A Compass With No Needle!

Got out for two short fifteen minute walks today. The left side of my spine has finally let up, now I just gotta get the right side to stop spasming. Anyway, I took this picture today of my biggest cactus blooming. Weather has been pretty good to all my plants except the melons. Either this is just gonna be a crappy year, or I got seeds that are just not as good as other seasons. There are a lot of varieties of melon seeds, and some do much better here than others.
Since I will be seeing the doc thursday and he will most assuredly want to do an MRI, I thought I would try and find the cheapest way I could get this accomplished, other than going to mexico and having someone do one with tinfoil, ball bearings, a horshoe magnet, and a candle. Now it probably doesn't matter that much, because so long as it is a provider in medical mutual, I well end up eating my $850 deductible for the year as well as a bit of my co-payment. So I thought I would go onto the medical mutual site and see what places I could have it done. Now they say that some imaging centers charge about a third of what hospitals do, just as I learned about lab work. My lab work for my annual physical thru an independent lab costs around one quarter of what it costs at a local hospital. So, I thought I would hunt for the elusive $500 MRI! So I got the lists, and there are a few imaging centers in las cruces. While searching, I noticed that there is this "Compass" service on the website that says you can call and they will find you the cheapest alternative for the service you are trying to obtain. So I talked to the nice lady emily, gave her all my information, and she told me that she would email me tomorrow with the best choice. So I went out for my walk, and when I returned, there was an email from her saying she had left for the day, wouldn't be back until thursday, and that she could not find OPERS or my group or account number in their system. So I will try again bye calling medical mutual tomorrow. I am not optimistic. You know, if you wanted to buy a particular model shaver, you could just plug it into google search, and you would get lots of choices of where to buy it and at what price. If you go to amazon, you will get all the prices with shipping options in seconds. Yet, if you try to go into your insurance and ask the price of an MRI, why don't you get a listing of places you can get it done with their freakin' price! Why is the information all secret.....they ask you to try and keep the costs down, but provide no assistance in doing so! The trip thru the medical industrial complex commences for 2013!