A good news/bad news story
4.28.09
Last summer, when Sean entered all of our health insurance information, his medical history, and his vaccination records into the UW Health Center’s online database, as was requested of all incoming students, it was a long process. The site cautioned the information enterer to write it all out first on paper so that no mistakes would be made along the way: once it was submitted, apparently it could not be changed — or at least not easily. It was definitely one of those times when it paid to do it right the first time.
So, I helped him to fill out the lengthy questionnaire on paper first, and then he carefully entered all of the information, which was a laborious process. When he reached the end and finally got to submit it all… it appeared that he’d been kicked out of the system. He did not get a confirmation, nor did he get $200 for passing ‘Go.’ Nothing.
After that, I urged him (and urged, and urged, and then finally gave up) to go to the health center in person during his first few weeks on campus to ask them if they had, in fact, received all of this important information. My reasoning was that he didn’t want to show up there someday — very sick — only to find out that they didn’t have any of this information on file. I didn’t know what would happen in that case, but why take a chance?
Well, a mother’s warnings often go unheeded, but the good news of this story is that when Sean went to the health center today, they had his information on file, from start to finish. Yay!
The bad news of this story is that he has pneumonia — a mild case, the doctor said, and he’s now on some serious antibiotics, so he should feel better soon. In the meantime, he’s wearing a face mask and must look like he has serious paranoia about swine flu or something. Bummer…
So, I helped him to fill out the lengthy questionnaire on paper first, and then he carefully entered all of the information, which was a laborious process. When he reached the end and finally got to submit it all… it appeared that he’d been kicked out of the system. He did not get a confirmation, nor did he get $200 for passing ‘Go.’ Nothing.
After that, I urged him (and urged, and urged, and then finally gave up) to go to the health center in person during his first few weeks on campus to ask them if they had, in fact, received all of this important information. My reasoning was that he didn’t want to show up there someday — very sick — only to find out that they didn’t have any of this information on file. I didn’t know what would happen in that case, but why take a chance?
Well, a mother’s warnings often go unheeded, but the good news of this story is that when Sean went to the health center today, they had his information on file, from start to finish. Yay!
The bad news of this story is that he has pneumonia — a mild case, the doctor said, and he’s now on some serious antibiotics, so he should feel better soon. In the meantime, he’s wearing a face mask and must look like he has serious paranoia about swine flu or something. Bummer…
