It’s been nearly a year since I last put a post on this blog. How sad, well really you’re probably not missing much. I do have some ideas for topics though, so I’ll probably write a bunch and then not return for another year! ha

A little about what has happened in the last year. We’ve been with SedonaOffice at work for almost a year now. It’s hard to believe; it’s gone very fast. Overall, it has gone very smoothly. We’ve run into a glitch every now and then, but mostly we’ve just needed to change our processes to match. The biggest was something we didn’t realize until a few months ago. I’ll probably make this a topic on it’s own: What we’ve learned about SedonaOffice!

It’s about time to return to Florida again for the conference, so I look forward to returning Joey’s Pizza and Pasta House. This year Robert is going with me, so he can enjoy it, too! I hope they are still in business. I know it’s been a tough year for many.

I’m about to imbark on a couple challenging new projects at work. One is updating the scheduler I wrote and adding some features to it to tie it in directly to the SedonaOffice database. This should be fun and make scheduling with it a lot faster/simpler. It’s a breath of fresh air to be working with a software database that’s written well and I can communicate with easier.

I’ve found a site with some great training videos for a very good price. I’ve watched one video so far about programmer productivity and I think I’ll log my scheduler upgrade project on the blog. I want to use some of the things he mentioned.

An a personal note, we’re still working on the financial stuff. No debt other than the mortgage, but it sure is harder to save money than it was to pay off debt. I wish we could get back the same intensity we had when we were getting out of debt. I’d really like to lead another Financial Peace University Course… I’m working on getting it approved to do it. I’m not sure what the hesitation is about in the church leadership. It’s a little frustrating.

Well, it appears that it is time for bed. It’s cold here in South Texas tonight; I hope I can stay warm!

…by me. We went live on Monday. I spent all day looking through the data. Found a few things that didn’t get imported, a few things that didn’t come in right, etc. I’d email our rep (Laurie Goodrich) and our person who did the data conversion (Rob) and the problem would be fixed within less than 30 minutes. I THOUGHT the billing addresses for our customers that have multiple sites should have been imported, but thankfully, Rob knew better. If he had done what I *thought* we needed we’d have a lot of duplicated records in our new, nice software. That would have been a travesty!

I thought there were a lot of extra clicks just to get to the system password so I emailed support asking that it be easier to get to. Within 10 minutes or so, I had an email telling me how to get to it faster than I was doing it. Screen shots and all. Then a minute or so after that, I got an email from a developer with a screen shot showing how it will be easier to get to on the next update. Can’t ask for faster service than that!

One of my favorite things is that there are so many ways to do one thing. At first, it seems to complicate things. But in the long run, it’s really nice because you can use the software in a way that works best for you.

Automatic credit card processing is going to take a lot of work over the weekend. Alarms for windows didn’t delete the information when you took someone off of auto, so we had a lot of bad ones imported. As far as I can tell, there was no way around that. It seems that it was still better to bring it all in so I didn’t have add all the credit card numbers manually. I just have to delete the entries that I don’t need. Can you believe that Alarms for Windows stored all that bank and credit card data raw in the database? Sure glad we’re getting away from that software.

I just really can’t think of any complaints about the software or the transition. I’ve been worried about it for months, just not knowing how well the data could come in. There was so much trash data in the old Top Speed database. Alarms for windows would widow records all over the place.

I don’t think I could have asked for a better conversion experience!! Thanks Laurie and Rob!

We went with BCBSTX at open enrollment this year because they have a good HSA option. In trying to decide which plan to pick for my husband we had our insurance person find out about Robert’s epilsepsy medications. It is contra-indicated to take generic epilsepsy medicines since they are allow to vary in strength by 80%-125% during the day (they are NOT the same as the brand names). There is quite a bit of medical documentation showing this. So anyway, the only reason why we didn’t select the HSA which would have costed $30 a month (after employer contribution) is because they said they would cover the brand medications for Robert. The only thing that insurance would pay would be for his meds, since his neurologist isn’t on the insurance plan.

At the end of October, we ordered 3 months of Robert’s meds. Brand names. Generics have been out awhile. They covered them under the normal copay. Yay, no problem.

Fast forward to early February. It’s time to refill. Robert goes to CVS to pick up the meds. They inform him that the trileptal will be $1200. $1200!!! No warning by the insurance that they changed the policy. Nothing. Robert calls Blue Cross when he gets home. It’s about 5:30 on a Saturday. He asked to talk to a manager so they put him on hold…for a long time. I get on the cell phone and call and try to get to someone. I get hung up on half way through the menu. I call back. Strangely the menu is different. I finally get to the pharmacy area and am told they are closed (it was 10 minutes before 6!). Robert is still on hold. They have no intention of even picking up his call, I’m sure. They are probably all logging off their computers and going home.

Monday, we find out that they changed the plan Jan. 1 (even though we can’t get OUT of the plan until Oct). We decide we have to get the meds so I ask CVS to change the order to 1 month. We go and get the meds and see that they also did generic for the lamictal. Get that rerun to just one month. For ONE month of meds, we paid over $550. AND we have insurance. We’re not uninsured; we’ve always done everything we can to make sure we have insurance. Not that is helps any. All it does is cost us money and doesn’t pay for squat.

They told us we would have to have the doctor fill out a form asking them to cover the brand name. He had to send them medical records, etc. He did. Today we got the letter stating that they don’t care what the doctor says, we will be forced to purchase brand name lamictal and trileptal. If I weren’t so scared of what would happen, we’d switch to generics, but it’s just not work the risk of Robert having a seizure.

Something to ponder… if we did the generic drugs and Robert had a seizure while driving and killed someone; would Blue Cross Blue Shield be at fault?

Just a little additional info. When we had Humana and the brand names came out, they tried forcing us to do the generics. But all the doctor had to do was put on the prescription that he had to have the brand names and they covered it. So not all insurance companies suck like Blue Cross Blue Shield.