Couch 231: Live Long and Prosper!

Welcome to the couch, old and new! A place to hang out - sometimes you get immediate feedback, sometimes you don't.

Shouting, "Cool Whip" tends to bring others out from between the cushions if you're feeling lonely.

This is a chatty thread. All are welcome. We're kind of psychologically oriented, sometimes. We try to be supportive. At times we discuss what that means.

It’s a place to plop down on the couch when you come home from work or wherever, or wake up in the middle of the night, or check in at lunch, rant a bit or not, and be among friends.

We advise you not to drink or drug and text your therapist ("T") - we speak from experience.

Sometimes the thread moves fast and you might get overlooked; sometimes it moves slowly and all you hear are crickets. Sometimes you get hugged or thanked pages later. So if it's a bigger question, you might want to start a new thread.

Grab a cushion, a spot on the floor, or an armchair in the corner and make yourselves comfy.

231 - Little riddle for all you Trekkies out there, as to why this Couch number correlates to this couch name. No prizes will be awarded.

Not even a kiss from fair una?

Maybe a 3 stooges poke in the eye.

My new insurance company requires that my T fill out and sign a form each month so that I can get reimbursed for paying him out of pocket. He says he doesn’t deal with insurance companies and is so very busy and important that we have to use session time to do this paperwork. What we ended up deciding to do is that I walked him through how to put his signature on a blank version of the form so that I can fill it out myself and send it in each month.

I know what it’s like to be a busy provider, but that seems sort of cruddy to me — paperwork is part of the job. I’m annoyed.

Actually, come to think of it, this would be a really easy way for me to commit insurance fraud — say we had more sessions than we actually did and get reimbursed for more money than I actually paid him (my new insurance covers therapy 100%). That’d teach him not to be a d*** about paperwork.

(I’m kidding; I would never do that. But I am annoyed.)

That is annoying, Chihiro. Though I think its fairly common among therapists--Dr. T won't fill out any paperwork either, just sends me invoices for each session (they're autogenerated with some program he has). I pay him up front, then use insurance for out-of-network benefits. He gets annoyed when my insurance company randomly sends him something in error. Like he'll text me a photo of it.

You're right about the potential for insurance fraud. The insurance company did call him once to confirm that I was in fact paying him the full fee up front (he didn't mind that call, because he understood what it was about). I imagine it would be possible to create a fake invoice to submit that says I'd paid, then get some of the money back. Or potentially, a therapist could conspire with a client to give the appearance that I attended more sessions than I did (and more than I paid for). But he has receipts of my payments (credit card), so he could prove I paid if needed.

I think that kind of policy is pretty stupid. If therapists want to get paid, they should be willing to do the paperwork that allows me to pay them. I don’t like filling out paperwork for my patients either but I’m not allowed to just refuse to do it.

I think it’s part of this thing where therapists can feel guilty about charging for their services. This came up a lot in my psychoanalytic fellowship actually; new therapists were often flummoxed when the therapist’s needs (to get paid, to end session on time, etc.) came to the forefront. And then when therapists feel guilty/flummoxed, they can get stupid and reflexively clamp down on their boundaries.

Another stupid thing is that he is bad at technology even though he’s only 40 or so, which meant that I had to spend 15 minutes of session walking him through how to open the form in preview and create a signature and drag it to the correct part of the form, etc.

Nope. How would i know those things?! Another hint - how do i usually name a couch?

Another guess:
William T Riker Captain, Commander of the USS Titan. Serial number SC231-427

Another hint - Live long and prosper! Literally and figuratively!

Also - the first thing i do is google it.

Randomly?

I needed to distract myself from a family matter, so I did early-birthday shopping therapy. Let's just say, there's shopping therapy and then there's Lego Colosseum shopping therapy.

Of course now that I have it I don't know what to do with it.

This is freaking awesome! I can't imagine how long it will take to put together though! I want the Lego Bond Car (Astin Martin) but really, what would I do with it? Hmmm.

I don't know but I hope you give more hints. I mean I think the original series took place in the 2300's but that isn't the same as 231. Dagnabbit!

She said it has something to do with the title of the thread as well as the number as well as Star Trek. So presumably something to do with the Vulcan salute.

I guess you really want a three stooges poke in the eye from her, huh?

I got a girl from Lower Peninsula.
I don't mean to boast
but I know she's the toast
of Lower Peninsula.

What should my dangerously depressed BIL do while he waits for his new meds to kick in?

I've suggested coffee, chocolate and watching comedy in TV.

@stopdog:

Is there no legal principle or precedent that it cannot be a crime to "aid and abet" an action that is not itself a crime?

I agree that they should be willing to fill out some paperwork. I was spoiled at ex-T and ex-MC's practice because they had office staff that not only filled stuff out but submitted the claims (even though it was out-of-network benefits). Dr. T is just him, no staff or anything. Sounds like it's the same with your T?

That's interesting on the guilt about charging for their services then leading them to clamp down on boundaries.

Dr. T doesn't seem to have issues about charging for his services. He seems almost too open about that at times, like once a while back I thanked him for an extra session and said I felt bad that he'd extended his day for it. He said it wasn't a problem and that the session would enable him to buy a solar phone charger that he'd wanted. Which felt...kind of weird. Like he was getting this extra item for my distress, almost? I know he was trying to make me feel better, but still... Then again, he can be generous in terms of reducing his rates when clients need it (including me, but I know he's charged as little as $5 a session to a past client), so, it's not like he's just money-hungry.

And that is annoying having to show him how to do that. Was that part of your session time, too? At least Dr. T is pretty up on technology (and he's even older than your T!). I hope it all works out that you can just use that form.

Yeah, me teaching him how to use Preview was part of my session.

I probably wouldn’t love it if my T said spending 50 minutes with me = fancy new gadget for him. I am fine with the fact that I pay him — he is well-educated, works hard, and deserves to be compensated for his time and skills — but breaking it down into such specific terms is a little much… sort of mechanizes/monetizes the interaction to a degree that feels a little cold. He was probably just trying to mitigate/interrupt your guilt about asking him for the extra session and he ended up saying something that carried unintended undertones.

My T’s office is in a hospital and he does see some patients through part of a clinic but he bills me through his private practice. Honestly I’d be willing to pay a slightly higher session fee to cover the cost of him having an administrative assistant to do this crap for him (rather than me having to do it myself and/or deal with the annoyance of having to twist his arm to do the bare minimum), but I especially hate paperwork (and my T’s BS) so that preference is probably not universal.

Sounds so frustrating. I feel like if the therapist struggles with that part of their job, or has too many different kinds of paperwork regarding billing (not clinical notes) then hire someone to do the administrative tasks.

He shouldn't be using your session time for you to actually teach him ugh. Can't he use Google? Not hard to Google how to create the signature as an image file then put it in.

I did that in 5 minutes on a whim one day at my old job because I got irritated with 20 people having to print out forms, sign them, bring them to me to counter sign, then I had to scan it back in and digitally file those forms.

ETA: whoops, just scrolled down and realised I missed a bunch of posts. My T's clinic has software that automatically generates invoices. No idea about insurance paperwork as I'm not insured for therapy. Very few insurances here cover for therapy, but I know some do as the clinic website mentions one can use insurance.

231 = Lifespan of a Vulcan? I have no idea.