinated, it is ludicrous that vaccination records are protected with the same security that we rightly accord to pregnancy and AIDS tests. Vaccinations have become so secret that it’s tough to make sure your child has been properly vaccinated.* The school already has my daughter’s birthday and social security number; let them have access to a big national database where they can check her immunization records directly.
(*Of course, under the same regulations, there are better and worse ways of doing things. I miss Kaiser Permanente–they automatically give you a printout of your children’s immunization status at every visit. Every doctor should do that. Let’s make prevention easy).
Signed,
Not feeling very interested in Kate’s privacy today,
but yep, Kate isn’t her actual name (is that odd?),
grumpy, but feeling better after blogging about it,
Pmom
P.S. In honor of November and the intent of this blog: I am thankful that the greatest hurdle to my daughter being properly immunized is my own memory. I am blessed with good insurance and excellent access to medical care so I have much to be thankful for. I am also grateful to people who are nicer to me than I deserve. I need to try harder to be nicer to other people than they deserve.
To Saturday’s self-appointed flag conduct enforcers: I love my flag. I hope that others will love it too. I hope they choose to honor it. An excellent way to honor the flag is to “stand at attention” with the right hand over the heart “at the moment the flag passes” in a parade (United States Flag Code). Unfortunately, not everyone is aware of expected conduct towards their flag. Others don’t even care. This raises the question: What should our conduct be to those whose conduct towards the flag is less than ideal?
Last night I saw you yelling at the people who didn’t immediately stand. You hollered in their faces without hesitation. Your tone wasn’t remonstrative, it was hateful. Your shrieking distracted my attention from the flag to your own distorted visage. Even my wheelchair bound neighbor was harangued. (I assume in your haste you didn’t notice the chair?). I ask: will your behavior likely increase the respect and honor these spectators feel for and show to the flag? Unlikely.
If you are a parent, teach your children how you feel about the flag by word and deed. If you have the opportunity to teach other people’s children, tell them about the flag code and why it is important to you. If your group would like to issue a gentle general reminder that the flag is coming and then review expected conduct, that could be helpful. Your example and a whispered reminder to your neighbor might also be helpful. I know one thing: hatred and coercion won’t be. Honor isn’t birthed from that cradle.
Disclaimer: This is a mommy blog. This is obviously a mommy blog. You know what that means: if discussion of bodily fluids makes you uncomfortable, surf elsewhere immediately.
Please reply in the comments:
If your 2 yr. old daughter peed all over you right after you had checked in for your son’s much needed, long awaited dermatology appointment, would you:
- a) Leave in haste, telephone to apologize, and ask for a new appointment
- b) Beg for a new appointment and then leave in haste.
- c) Put the 2 yr old in clean clothing. Return to the office carrying her in a strategic position to block the view of your wet clothing, apologizing to nurses and doctor.
- d) Put the 2 yr old in clean clothing. Return to the office carrying her in a strategic position to block the view of your wet clothing. Pretend that nothing has happened.
- e) Other — please elaborate.
This is not about something that happened to a friend or a long time ago. This happened to me today.
If you have an American Express card, you need to check your account or statement right away.
I have an American Express card, because I almost live at Costco. I happened to look at the statement that just arrived via e-mail a few hours ago. There was two charges for something called True.com. These charges really stuck out as I only use this card for Costco.
This card hasn’t been out of my possession. I do not use this card to buy things on the internet. I looked up true.com. It is a matchmaking service. I am not interested in matchmaking services and had never heard of True.com before.
I called American Express and they immediately credited ~$60 back to my account. They suggested that I had somehow been tricked into giving my credit card number out on the internet. But I never use this card on the internet. They said they had no explanation for me. They recommended that I call the company in question and tell them that I was not interested in their services. So I called them and they asked for my credit card number, which, for obvious reasons, I didn’t feel comfortable giving them. I called Amex back. The nice man at Amex then admitted that they have seen a huge surge in True.com charges recently and are working with True.com (which they say is a legitimate company) to figure it out. I called True.com back and gave them the credit card number so that they could delete all accounts associated with that number. The person I spoke to said, “And I bet your card is still in your possession right?” ”Yes,” I said. ”The problem,” she explained, “is that a lot of American Express cards are closely linked. The first 12 digits are the same. So someone who wants to commit fraud just has to manipulate the last few digits until they find one that works.”
YIKES!
1) I like using my American Express card at Costco. 2) They were very helpful in reversing the charges promptly today. 3) I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater . . .
but I am tempted to just cancel the card. If what True.com says is true, then my card could be used for all sorts of internet purchases without ever leaving my wallet. And why did I have to call them about these True.com charges? Shouldn’t they have been proactively searching their database for True.com charges and reversing them?
Last year I bought Pdad a video camera right after Christmas. We used it a little, but then we lost the power cord. I kept thinking it would show up. It never did. Then, for several months, I kept thinking I should order a new one, but I never got around to it. Well, we have had two birthdays in the past couple of weeks and Kate is taking her first steps, so now I’m wishing we had a working camcorder. So, today I finally got around to calling Canon and asking about ordering a new power cord. They said it would be $125 to replace it (and I don’t think that even includes shipping and handling)! I was in shock. I repeated it several times. “Yes, $125.”
Needless to say, I didn’t buy it. I noticed that on Amazon my model of camcorder is currently selling for about $150 (since it’s been a year, it’s slightly obsolete).
I am trying to figure out where else I could order it from or where I could get a used one. Anyway, isn’t that amazing? I mean I imagined I would have to pay outlandishly for it, but I wasn’t thinking more than half the price of the camera.