u/holliday_doc_1995

My mouth opens about 70% and I cannot open it any further. It is not getting progressively better. I got to 70% range of motion on day 4ish after the cleaning and I have been stuck at this range for over a week and a half.

I called the dentist and they said to rub it but didn’t seem concerned. Is this normal? When can I expect to be able to open my mouth all the way again?

Went to the ER today and every person who cared for me was wonderful and kind and I am so grateful for them. I did end up really confused about insurance and billing and I’m wondering if I should have done something differently to make the process smoother.

I went to the ER because I needed something that is only kept in stock at ERs. I called my insurance company ahead of time to ask about coverage and if they had a very rough estimate of what cost might be. They told me that I need to call the ER and they can’t give me any info until they get a bill.

I called the ER and they told me that they can’t give me any information until I get there in person.

I went in person and at check in I asked if the ER was in network and if they could explain how payment/billing works. They said they can only discuss that once I am check in and have already been billed for the check in and triage process.

I nervously went through check in and triage and then someone came out and said they were going to talk to me about insurance/billing/financial obligations. They showed me a screen which said “$900” and said that was an estimate. I had two questions:

1. Was that estimate representing estimated costs after insurance cover their portion or is that the estimated bill before insurance?

2. Was that number representing estimate of the cost of check in and triage or was that representing an estimate of the entire visit including the treatment that has not yet been discussed or administered?

The person could not answer either question and said they could only show me the number but not explain what that number represents. They seemed annoyed at me for asking questions.

At the end of my time at the visit I still have no idea what I might be billed, how billing works, or what that number that was shown represented.

I am a little lost because I called insurance ahead of time, called ER ahead of time, asked at check in, and asked the billing people and none of them were able to give me information about how the process works.

Is there someone else I should have called ahead of time? Is there someone else I should have asked for? I do not want to irritate anyone in the ER especially when the nurses and physicians were so kind, but I do want to be able to have a basic understanding of how the process works and what I may or may not be charged for.

Thank you for any insight you can give me

Got a cleaning 9 days ago that required some numbing shots. My tmj region on one side is still sore and I cannot open my mouth all the way without lots of pain.

Is this something I can just ignore until it resolves or is it a sign of something that needs to be addressed before it can resolve?

Thank you so much!

How do you handle situations where a student worked on a paper then dropped off the planet and ghosts you?

Do you take them off manuscript entirely? Drop them down in author order and finish paper yourself?

How long do you give them to resurface?

I clearly need to lay out policies so that I have something in writing about how to handle this in the future, but for this situation…what would you do?

Who to include as authors on conference talk

I’ve been collecting data for a couple years and have published or presented small bits of it periodically. I have had help of students with collecting data and have had some students write up results and/or write some introduction paragraphs for manuscripts.

Now I am putting together an abstract for a conference talk where I plan to discuss much of this work. I am not quite sure who to include as an author on the submission and who to include only in acknowledgements. If I include every person who has contributed to the previous abstracts, the author list would be a mile long and would include people whose contributions didn’t really impact the conference talk such as those who wrote a paragraph of an introduction section of a manuscript, but that info is not pertinent to the talk.

Should I only include the main team members as authors on the talk and include all minor contributors in acknowledgements?

I’ve been collecting data for a couple years and have published or presented small bits of it periodically. I have had help of students with collecting data and have had some students write up results and/or write some introduction paragraphs for manuscripts.

Now I am putting together an abstract for a conference talk where I plan to discuss much of this work. I am not quite sure who to include as an author on the submission and who to include only in acknowledgements. If I include every person who has contributed to the previous abstracts, the author list would be a mile long and would include people whose contributions didn’t really impact the conference talk such as those who wrote a paragraph of an introduction section of a manuscript, but that info is not pertinent to the talk.

Should I only include the main team members as authors on the talk and include all minor contributors in acknowledgements?