u/Secret_Cream9171

god forbid a girl want to watch fargo without seeing these grannies talking to the new and improved chat GPT voice

the length and frequency of ads are already irritating enough but my god it's painful.

and i have whatever the spotify premium/hulu combo subscription is, which doesn't give you an option for ad free on hulu so it really would tack on another like $15 to go ad free

UGH

as a mid-atlantic city gal, i was like damn that is totally reasonable that people out in SD, ND, and Minnesota are getting up to crazy shit. true crime stories are wild, but i was like yeah there was for sure a couple like ed and peggy.

then i went and searched for the "Sioux Falls Massacre" on google and saw another post about someone whose wife thought it was real.

damn

ETA: i figured they were telling the full "truth" in the sense of what the characters "truths" would be. so like peggy hallucinating that seminar guy in the basement couldve been a thing that a midwestern housewife might've experienced in the 70s and that would've been her "truth"

it's just wild to me that I got a whole masters degree in public health, only to look up my summary of benefits for my health insurance plan and cannot for the life of me understand how much a doctors visit is going to cost before i have the appointment.

this has to be one of the most ridiculous and fixable things about the US healthcare system. i changed jobs recently and am now at a medical academic institution that doesn't do co-pays - just negotiated costs with in-network providers until you hit your deductible. the portal for checking my claims, benefits, etc. loves to push these AI "care coordinators" on me, but has no cost estimators and no one can seem to tell me what the contracted cost for a 30 minute appointment would be.

so instead of seeing my dermatologist, who is likely out of network now, i had an appointment with a NP off of GoodRx Care and basically just bought my way to get a prescription because at least i know it's not going to be a $200 bill.

granted, my specialization was not in policy, but i took a policy class, of course. but i honestly think there needs to be a required class on the health insurance system in the US for graduate programs. idk it's just interesting because i don't even know what avenues to take to advocate for or inform myself.

it's just maddening to me right now. and then i see news that NIH is limiting funding for research grants that focus on policy.

i recently switched employers, so my health insurance plan changed as well.

up until this new insurance plan, i only ever had plans where there was no deductible to meet and you just paid copays for every visit. so i almost always knew my cost for in-network providers would be $30 or less, except for ER visits. outside of wellness visits, i would see my psychiatrist 4x/year at $15 each and my dermatologist 1x/year (usually) at $30 each. thus, i was often not spending more than $100/year on doctors appts. so keep in mind - this is my frame of reference.

my new plan does not have copays for most visits/providers. as it states on the summary of benefits, i would pay "deductible, then 20% of allowed benefit" for a specialist visit or outpatient mental health service. for OON providers, i would pay "deductible, then 30% of allowed benefit". my deductible amount for in network is $500; OON is $1000. assuming my health is going to remain the same over the next year (i'm a relatively healthy 30F), i would obviously prefer not to have to reach my deductible amount anyways.

assuming i don't reach my deductible and need to deal with the XX% of allowed benefits, my basic understanding is that in-network providers have pre-negotiated service costs. while for OON providers, there's no "negotiated" price so you pay what the provider sets. what i don't understand (and am trying to figure out) is what the price is going to be for a standard E/M visit with either an in-network or OON provider. for example, i believe my dermatologist is OON - so i'm trying to figure out if i can stomach the higher cost of continuing care with her, rather than switching to a different in-network provider.

i know that under the federal No Surprises Act, insured people don't have a right to a GFE. Under maryland state law, where i live, the following is stated: "Out-of-network physicians that seek to be paid directly by your health plan (assignment of benefits) are required to give you a written estimate of the cost of services prior to performing services. You can ask for a pre-treatment estimate from other providers, but those providers generally aren't required to automatically give you an estimate"

is the only way to know the cost of a visit beforehand by asking for a GFE?

i got a new job recently and elected for their PPO plan, but i'm pretty annoyed by the INN vs OON options.

according to my plans in-network provider search, both the dermatologist and psychiatrist i've been seeing for nearly 4 years are out of network. i need to schedule another appt with my dermatologist, but i'm scared i'm gonna owe like $400 for a 15 minute appt.

according to my summary of benefits, my OON deductible is $1,000 and then I pay for 30%.

so i tried to find what the total bill pre-insurance was for my last appointment was and this is what i found:

if they are confirmed to be out of network, would the $446 be what i pay?

several weeks back, i posted on the subreddit here first and then with another update here about my extremely high electricity usage, despite renting just a 650 studio apartment without central AC and being out of town for nearly half the month.

after finally getting an amazing technician from BGE to confirm which electric meter belonged to me, i let my landlord know that my studio was associated with the larger meter (i.e. providing more electricity) and the 1500 sq ft unit above me was associated with the smaller meter.

on top of that, when i went to switch off the entire breaker connected to my meter to confirm what went off in my unit, the only thing turned off was my AC window unit. meaning some of our electrical panels were mixed up, too. idk how many.

after escalating the issue to my landlord, they got electricians to make sure all the panels were connected correctly and that our meters were correctly assigned to each unit.

i'm sooooo excited to put this behind me cause it really was driving me insane. but more than anything, i feel so bad for the tenants before me that were fully paying for a larger home's electricity costs.

lesson learned: look at your electricity usage data on BGE, rather than just the costs.

first, i apologize in advance if my language about circuits/wires doesn't make sense. i don't know what the appropriate words are for even describing this problem.

basically, my electric meter was picking up very high amounts of kwh when i checked my usage online considering i was barely even moved in for the first 15 days of starting electricity in my place. fast forward, i had the electric company do a "meter investigation" to tell me which electric meter was mine and which was my upstairs neighbors, cause they weren't distinguished.

we tested out what happened when we turned off my meters' distribution panel switch and basically 90% of my units electricity was still running, apart from an AC window unit that was plugged in.

so he told me that they can't really do anything about it and it falls on my landlord to hire an electrician and fix how the wires in the house are designated to each meter.

now, before i reach out to my landlord to explain this to him, i wanted to ask here if I'm making a pretty big ask to have him get an electrician to come by and fix it. but also would love suggestions about how to even describe the problem in the first place so that he knows i'm not just making up the problem to begin with.

basically, i'm just trying to avoid sounding stupid when i bring up the problem to him so he doesn't just dismiss it, in case he thinks it's gonna be too big of a pain to take care of.

to preface, i don't bring this up as a hater take or anything, i'm just curious if anyone else has felt the same. i loved shakira last year and appreciated a lot of her takes from the podcast this season, up until like 2-3 weeks ago. and i'm not like a die-hard julia stan, but i'm not mad about her being the winner, either.

when shakira first starting being pretty critical of julia like 2/3ish weeks ago, i was like oh they probably just needed someone out of the three to be the "devils advocate"/dissenting opinion for fairness' sake. but then she started to really crack down on julia for getting involved in other peoples business. and i feel like the switch up happened when julia went and talked to aidan about giving elicia a fair chance.

and i was like ...damn this feels like when she called harry and harrison cockroach #1 and cockroach #2 for spreading their opinions to connor and getting in his head. or how she was annoyed with meg/dejon for supposedly rooting for helena over her to be with harry.

then i watched their debrief episode today with all the finalists and she questioned julia like multiple times on her heated debates and not letting things go.

idk i enjoy listening to the debrief episodes, but there were times when i was like ...shakira PLEASE give it a rest. but on a more pleasant note, i really loved hearing yas' perspective on things. she's such an interesting person lmao

yesterday i posted about my daily/hourly electricity usage looking unusually high over the past week for the new apartment i moved to. my suspicion is that the electric submeter for my apartment is reading circuits/usage from my upstairs neighbors. so i did a big of digging on zillow and called our utility provider to ask for the 12-month average/annual cost for both units.

here's a comparison of my apartment and the other unit sharing the rowhome based on info i've gathered:

of course, consumer habits are different. but it's wild that a home double the size of mine with more appliances is paying 20% less in their annual electric bill.

so i call our utility provider this morning and ask about the process for checking if the right circuits are going to the right meter/account/unit and they said they can do a "verify meter test" for free.

the thing is, i don't have access to the electric meter or breaker panel (i think it's in the other units foyer, which shares a wall with my unit). which means i need to get my landlord involved to determine if this is actually a problem.

i just want to know like what the landlords responsibility is for getting the correct wiring to happen? i can't find anything online or in my lease about rewiring electric submeters. any thoughts on what to say without making it sound accusatory?

ok so yesterday i posted about my daily/hourly electricity usage being shockingly high for my 650 sq ft apartment that i've barely spent time in over the past week since moving in & starting BGE service on 7/1. the comments kinda convinced me that the circuits reading for my submeter may actually be from the electricity usage on the unit above me. so i did some sleuthing on zillow and called BGE to get both of our 12-month averages/annual electric bills.

here's a comparison of my apartment and the other unit sharing the rowhome based on info i've gathered:

Now I understand that everyone has different electricity consumption habits. However, the mere fact that their unit is over 2x the size of mine, and their annual electric bill is almost 20% less than my unit gives me pause and is valid to at least look into a little further, imo.

So I called BGE this morning and asked what the process is to confirm the right circuits are going to the right meter/account/unit, and they said they can do a "verify meter test" for free (which is different than testing the accuracy of the meter -> bill). Next step is to approach this with my landlord bc I don't even have access to the meter or breaker panel.

Anyways, I thought I'd share this because some comments yesterday were chalking it up to the ridiculous BGE rates and having studios with similar electric bills, etc. which is valid. HOWEVER, i do think people have a tendency to focus on the bill, as opposed to the accuracy of your usage. i'm sure this is more common than people realize, but just resign themselves to paying higher bills thinking that it's the rate increases.

I'll be starting a new job on the east baltimore campus soon and am trying to figure out whether i want to get a membership for the JHMI gym (Cooley Center) or the Homewood campus gym (O'Connor Rec Center).

My top priorities are:

• Having a stairmaster
• Good spaces for HIIT/stretching on a mat
• Nice locker room/shower space

The Homewood gym seems much more extensive and a bit nicer. I like taking showers at the gym and getting ready for work from there, though, so I would like the option I choose to have a good set up for that. According to a friend who uses the Homewood gym, the locker rooms and showers are pretty abysmal. She didn't have a comparison for the Cooley Center, though.

It seems like this might be one of the few potential cost-savings programs that BGE has that could be beneficial for renters. has anyone had success with it? my budget is tight with how much i'm anticipating utilities to cost, so i'm trying to find any way to minimize them as much as possible.