Left Hand, Meet Right Hand

When my company was acquired earlier this year, I switched from the old United Healthcare plan that I was on to the new United Healthcare plan that I'm on now. They're fairly similar in most respects. I was assured that my deductibles and the overall personal medical expense cap that I'd met with my March surgery would carry over to the new insurance.

Shortly before going in for my follow-up surgery in September, I checked the UHC website which showed that none of my earlier expenses had been credited. I called them and complained and they assured me that they would fix it.

Needless to say, that hasn't been done as I discovered when I looked at the recently processed claims on the website.

I've called again. I was not entirely pleasant. Interestingly, the record of my earlier call was in their system. No sign that anyone had actually been moved to do anything about it, but they had entered it for posterity.

Posterity has now sent my problem through to the appropriate department marked as "Urgent!" This may or may not improve the situation.

In the meantime, the new FSA sends me checks for what it thinks I'm supposed to be paying. Of course, those are things that I'm not supposed to be paying, so they shouldn't be disbursing the money.

It's also not clear that we've actually found all of the checks.

I love straightening out these messes. *sigh*

Left Hand, Meet Right Hand

When my company was acquired earlier this year, I switched from the old United Healthcare plan that I was on to the new United Healthcare plan that I'm on now. They're fairly similar in most respects. I was assured that my deductibles and the overall personal medical expense cap that I'd met with my March surgery would carry over to the new insurance.

Shortly before going in for my follow-up surgery in September, I checked the UHC website which showed that none of my earlier expenses had been credited. I called them and complained and they assured me that they would fix it.

Needless to say, that hasn't been done as I discovered when I looked at the recently processed claims on the website.

I've called again. I was not entirely pleasant. Interestingly, the record of my earlier call was in their system. No sign that anyone had actually been moved to do anything about it, but they had entered it for posterity.

Posterity has now sent my problem through to the appropriate department marked as "Urgent!" This may or may not improve the situation.

In the meantime, the new FSA sends me checks for what it thinks I'm supposed to be paying. Of course, those are things that I'm not supposed to be paying, so they shouldn't be disbursing the money.

It's also not clear that we've actually found all of the checks.

I love straightening out these messes. *sigh*

Cash Flowing

shsilver and I sat down last night and have almost finished reconstructing the ISFiC Press financials for 2005 and then building the financials for 2006 so that our new treasurer can file the ISFiC tax return which has been extended about as far as it can go. I had run into a horrible time crunch in early 2006 and passed the financial data to our then-treasurer (who is, quite sadly, now deceased) to crunch the numbers. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that we actually needed to use inventory accounting now that ISFiC actually had inventory.

Oops. An easy enough mistake to make, I suspect, if you're not familiar with the problem, but it meant that we had to rebuild the 2005 financials so that we had a firm place to stand to get 2006 straightened out.

We're a couple numbers short of a full load, but I've got a pretty close picture of where everything stands and I know what everyone -- except me! :) -- is owed, so Steven can get the appropriate checks out. The problem with a small press (as jeff_duntemann periodically reminds me) is that you're almost always undercapitalized. So are we. But the good news is that all the books save one have rolled to a position where we're at a cash flow break-even (roughly) and last year's collection, Outbound, is essentially sold out now -- bad from the point of view of having a back list, but really good from the point of view of having positive cash flow.

It's just scary to realize that at the end of last year, ISFiC Press had a $20,000 inventory. Gleep!

Cash Flowing

shsilver and I sat down last night and have almost finished reconstructing the ISFiC Press financials for 2005 and then building the financials for 2006 so that our new treasurer can file the ISFiC tax return which has been extended about as far as it can go. I had run into a horrible time crunch in early 2006 and passed the financial data to our then-treasurer (who is, quite sadly, now deceased) to crunch the numbers. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that we actually needed to use inventory accounting now that ISFiC actually had inventory.

Oops. An easy enough mistake to make, I suspect, if you're not familiar with the problem, but it meant that we had to rebuild the 2005 financials so that we had a firm place to stand to get 2006 straightened out.

We're a couple numbers short of a full load, but I've got a pretty close picture of where everything stands and I know what everyone -- except me! :) -- is owed, so Steven can get the appropriate checks out. The problem with a small press (as jeff_duntemann periodically reminds me) is that you're almost always undercapitalized. So are we. But the good news is that all the books save one have rolled to a position where we're at a cash flow break-even (roughly) and last year's collection, Outbound, is essentially sold out now -- bad from the point of view of having a back list, but really good from the point of view of having positive cash flow.

It's just scary to realize that at the end of last year, ISFiC Press had a $20,000 inventory. Gleep!