Happy Early Birthday!

A few weeks ago, I went to a new dentist up here in Palo Alto (Dr. Boyarsky - endorsement to come). Along with the ordinary stuff, I also had to get a new night guard - I'm a teeth-grinder, and I'd pretty much worn out the one I had. So Dr. Boyarsky's admin called up my insurance to get an estimate of how much it would cost (since these things cost in the hundreds of dollars, and if the insurance didn't cover it, I wasn't getting it). The answer was about $80, so I said let's do it, and that was that. A couple weeks later, I get the bill for $370, pass it on to the insurance, and they come back and say...it's not covered?! WHAT?! Apparently I can only get a new night guard every 3 years - but they hadn't mentioned that when I was deciding whether or not to get one in the first place. Yikes.

So today, after trying to swallow the fact that I was about to pay over 300 bucks for a piece of hard plastic, I decided to call the dentist's office to see what they could do. I didn't have any expectations that this would achieve anything - insurance companies protect themselves again liability for misquoting, and it certainly wasn't the dentist's fault. A few hours later, they call back and say, "Since we told you you'd only have to pay 20%, that's all we're going to charge you." How sweet is that?! This is a legitimately cool guy.

And to top it all off, in the mail this afternoon I received my first birthday card. The cover: "Happy Birthday." The inside:

Dear Jeffrey,

Best wishes on your birthday and throughout the coming year.

Harvey P. Boyarsky, D.M.D and Staff