I mentioned in a post prior to leaving the states that Blue Cross was dicking with me over reimbursement for a physical I had at Soonchunhwang hospital way back in April.  This is the standard, albeit comprehensive, battery of tests that most Koreans do on an annual basis.  Apparently the adjusters at Blue Cross don’t see the value of preventative medicine.  I’m $1300+ out of pocket, so I’m not going to take it up the ass (which coincidentally was one the tests for which they have thus far refused to pay).

Anyway, I went to see the hilarious Dr. Yu who graciously provided me 8 pages of doctor’s notes/medical justification for the tests that were administered.  He did charge me W85,000 for the service.  I’m submitting a claim for reimbursement of that bill as well as a special fuck you to Blue Cross.

The next challenge was getting the documentation to Blue Cross in an expeditious manner.  I talked to a Customer Service Rep who suggested I FAX the records.  I asked if I could scan them as well and she said that would be acceptable.  I was unable to find a working scanner though, so I went to the PX on base which offers a FAX service for one dollar per page.  I followed up with a email to Blue Cross asking for confirmation that the documents did in fact arrive.  And I also berated them again for putting me through all this unnecessary hassle.  We’ll see what happens next.

There were lots of folks doing returns of unwanted Christmas gifts at the PX, so I had a goodly wait to be served.  A guy a couple of numbers ahead of me had the unique issue of having been undercharged for some items.  I was pretty impressed that he endured a long wait in line to do the right thing.  Of course, the clerk at the window didn’t have a clue about how to do a reverse refund, but a manager was called to the scene and the money did eventually change hands.

As a nice bookend to the story above, the next woman in line had a whole shopping cart of items which made me fear for my wait.  Fortunately, her problem was only with three items: white boards of various sizes.  It seems she had been charged twice for the large one, twice for the medium one, and not at all for the small one.  That took some time to sort out, but the takeaway for me was to check your receipt, something I rarely do.

Afterwards, I bought a 12-pack of Diet Coke which filled my backpack.  Then I hoofed it into Itaewon where I had a key made for a hefty W10,000.  Then I played darts and took first place prize money of W30,000.  Bought a round of drinks for my vanquished opponents which brought my bar tab to around W50,000.  Which is why it is hard to make a living playing darts.