Raincharm’s Weblog

I had a very sedentary day. All of my trips started or ended at my desk.

For the last several months I have known I needed to get a handle on medical payments now that we’re on Medicare. I have maintained a tracking spreadsheet for years, but with only a few providers and generally consistent bill  and Explanation of Benefit (EOB) formats I’ve been in a groove. Not counting chiropractors that drove me crazy. The figures they would include on their invoices never matched the figures on the EOBs. I avoid them partially just for this reason.

Now, not so much, in the groove that is. There are the Medicare “Not a Bill” statements, UW invoice information, EOBs from our Supplemental Plan Provider, and invoices from non-UW providers. The big starting charge is usually the same but the amount allowed moves around a bit, as does the amount paid by Medicare, for those bills that have made it that far through the gauntlet. The numbers don’t even always subtract properly on the documents, they seem to round. And then have we covered the deductible yet.

I did pay the bill we received yesterday, due Friday (I’m glad we were in town). The invoice only listed 5 of 6 items provided, and the $$ didn’t add up. But the amount owed is the deductible, so I just made the payment and moved on.

I may expand my columns further to have a section for each source of information to better understand why they are different.

Why do this, you may ask. Because we have a lot of regular bills, and occasionally some really big expenses. Understanding how the systems work makes it easier to predict future needs.

I actually got a check a few days ago from our pre-medicare provider. I’m not sure what they’re reimbursing, maybe a co-pay. We deposited the check.

Tomorrow I am going to add in prescriptions. This is important. Our first set cost over $600.

This entry was posted on February 18, 2026 at 8:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.