No, long grass doesn't "attract rats." That's an entirely bogus excuse for town officials to impose their personal sense of aesthetic acceptability upon those who are more enlightened or innovative. I encountered that same scheme on my property. On my five rural acres, during construction of the house, I was served notice by the county health board that my "weeds were providing harborage for vermin" and I had five days to "cut and remove" the offending vegetation. I took the citation to the chief sanitarian and inquired what this was all about. He told me that the weeds on my property would "attract rats" and it was illegal to allow rats to persist in such untidy environments next to houses. I told him that I was a graduate field biologist, and that there is not a shred of scientific evidence that rats can persist in "weeds." I therefore invited him to set as many rat traps as he would like in my prairie "weeds," as evidence to be used in the court case I said I would pursue if he persisted in pushing the matter. He know full well that rats donÂt inhabit weedy fields, prairie or otherwise, and I asked him how many of these citations does the health department issue each year. He said over two dozen, and he gets 100% compliance. I asked him what the rate of compliance might be if an appeals court were to rule that the law is unreasonable, crushes my free speech rights, and therefore could no longer be enforced (as was determined in a previous case in another Ohio jurisdiction). At that point, the health officer knew that I had both scientific evidence and a court case on my side. He then volunteered to "overlook" my "violation," to preserve the health departmentÂs ability to coerce citizens to conform to landscape conventionality  whatever that might have to do with public health. Case closed. I continue to have OhioÂs tallest front yard, with 7-ft tall prairie grasses. Not a rat in 25 years.

I have to take exception to Monica's assertion that this is often a scam by the hospital. I can't even fathom how a hospital would implement such a thing.... Those who would "work it" would have to know ALL the "ins & outs" of each & every insurance co. as well as the the different variations within the various policies they offer, to say nothing of the ins. co. simply being the administrator of those who have "company" plans. THEN, these scammers would have to plot how they're going to "misrepresent". So, NO, don't believe this or any hospital has such a "scam". And further, there's no way a hospital operator, on the weekend, could possibly know all the ifs, ands, or buts of each & every insurance company's idiosyncrasies. They look in a data base & give the best answer they can. If anything, I think it's an example of the tactics the insurance companies employ methods to NOT pay.... (they skipped telling you the importance of using the word "railroad"... heh!) Back to the question,,,, if all of your contact & discussions have thus far been over the phone, then you haven't exhausted your appeal rights and it is probably more of a "low level" decision rather than an actual ruling by those who have more power & probably knownledge/clinical expertise. So yes write out your appeal. I would NOT mention, nor use as part of the appeal, the fact that the dr was paid. (Maybe that was an erroneous payment(?) & you should let that sleeping dog lie.) You should call the hospital's billing dept & explain the situation (that you are appealing & why, etc) & they will put a note on your bill so that you won't be deemed "late" or "non responsive". Keep them in the information loop. You may have more than one level of appeal, & you should exhaust them all. If it all fails, then speak to the hospital billing dept. about negotiating the bill to a lower price. This happens more than you would expect. They WILL work with you, I believe. Hospitals are not in the business to scam people. And as someone else said above..... we need health reform and this is a tiny example of WHY!!

Lady Vix, I write this only because you say you are new to this and something caught my eye in your last post. You said "you weren't going to go down to the bank and sign the papers until ......" And then I checked your other posts a quick scan didn't bring up any mention of a mortgage application or approval. So I want to point out that it's not as simple as buying something like a car where essentially you just sign papers promising to pay a certain amount and then you're good to go. With a house you have to apply to the bank for a mortgage on a specific house and they not only evaluate your credit, but they also require you to pay for an appraisal (not the same thing as the tax "appraisal" or the relator's comprehensive market analysis.) Then they decide how much money they will agree to lend to you as a mortgage. You have to come up with the rest. (These days banks' appraisers are being very conservative about values.) There's tons of paperwork you have to submit to the bank and then they will tell you if they will give you a mortgage for this house and how much down payment they require. They will give you an good faith estimate of the closing costs (which may include a lot of fees). You may also have to refund to the seller a portion of the year's property taxes. Plus you will need to have homeowner's insurance, etc. You are spending lots of money on inspections, but you need to get the mortgage app process going right away because if you can't get a mortgage (and banks are reportedly being extremely choosy these days and requiring much bigger down payments than in recent years), you could be wasting a lot of money on these inspections. If you have been to a bank and have been told you are "prequalified" you should know that means nothing Sorry! You need a mortgage approval, which you can only get from starting a mortgage application. Sometimes it takes more than one attempt from different banks. And this typically takes weeks, or even more. If you already have this covered, meaning you already have a mortgage committment/approval on this specific property, ignore this. If not, get to the bank, TODAY! Good luck! L

I don't know what Azzalea's problem is with utility companies and to be perfectly honest, I don't care, and while her DH may have worked for a utility company and claims to have some inside information, I doubt seriously if he worked for the utility company in question, that being Dominion East Ohio Gas Company (DEOGC). On the other hand, On three separate occassions DEOGC performed their services at my mothers house while I was there, so I feel that as a retired plumber myself, I too am qualified to assess the performance, and you may rest assured I too asked all the pertinent questions, like why would the gas company repair water & sewer lines? The reason has nothing to do with the gas company scrambling for money as was eluded by Azzalea. It has to do with Code requirements and union contracts. The gas company primarily installs and maintains the municipal gas lines, however Commercial and Municipal gas lines are not regulated under the plumbing codes, they fall under a separate set of Municipal codes and the rank & file employees that work for the gas company are under the "Pipefitters Union" and they are only permitted to work on the municipal gas lines and the individual service drops from the municipal line to the curb stop shutoff valve. The gas service line from the curb stop to the structure is regulated under the Plumbing code and you must be a certified Plumber to work on that line. The problem is that in the state of Ohio one only has to complete the apprenticeship and pass the state plumbers exam to become a commercial plumbers. Residential plumbers are regulated by the individual jurisdication, and in most jurisdictions the only requirement to become a licensed residential plumber is to pay an annual fee. As if that is not problamatic enough, in many small communities and in rural areas outside the local municipal district they have absolutely no licensing requirements to be a residential plumber. The gas company was then confronted with a problem. When they were called upon to install a new gas service they could only make the tap into the municipal gas line and extend the residential service line to the curb stop. From there they had to hire a plumber to run the line to the structure, but they had no way to insure the plumbers were even qualified to properly run a gas line so they opted to hire their own plumbers, but that instantly caused a union dissagreement between the Pipefitters Union & the Plumbers Union. The final solution was that the gas company hired qualified residential & cmmercial plumbers on a permanent subcontract from a local plumbing company. The plumbers remained as bona fide employees of the respective plumbing companies, but they reported for duty directly to the gas company and worked with gas company vehicles, equipment and materials and under the direct supervision of gas company supervisors. That was working out to the complete satisfaction of both unions and all parties concerned, but it was soon discovered that the gas company did not have enough work installing service drops to justify the expense of having separate crews. They then relized the the plumbers were legally qualified to not only install and maintain the gas lines, they were also qualified to install and maintain water & sewer lines so the gas company started the "line Backer" service to insure their plumbing crews would be afforded a steady 40hr work week, thus insuring they could keep the same ppl doing the job. Now let us compare the gas company service to having the service performed through your homeowners insurance. From my first hand experience, when you call the gas company they will have an estimator on site within the hour. The estimator examines the job and determines the level of service required, then radios that information back to their dispatchers. The dispatchers then apply for all necessary permits, notifiy "Dig Safe" to come out and mark all utility lines before they commence digging, and the appropriate repair crew is dispatched to the location. On two occassions when they came to my mothers house they already had a hard copy of the plumbing permit on the truck when they arrived, on the third occassion the repair crew arrived and began unloading their tools and equipment and within a few minutes a pickup truck arrived with their permit. The crews work out of a large gas company 5 ton crewcab truck with a 20' hard covered utility bed loaded with all the tools, parts and materials to perform the task at hand, and they were pulling a large commercial heavy duty equipment trailer with either a trencher or a backhoe, whichever was required to do the job. In all three instances the job was completed within 8hrs from the time we first called the gas company, and when they did the water line it was on a Sunday. Having spent over 25 years in the plumbing trade I had many opportunities to do similar work through insurance companies. Generally when you call an insurance company they will send an adjuster out within a day or two to examine the problem. The then take their findings back to the office and discuss whether or not it is covered by the policy. If it is a catastrophic failure its covered, but if the problem resulted from old age, it is a maintenance problem and not covered. Of course it will take them a day or so to make that determination. The insurance company will then call you and tell you what their determination was and if they authorize the service they will issue you a P.O. number or control number and tell you to go ahead and contact a plumber. You are then left scrambling through the phone book looking for a plumber that can come out within a short time and make the repairs, course that short time may be another 4 or 5 days. No time now to go through the process of checking references, you need the service immediately. To add insult to injury, how many homeowners have any firsthand knowledge of what the code requirements are? Do you feel yourself qualified to judge the quality of the work performed? If the truth be told, most homeowners would not even know enough to insist on pulling a permit and having the job inspected..Oh yes, and did we mention that even if the job is covered by your insurance, you first have to reach down in your pocket and cover the deductable. So as I said before,,if you happen to live in an area servied by Dominion East Ohio Gas company, in my opinion you would be a fool not to take advantage of it.