Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

While I was dealing with trying to figure out whether I could see my psychiatrist, and what it would cost if so, I got an email from medicare.gov about the Medicare Advantage "open enrollment" period: anyone who enrolled in a Medicare Advantage (part C) plan at the end of the previous year can change to a different Medicare Advantage plan between January 1 and March 31st. I decided that it would be worth it to get into a PPO instead of the HMO I had somehow signed up for, even though it means I'll be starting over on the annual out-of-pocket maximums for prescription drugs and for medical care generally. I put the application in this afternoon, and was told the process might take 10 days, but I also think it's supposed to be effective the first day of the month after I requested the change. My confirmation email from Medicare says the plan will notify me after they verify my information and confirm my enrollment, so I will wait and see.

Fortunately, I can afford to do this, rather than having to find new specialists who are in that stupid HMO's network, or spend large amounts to see my current doctors. (Switching now is expensive because I take one very expensive drug, the Kesimpta.)

I just made another call to Fidelity (investment company) about the inherited IRA. They are going to generate a "Letter of Acceptance" form and send it to BNY, and then (I hope) we will have the money out of my mother's name before the end of the year, which will please my brother as executor of the estate.

The bit where the advisor told me to search for something on the website, and that led to an irrelevant form, was not encouraging--I think he overheard me saying to cattitude that I'm starting to understand why people hide their money under mattresses.

Jonathan said this should take 1-2 business days at the BNY end, and that he'll let me know when the transfer has gone through.

I am not going to spend all my money on chocolate, probably not even all the money currently in my wallet, but it's tempting.

I think I have arranged to transfer the inherited IRA money from my mother's account at BNY to a new account in my name at Fidelity. It's at Fidelity because they were willing and able to do this, rather than telling me that I would have to go somewhere else to get a medallion signature.

A couple of weeks ago Adrian's advisor at Fidelity said that they could provide the medallion signature, and would do it for free because she has an account there. When she called this morning to make an appointment, they told her that they couldn't do that for her partner, but if I created an account today to transfer the money into, I could go there tomorrow and get the medallion signature. So, I called Fidelity to set up the account.

That went more smoothly than I expected. Someone walked me through the process of creating the new account, and setting up the transfer. He said the Fidelity back office people will take care of moving the money, and he didn't think I would need the medallion signature, meaning I don't need to go to their office. The website said the "estimated completion date" was Dec. 16, and the man I was talking to said it would probably be sooner than that.

I want this to be done before the end of the year, so I can take the 2025 required minimum distribution.

I am hopeful that this will work, even if they call me and tell ne to come in and get the medallion signature guarantee.

I just got off the phone with a (genuinely) helpful person at Amalgamated Bank.

I've been talking to them in order to close a joint account in my and my mother's names, and the bank told me in June that the easiest way to do this would be to withdraw all the money and then have them close the account. In order to do that, I had to set up online banking, but only after adding my phone number to the account, which I did in June. Apparently the reason I couldn't log in to the online account after setting it up was that I'd written the password down wrong.

The person at the bank reset my password for me, and then told me how to link this account to an account at another bank. I'm waiting for the test deposits to hit my account, which may take a few days. After than, I can transfer the rest of the money.

Also, I got up in time to go for a walk this morning, to the grocery store and back, before it got too hot. It's a hot day in July, so the six things I bought included ice cream, Italian ices, and fresh blueberries.

Cattitude took the cat in for her follow-up appointment, and the nurse said she's doing just fine, and cleared her to start eating crunchy things (which include her favorite cat treats). She hadn't been eating much in the previous few days, so they sent Cattitude home with two medications to improve her appetite. The cat has her appetite back, and headed right for the bowl of kibble, and ignored the bowl of wet food. She also informed us at dinner, when offered Greenies, that those were her proper treats, thank you very much. The other cat, Molly, is also pleased that we are once again giving them kibble and the familiar treats; there was no practical way to give Molly kibble and Kaja only wet food, so neither cat got anything crunchy for ten days.

We may be going to London last month, to sort through some of Mom's stuff, including papers and photos. (Mark needs to be there, and I want to, even though it will mean a lot of time masking, and probably a lot of takeout meals eaten in a hotel room. I emailed the cat sitter,

I checked this afternoon, and my inherited share of Mom's Vanguard account is in my account. Separately, there's a life insurance policy that seems to have asked for another form after my brother sent in what he thought was everything they wanted. In addition to the Vanguard account, there are some UK bank accounts, which Mark thinks will take several months to go through probate. All of this is a little weird, and I want my mother, not her life insurance.

Boston (along with much of the eastern United States and Canada) is in the middle of the sort of heat wave where they advise everyone to stay indoors if possible, not just people who are particularly sensitive to the heat. Both the NWS warning and the Boston heat emergency are only through this evening, but they're predicting that tomorrow will also be hotter than I find comfortable.

Today's visit was longer than I expected, but hardly unpleasant at all.

I was there for them to take impressions of my teeth, so they can make the dental implants and bridge. I expected it to be very unpleasant, because at last spring's visit to make the temporary "flapper" (which never did get comfortable), it took three tries before they got a usable impression.

I mentioned this up front, and they did the first two (out of three) impressions with a smaller tray for the modeling material. It also helped that this modeling stuff hardens faster than the one from last time, so I didn't have to carefully hold still for as long after biting into it.

It will probably take the lab six to eight weeks to make the implants and bridge, and they'll call me to make an appointment once they know.

This is going to be expensive. The paperwork they had me sign for this, after warnings about possible complications, said that I'd been given the chance to discuss what it would cost. So I asked the dental assistant, who said she'd have to go get the dentist; he in turn had the receptionist call my insurance company. The answer is that it will probably be between six and eight thousand dollars, which Vitaly said is a major discount from $12,000-$16,000. They had me pay $4,000 today, and will contact me when they hear back from the insurance company. I called Aetna a few weeks ago, on Adrian's behalf, to ask about coverage for implants, and the agent told me they're not covered at all. (She and I happen to have the same health and dental insurance, so I could call and give them my own membership number rather than saying I was calling on her behalf.)

ETA: There is of course no way to do this masked, but there were very few other people at the dentist's office, and the dentist and his assistant were both masked. I put on a fresh N95 mask, and used the Betadine iota carrageenan nasal spray, before leaving the house today, and am hoping those protect me from covid, flu, and whatever else might be going around.

This isn't a problem right now, but it could have been:

I have a credit card that expires 1/25, meaning in less than two weeks.

I haven't received a replacement, so I tried calling to ask if they had mailed me a new card, and if so, when. The 800 number on my current card led to a system that told me the office is closed, gave me business hours, which are something like 8-8 Monday-Friday, and asked me to leave a detailed message.

I then googled for "5star bank visa," and found a website. There's a chat option there, which does respond on Saturdays. I'm pretty sure I was interacting with a robot, but it grabbed the right keyword from my question, and told me new cards are mailed around the 16th of the month they expire in.

I asked about lost cards and fraud, and the robot gave me a different contact phone number, which I haven't tried; if something was mailed around the 16th, I wouldn't expect it to arrive by the 18th.

So, I will not (yet) worry about the card possibly being stolen--but I am NOT happy about the fact that if I did want to report fraud or a stolen card, I would have had to google for the bank name, open a chat window, and ask the robot for a phone number that might be answered on weekends. I am--I think we all are--very used to being able to reach my credit card companies 24/7, using the number printed on the card, which I could store as a contact on my cell phone.

The Social Security Administration has just told me how much they will be giving me every month, and also that I have been enrolled in Medicare, covarage starting May 2024. So, the Medicare covarage is retroactive to a few months before they ruled in my favor.

Also, the monthly benefit is more than I was expecting them to award me, which is also good news.

There are things I need to look into, and do, about this, but I'm not going to do them at this hour of the day. I think it involves a call to the lawyer.

The letter saying that my appeal was successful arrived in today's mail.

It says "Notice of Decision -- Fully Favorable" near the top of the first page.

They also sent an explanation of why the examiner made that decision, which I may or may not read.

Under "when will I get paid?" it says that goes through a different office, but it will probably 40-60 days from when they sent the letter, and who to contact if I don't hear within 60 days. I put a reminder in my google calendar, in case I need it. (Sixty days from Sept. 27, the date on the letter, is two days before Thanksgiving.)

Since someone asked on Discord: the lawyer who helped me with the appeals gets a standard percentage of the lump sum retroactive payment, plus defined "reasonable and customary" expenses.

Addendum: the finding is that I was disabled as of the claim date, Nov. 15, 2021, which I think means three years' worth of retroactive payments.

We just renewed the lease on our apartment, for another 12 months. They're increasing the rent by 4%, which is less than I had expected, given recent inflation and that our rent includes heat and hot water, and the price of energy has gone up by significantly more than 4% in the past year. We're seeing that in the electric and gas bills (we have a gas stove).