A Very Average Baby

Today was Conan's 2 month well-child check-up. He seems to be doing well. He's growing just as he should. In fact, he is as average as it gets. 50% in height. 50% in weight. 50% in head circumference. Honestly, I expected his weight to be quite a bit higher than that. He eats constantly and just seems a lot bigger than Miles was. Miles was not nearly as proportionate as Conan is. I believe at 2 months he was as follows. 73% in height. 25% in weight. 95% in head. It's a little confusing to have a child in this family with a normal sized head. I still don't have any hats to fit Conan's head because Miles started out wearing about a 6 month.



The rest of the visit (well, the whole visit) was pretty usual. Everything was normal. His heart sounds great, something that his pediatrician always pays very close attention to. The only little problems this far are pretty normal ones. He has terribly dry skin. Of course eczema comes with asthma and allergies, so it's something we just expect. He has some reflux issues, but I attribute most of that to his severe over-eating. Because of the reflux, he has some breathing/snoring problems at night, but we're going to try to get that taken care of with Prevacid. He's about the gassiest baby ever, but again, probably related to his eating habits. It's pretty hilarious, actually, to be sitting in church and have him let a monstrous gas during the passing of the sacrament. It doesn't sound like a baby toot. It is a full blown man fart, so it's not usually attributed to him. The only issue he found that wasn't completely expected was a little bit of an astigmatism. Apparently, the light didn't reflect evenly when shone in his eyes, which I suppose indicates an astigmatism. It's not a big deal and can't even be diagnosed by the optometrist until he's 6 months. Maybe he'll end up being one of those cute little babies that have to where glasses right off. I've always wondered how parents get those babies to keep the glasses on. Maybe I'll find out.



Since we were already in the medical mood today, I decided to call on a couple of medical bills. It's something that I do maybe a couple of times a month. When we're in the hospital and at doctor's offices as often as we are, we constantly get medical bills. Often, it's difficult to tell what we're being billed for, especially when we're not billed for several months after service. Additionally, I have learned that hospitals sometimes like to send the patients bills prior to receiving payment from the insurance just to see if they will pay. We frequently have this problem, so I call on most bills. I would recommend this to everyone because regardless of if I should be paying the bill or not, I've found that I've been misbilled about 60% of the time. And isn't funny that it's never been in my favor...hmmm..... Anyway, I called on a small bill for a co-pay the other week that I thought had been paid. It hadn't, but in reviewing the date of service, the person that I was talking to found that I had paid a bill that the insurance had also sent payment on. The account representative told me that it looked like I should be receiving the credit, but it was in process, so he couldn't be positive if it was coming back to me or to the insurance. (side note: if the insurance pays something, I'm sure they meant to, so the money always goes to the patient) Then, there was another potential credit from our last hospital stay. It was our understanding that, with our new even awesomer insurance, we would not have an emergency co-pay if we were admitted to the hospital (making our stays 100% free, yippee!!!). I called the insurance the other day to clarify this. Yes. Our assumption was correct. We should be getting our co-pay back. I wanted to know when I should expect checks, so they didn't accidentally get thrown out, so I called Primary Children's billing department. My first frustration came when I got a message saying that it was billing for all Utah IHC hospitals, that they were in a meeting, and to call back later. Really? I can't even leave a message for someone? I hate that. Well, I called back later. I asked about both situations. After several minutes on hold, the accountant came back and said, "It looks like we do show a credit for both of those days, so would you like us to issue a refund?" "Yes. Of course, I would like a refund." "Ok. I will submit it, and you should be receiving a check in about a week." So, that sounds like if I hadn't called, I wouldn't have gotten a refund. Who knows? Perhaps, I would have received a credit toward a future bill (doubtful since the one bill was from back in March, and we've utilized Primary's services since then), but who's to say there even would be a future bill. Moral of of the story, study you insurance benefits, and call on all medical bills. It will probably save you some money. Because of this one phone call, I should be getting a refund check to the tune of some $300. Would've been nice to have never lent that to IHC, but I'm still happy I get it back.