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DATE : 2019.02.03
TIME : 00:38
AUTHOR :
[email protected]
MOOD : ANNOYED
TITLE : ATTACK OF THE EOBS
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A few years ago I was forced to switch from an HMO health plan to a PPO health plan. Human Resources was quick to try and placate me, claiming that the PPO
would be just as good as the HMO. I knew different, I told them so and... it didn't make a damn bit of a difference. So I have been forced to live under
the PPO regime for a number of years.
Things I hate about PPOs:
1) Not everything is covered.
2) Not everything goes toward your max deductible.
3) Trying to pair your PPO with a Health Saving Account (HSA) is a royal pain.
A little note about #3, HSA accounts let you bank a certain amount of your paycheck, tax free. You can use these funds with an issued credit card to pay out
of pocket expenses. Sounds like a good deal, but where it gets to be royal pain in the ass is that the HSA requires supporting documents for a lot fo the
charges.
So for example, say my provider has a $600 bill for me. This bill might be comprised of numerous medical charges (visits, hospital, etc.). To validate, one
needs to upload supporting Explanation of Benefits (EOB) files. There are often multiple EOBs per item. I just went through gathering EOBs for my last bill.
I needed to track down and download 32 EOB PDF files to provide to the HSA.
32!
With a HMO, by contrast, provided one goes to an HMO approved doctor, an HMO approved hospital, etc. as long as one pays the co-pay, there is zero cost, zero
extra bullshit to put up with, zero out of pocket to reach. It's fucking amazing to be honest, and companies are running from them. The company I work for
makes billion(s) in profit every year, it practically mints money and yet they can't afford a HMO plan. I would have paid for it if they doubled or tripled
the cost to the employee.
So back to my HSA and 32 PDF files. Wouldn't you know it, the max PDFs you can upload is 5. Thanks to pdfunite, a utility available in poppler I believe it
was a snap. Gotta love Linux.
NAME
pdfunite - Portable Document Format (PDF) page merger
SYNOPSIS
pdfunite [options] PDF-sourcefile1..PDF-sourcefilen PDF-destfile
DESCRIPTION
pdfunite merges several PDF (Portable Document Format) files in order of their occurrence on command line to one PDF result file.
Neither of the PDF-sourcefile1 to PDF-sourcefilen should be encrypted.
OPTIONS
-v Print copyright and version information.
-h Print usage information. (-help and --help are equivalent.)
EXAMPLE
pdfunite sample1.pdf sample2.pdf sample.pdf
merges all pages from sample1.pdf and sample2.pdf (in that order) and creates sample.pdf
