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loquaciousquark · 4 years

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Cut for talk of COVID and irresponsible failure to social distance (my own). Also, some updates on what’s been going on here for the last month or so.

part one:

Very very long story that I am truncating as much as possible. As you all know, I am an optometrist and professor. When we shut down in March, our university made a huge, painful shift to remote learning and our student clinic ceased operations altogether. Neither students nor faculty saw patients from March 15 - the the middle of May. At the end of May, faculty began seeing patients directly in an extremely reduced schedule, and at the beginning of June, we began adding in very limited numbers of students in a rolling schedule that minimized exposure to all involved.

Three weeks ago, my dear friend Jasper contacted me and said that an old friend of hers, whom I will call Carol, was in dire straits after losing her job overseas. Carol has an extremely rocky history: a terrible car accident that left her legs and feet permanently damaged which directly led to a very bad divorce, significant student loan debt (just shy of six digits I think, compounded from the accident, since she used her student loans to pay her medical bills--for anyone reading this, do not EVER EVER EVER DO THIS--student loans are never touched by bankruptcy declarations and you will owe them until you die), and something of an inability to put down roots. She is an English teacher who has taught and traveled all over the world: Prague, Bahrain, Czech Republic, Los Angeles, Rio, etc.

When I first met her about ten years ago, she had come back to Alabama from Prague because a job had fallen through. She was completely broke and living out of two suitcases and a carry-on. She lived with us for three months for free, sleeping in Jasper’s bed because we had no other room for her, and eventually got a job in Boston and moved on. She lasted--I think--about two months in Boston before quitting and taking a job in the Middle East.

On top of her student loan debt, Carol also has significant IRS debt and is in debt to several of her friends. Over the last few years, she took several ill-advised positions overseas back to back without ever consulting a lawyer on her contracts, and did not realize until recently that one of her positions classified her as an independent contractor instead of an employee, so she owed US taxes on all her income for that period of time. Her most recent job in Prague she lost in February because she filed her visa (again, without a lawyer) incorrectly, and what should have been a brief three-week stay outside of the country became a six week stay on the couch of strangers in the Czech Republic while she waited for her visa reapplication to process. However, it was denied, and then COVID hit, and she returned to Alabama with only a portion of her possessions and tons of important paperwork left behind in her Prague apartment. She then unfortunately had two emergency surgeries on her stomach for an acute, unpredictable medical issue, and while she is well healing now, it also added on another forty thousand dollars of medical debt to what she already owed.

She stayed with her mother and sister while she was recovering from the emergency surgeries, but her family is emotionally abusive and very unkind to her, and after a few weeks she left their home and went to stay with Jasper. However, Jasper is also 8 months pregnant with her fourth child, and they both knew it was a temporary thing. Jasper knows that I have a large home with several spare bedrooms, and asked if I would be willing to host Carol for a period of time while she got back on her feet. I knew what I was agreeing to when I said yes, and Carol and I settled on a period of two months. She has now been here almost three weeks.

Frankly, I do not like Carol very much. We are unbelievably different people in every way--personality, temperament, proclivity to crying in front of other people, hobbies, interests, religion, all of it. She is a very nice person, and I think she truly does mean well. But she is the most emotionally needy and energy-sapping person I have ever met, and I cannot tolerate her company in more than small chunks. It is not possible to hold a conversation with her about any subject tangentially related to her difficulties; if I try to sympathize with her loans by mentioning my own, she shuts me down by saying at least I will have the chance to ever pay them back. If I just try to listen without commentary, she’ll wrap herself up in her own stories and talk for hours without ever needing more than “mm”s and “hm”s and my undivided attention the entire time.

She will often work herself up into sobbing tears over her situation(s), and she always informs me immediately of any new development in any of her numerous trials: which are usually negative, considering the situation, and usually resulting in more tears. She has cried on me probably more than a dozen times since she moved in, and she wields “I love you” like a weapon, more to hear the validation of the response than to truly express the sentiment. She constantly asks for advice on her situation but does not listen to any of it--seems more to just want to relive each tragic detail of her life over and over again with an audience, wondering why she’s continually “screwed over in her life.” (Really, really poor financial decisions and constantly trusting her own “intuition” over getting competent legal advice before signing contracts, are I think the biggest contributors.) She has told me so many private details about her personal views, relationships with her ex-husband and mother and sister, her financial choices, and her extensive travel and job history over the last few years that I probably know her history better than my own at this point.

I think she thinks by sharing so much that she is justifying to me her need to stay with me. What is actually happening is that I am forced to help shoulder this enormous emotional load that compounds my own mental health problems I’ve been having since all this started. I have told her more than once that she does not need to justify herself to me and that my home is open to her for two months, no strings attached. I believe she is making all the steps she needs to and do not need reports on her daily activities to “pay” for her lodging or electricity or internet or whatever. This has changed the behavior a little for the better but not stopped it.

There are moments that are not bad. As I have mentioned, she does mean well and want well for most people. She likes Hamlet and loves Jasper, who is extremely important to me. But she is extremely difficult to be around in so many other ways, and the way she constantly exclaims over how we basically think alike on all things (absolutely untrue) makes me think she either will not or cannot read my reluctance to engage on any of these topics.

(An example: I was watching footage of the SpaceX launch and despite my feelings on Elon Musk, really excited about the implications for space travel. She came in, and after misunderstanding for some time that I was not watching Space Force with Steve Carell, decided that the SpaceX program was morally bankrupt, obviously borne of shady backroom government deals, and everyone involved should have used the money to solve world hunger instead. For the record, she had not heard of the shuttle launch, SpaceX, or Elon Musk at all before the seeing the footage.)

(She also until last week had not heard of Playstation, Xbox, streaming as a concept, or any game more modern than the original Mario. Trying to order a grocery delivery online was an excruciating torment for her [took her over four days to get through selecting the items, selecting allowable replacements, and actually paying] and I will not ask her to do it again. She frequently makes comments about video games being a waste of time, and when she sees children playing outside, comments on how glad she is they are not inside playing video games. She doesn’t seem to realize her comments are a direct commentary on me; I think she genuinely does not understand that those games are what I am playing most of my free time.)

Right now, everything seems to hinge on her passing some teacher recertification tests next week and the week after. She spent $150 to give herself less than a week to study from scratch for a test she described as the hardest she’d ever taken. There were several other dates later in the summer she could have chosen, and her deadline is December, but she picked the soonest option for reasons I can’t fathom. She is also in the process of trying to get a car--right now I’m driving her everywhere--and she was ready to hand over $3800 yesterday for a ten-year-old Hyundai with a check-engine light on without even thinking of getting any kind of inspection. She is far more concerned with the color and “energy” of the car than its function, and would not have even checked the headlights and blinkers if I hadn’t prompted it.

She will be here another five weeks or so. We move around each other now better than we did before, and I hope it will continue to improve. But it’s a lot like a rock grinding a groove in the streambed from the repetitive friction, and it’s not the struggle I wanted to be having right now.

part two:

As I mentioned above, Jasper is having her fourth child in a month or so. One of her friends, someone I don’t know, contacted me and said she wanted to do a drive-by “baby sprinkle,” where no one gets out of their cars. You drop off the gifts, talk to the recipient a few minutes from the car window, and move on. I told her that I work in health care and am exposed to patients, so that sounded good to me.

The shower was this morning. Carol and I got up and drove the thirty minutes to Jasper’s house. There were four other families in cars right around the corner, and the “hostess” gave us all balloons to tie on our side mirrors. She told us we would drive around the corner, drop off the gifts, and loop around. Jasper’s husband would arrange for her to be in the front yard at the right time.

Cute enough. We go around the corner with little honks and Jasper sees us and starts crying, and it’s all wonderful and emotional and a fabulous surprise and I’m genuinely excited about it. And then people start parking and getting out of their cars, and Carol and I start looking at each other. They’re full families, too--three of the other moms brought all their kids, and soon enough they’re playing with Jasper’s three boys in the front yard and coming up asking to pet Hamlet through the car window. No one was wearing masks.

And what’s worse, when they all started looking at us expectantly through the car window, we didn’t know what to do. They were handing Jasper her gifts and obviously settling in for a good long chat; the women were hugging, talking about how they are “so over this COVID stuff, please come visit soon,” and Hamlet of course recognizes his original owners in Jasper and her husband so he’s freaking out, and after a few moments, we decided to just get out of the car.

It was the first time I really felt the social pressure to participate in an event I wasn’t comfortable with. I have no issue maintaining my social distance and my mask and my handwashing at work because that is where I have the position of authority, and I have the responsibility to model it for the students and patients--but here, I was a guest at someone else’s house at someone else’s event, and I really, really felt how they might perceive me as rude. While I didn’t know the other women, my relationship with Jasper is extremely important to me, and I didn’t want to make this special event for her difficult in any way.

So we got out of the car and joined the group. I tried to keep my distance as much as possible, especially since I had Hamlet on the leash and there were a half-dozen small children around, but at least twice I looked up and there was someone right at my elbow, and we made small talk for five minutes or so before either she drifted back to the group or I moved Hamlet into the shade away from the rest.

Cars drove by and slowed down more than once to look at us. Jasper’s husband made a comment about rolling his eyes if he saw their family on Facebook that evening. The women planned play dates, all standing very close together, and Jasper opened her gifts (that part was excellent). All in all we were probably there about twenty minutes.

I should mention that on the drive there, we passed a public park that has a very pretty waterfall right next to the road, and there were probably a dozen families out playing. There was a festival/outdoor market right outside the the park that had a sign up about social distancing, but the fifty or so people we saw shopping there were not adhering in any meaningful way. No one wore a mask.

And what annoys the bejeezus out of me is that I didn’t either. I didn’t even think about it until after we finally got back in the car to drive away. This is the first social event I’ve gone to since the first week of March, and while I wear masks for eight+ hours every day I go in to work, it didn’t occur to me even a single time to put on even my little cloth one that I keep in the car until we were driving away afterwards. I was so flummoxed by every little thing happening differently than I expected--people getting out of cars, how surprised I was by my own susceptibility to not rocking the boat, how normal everyone else made it to stand so close they could bump elbows so that Carol and I became almost excluded from the circle--that it never once crossed my mind. I know masks are more for the protection of those around you, not to keep you from catching what other people are carrying, but I could have set an example. I could have been the health professional I should have been in the moment.

I’m just so disappointed in myself. Disappointed in my own carelessness, irritated that I didn’t say anything, continually frustrated in a deep, gut-wrenching way by the whole situation that requires this in the first place. Bewildered that so many people are “back to normal” while this thing is still spreading, and in brutal honesty wishing I could be like them and just give up the fight myself. I’m not even mad at them. I WANT TO BE THEM. Why am I continually bothering to care and sanitize and mask and stay at home when no one else is? Literally no one would judge me in this state for it more than I’m already being judged (in most cases impersonally, though I felt the potential for it today in specific) for still watching the recommended guidelines.

I am really, really sick of this. I am so sick of feeling alone in this (of being alone in this, and Carol doesn’t count). Hearing other people saying “there there, you’re doing the right thing” honestly makes it even worse. I want people to stop patronizingly telling me to do things I already know are the right thing to do. I want other people as mad as I am that I can’t do the things I want to and need to do instead of being endlessly patient and noble about all the lives they’re saving by staying home. I’m top-of-my-head-blowing-off furious that so many people are shrugging and saying “well this is just the way it will be forever and alas, so it goes” and acting like those of us who did the right thing and cancelled our plans and our trips and our visits to dear friends but who are mad about having to do it are overreacting. I’m so fucking mad about it. I’ve stayed home for two months and I’ve isolated and I’ve quarantined and my hands are cracking from the constant sanitizer/washing at work and except for today I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do for this, and I don’t want to do it. And seeing people be so heroically virtuous and longsuffering on Facebook feels as alien and upsetting to me as the people who go to the beaches with a hundred of their closest friends.

That’s probably unfair in myriad ways. I’m really too angry, including at myelf, to soften it right now.

I want a vaccine and I want to be back in my classroom teaching to fifty faces instead of a screen in my living room, and I’m honestly freaking sick of waiting at home for them to figure this out. And watching everyone else move on with their lives back to the normal I would kill to have is just one more crack in the dike.

#quark rambles #this got really personal and mad #so sorry about that #coronavirus for ts #covid-19 for ts #quarantine for ts #carol #jasper #long post for ts

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swiftie00 · 4 years

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Now that the social isolation/stay at home order has been pushed back until April 30th I have to go atleast another month without getting paid. A full month without kmowing when I’ll be able to go back to work. I was supposed to have my tour guide training in May (I was so excited for this job) and now we don’t even know what will happen with that. I was supposed to be getting my lifeguard recertification done and now we don’t even know if pools will be open this summer. My college is closed so no student workers are allowed. I’m so overwhelmed and stressed right now. I have been trying to save money so I can move into an apartment my junior/senior year of college and now idk if that’ll happen. My online classes have been stressing me out to the max and I just hope this is all over with soon. @taylorswift and her music has been my saving grace through all this. I love you.

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thewatchau · 5 years

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Happy May 1614!

Well, we’ve made it another month, and boy this one sure looks like it’s gonna be interesting.

For those of you who don’t know, the timeline of The Watch AU follows what I jokingly call “Narnia Time Rules.” This means that, while present day dates match up to their irl counterparts, many parts of Duilintinn’s history do not.

The most egregious example of this is Mayhem 2018, which took place over a period from winter 1607 to early spring 1608. However, there is something else that occurred during the month of May in Duilintinn’s history that is cause for similar note: The founding of The Watch and the initial disappearance of the missing lords in May 1599, just after The Enemy’s second attempt upon the king’s life.

Therefore, as the community irl waits apprehensively for what spooks await in the month ahead, The Watch too lies in readiness for any signs of The Enemy on the 15th anniversary of The Watch’s founding.

As for the rest of Duilintinn, I’ll let past me do the talking, but this time, I’ve changed a few things to reflect my improved writing skills and new lore details we’ve unlocked in the past few months:

The weather will start warming up around now, so those who don’t live in the mountains should appreciate the mildness while it lasts before it gets crazy hot in June, July, and August.

If you live in the mountains, congrats! It’s still cool out, but you aren’t freezing anymore. In fact, until September rolls around again, you’ll have the best temperatures of the kingdom. It’s still raining though- it’s always raining- but at least it’s not freezing rain!

House Brody is continuing to tend to their crops, and thus far, their efforts seem to be going well. Baring sabotage from The Enemy, there are good indicators that the spring harvest will be very successful.

Now that the snows have fully melted in House Jackie, drills and training exercises will begin within that region. Letters have been sent to all members of the Guard Coalition, telling them when they should arrive at The Whetstone for recertification, while coalition officials have already been hard at work getting the decades-old training grounds in top shape for the first wave of troops. Meanwhile, members of the Mercenary’s Guild are taking advantage of their rival’s annual “changing of the guard,” advertising themselves as cheaper, flexible, and hassle-free alternatives before replacements are shipped back out.

In House Schneeplestein, the weather has finally grown fair and consistent enough for trade vessels to safely pull into Loch Domhainn on a regular basis, allowing ships from other nations to sail in and out of Fionport Harbor bearing goods, migrants, and friendly visitors from other lands.

Members of House Jameson, who normally celebrate new life in April with the first snowmelt rather than the first plants, are finally able to bring their various projects out of doors without fearing the cold- assuming, of course, that it isn’t raining. There’s a reason House Jameson is the culture full of creative people; they need stuff to do when the weather is constantly keeping them indoors!

Finally, House Marvin is starting to get humid, with the summer fog flowing out of the forest to fill the Draoidh Valley as it does every year. From Fort Conchúr, the valley looks like a bubbling cauldron, and Watchers in the region are reminded to tread carefully through the dense fog that now covers the forested and marshy lands of House Marvin. Many wonder if this natural phenomenon, like many things hidden away in the Western Forest, has magical properties, and it’s not uncommon to see dozens of curious experimenters, mages, and inventors excitedly rushing to the forest border at the first sign of the summer fog.

The Watch, meanwhile, will continue to do what it always does: Keep The Watch.

Congrats on making it to another month! Here’s to a warm, prosperous summer. May the new life we celebrated last month continue to renew and refresh you for the year ahead!

#May 1614 #Duilintinn's Culture #House Marvin #House Brody #House Jackie #House Jameson #House Schneeplestein #Flora and Fauna of The Watch #Details of The Watch

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fakestatus · 3 years

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Choosing A Reliable Residential Roofing Contractor | OptaMiss

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bighousela · 4 years

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The Pool TV show

A mockumentary following a group of lifeguards working at a community pool. Antics, egos clashing, and absurdity ensues. www.instagram.com/thepooltvshow www.facebook.com/thepooltvshow Directors Hayden Livesay www.imdb.me/haydenlivesay & Adam Bowers

Writers Hayden Livesay | Tony Vinci

Producers Hayden Livesay | Max McLaughlin | Paul Critzman

Tony Vinci | Michael Duggan

Cinematographer Paul Critzman

Editors Michael Duggan | Paul Critzman

Hayden Livesay Key Cast “Larry”

Carson Dougherty Key Cast “Karen”

Tony Vinci Key Cast “Noah”

Rebecca Smith Key Cast “Mel”

Every summer a select group of men and women are tasked with guarding the lives of countless families at beach. A job that takes courage, selflessness, and dedication to a whole other level. These are not those men and women. No these are the other lifeguards. The Paul Blarts of the lifeguards.

The Pool follows a group of community pool lifeguards who are lead by their “fearless” leader Larry aka the hopeless romantic. He is manager of the pool and while he may not be the strongest swimmer, he has the biggest heart. He is a hopeless optimist, living the life of his dreams as a pool lifeguard. Passionate is an understatement; When Larry commits to someone or something he dives in headfirst. Sure, he’d be lying if he didn’t admit to having his eye on that lucrative beach lifeguard gig, but secretly he knows he could never leave his best friends behind at the pool. A ‘straightforward’ thinking kind of guy, Larry loves his country, his whistle and watching a Notebook marathon on the Oxygen channel. How else would he know what love really is, considering his longest relationship has been with his best friend, Noah, aka the entrepreneur. Best friends with Larry. Slicker than sunblock on a changing room floor, some wonder how Noah can be so self-assured when he is a 30 year old assistant manager at the pool. He has thought about embarking on a string of business ideas, but then again that would be too much work. For Noah why work when you can sit poolside sipping on snowconearitas and playing go fish all day. He is his own man, living his own dream, living off his parents. Next up is the youngest of the group, Mel aka the lost one. Beneath Mel’s naive, innocent exterior is a naive innocent interior. But don’t be fooled, she can curse like a sailor - and drink like one too. Endowed with an overabundance of enthusiasm, she looks up to Larry.. and Noah.. and Karen.. and Chlorine Jan, and, well, pretty much anyone that can tie their own shoelaces. She dropped out of college to focus on being a life guard, in the summer. With grand dreams of being a WNBA star, she will only go as far as other people take her. The team is rounded out by Karen aka the mature one. The only one on the team who has a real job, and no we are not talking about lifeguarding.

For nine months out of the year she teaches kindergarten. The other three months she babysits…Noah… and Mel…and Larry. Trying to keep these three in line is a full time job, especially when two out of the three people are her bosses. If she could teach year round, lord knows she would. Despite herself, she has a soft spot for the passionate who are determined. Hard working and by the book, she constantly finds herself at odds with the team.After coming off another failed attempt at running a community pool, the gang was fired. To everyone’s surprise, except for Larry, they have been given another opportunity at redemption with a new a pool. Things quickly go array when Larry shows up to work and finds that someone has shit in the pool. Things go from bad to worse, when local news anchor, Terrance Schander, decides to cover this story. Not only does Larry and the gang have the local spot light on them but they receive a surprise visit from a county inspector, who could shut them down before the evening even gets started.To ensure they don’t get fired again , Larry insists the team goes through lifeguard recertifications even though they have two years left on their certs. However, being prepared is not enough, why would it be, especially when the vandalization has escalated. In a last ditch attempt to catch vandal and with his back against the ropes, Larry organizes a stakeout at the pool. Will they catch the vandal….probably not but, one thing is for sure, they have a date with destiny. Unfortunately that date is with the “Monstars” of beach lifeguards. Larry and the gang must go head to head in a grueling competition of strength, athleticism, and of course a game of PIG. With bragging rights and relationships on the line, this is the most important day of teams’ summer.Director Biography - Adam Bowers, Hayden Livesay Adam is a comedian and filmmaker whose work includes the feature- length movies New Low, which premiered at Sundance, and Paperback.Director Statement For seven years, I worked as a community pool lifeguard and pool manager. By seven years, I really mean seven summers. Those summers were arguably some of the best summers of my life. The days were consumed with laughter in the guard office, dive competitions with Noah in the well, enjoying free ice cream, and the smell of tanning oil was always in the air. The nights were filled with lifeguard parties, plenty of beer, night swims, country music, and midnight movie premieres with the gang. (Back when Midnight movie premieres really were on a Thursday night at midnight!) Then we would wake up and do it all over again. Oh and yeah we did work for some of that time. In all seriousness when we were in the chair we took our job very serious. You can’t put a price on the friendships and memories I made working at the pool. The pool gave me some incredible ridiculous stories and people to base my storytelling off of. I would tell friends about some of the people I encountered or some of the stories from working as a lifeguard and they wouldn’t believe me! I have always loved film and television for a variety of reasons. One of my favorite things about movies is that no matter what is happening in my life, no matter what crap life throws at me, no matter how shitty things can seem at a certain point in time, I have always been able to turn to the movies. I could sit down and binge watch a show like The Office and all my problems melt away. I become consumed by the the stories and characters in the show and find myself smiling, laughing, and relaxing. It is an incredible thing and I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to make something that people can just sit back, laugh, and forget about their problems. Even if it is just for a few minutes. So when I set out to do this, I realized there was a wealth of stories and characters to pull from my experience and tenure as a lifeguard. I had seen an interview with Bradley Cooper and when he was asked what advice he had for the actor he said, "surround yourself with like minded people that you can create with and try to not wait for that thing to happen." I have taken this to heart and have done just that. I have an immense amount of gratitude for this group of collaborators and all the work they put into making The Pool. It was one hell of a ride! Together we are going to keep telling our stories. My only hope is that whoever is reading this and whoever watches The Pool can sit back relax, maybe crack a cold beverage, and have a laugh or two.-Hayden Livesay

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8286284/?ref_=nm_knf_i1

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funnypqpcom · 4 years

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What Is The Recertification QuickBooks

Change happens faster in an exceedingly cloud biological system than it ever has antecedent ally. Liberated from yearly discharge cycles, we’ve the choice to hurry up and develop in manners that weren’t conceivable ten years previous. The QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program was established in 1997 to empower counselors to be the most effective purpose of facilitating for his or her customers, sponsored by facilitating and getting ready from the United States. Our commitment hasn’t modified, but our ways have.

A couple of years back, we tended to bestow yearly recertification. Recertification is maybe the foremost ideal way in which we tend to not sleep with the most recent with what has occurred within the item since their last take a look at. With criticism from you, we’ve taken in an exceedingly mass to modify the United States to proceed empowering the United States to develop and calibrate this procedure. This year we tend to expect to give a static recertification window, to help you with coping with your confirmation on a reliable premise year over year. Lining up with the accountant yearly schedule, even as our Quickbooks Support discharge plans, we tend to need to report the present year’s recertification window of Gregorian calendar month twenty through Gregorian calendar month thirty, 2020.

April twenty is that the main Monday once assessment season, that lines up with one amongst our standards around not confining accountancy masters to require on further work throughout their pinnacle seasons. Pushing the date to the Gregorian calendar month likewise permits the United States to make sure the affirmation is absolutely wise relating to new highlights that we tend to dispatch within the initial hardly any months of the year. Wrapping the affirmation window up toward the end of Gregorian calendar month gets the United States removed from any logical inconsistencies together with your July filings, even as giving the United States an understandable off for what knowledge makes it into the January 1 full certification, that we tend to discharge toward the beginning of Gregorian calendar month.

With COVID-19, we’re perceiving the quantity you wish to show what you are concentrating on to assist your firm and customers. At the same time, we’d like to make sure that you just, as a guide, leave this point within the most ideal position, which includes having the choice to use new items. thanks to the ebb and flow conditions, throughout the present year, we are going to broaden the recertification season. This year, you may have the choice to recertify between Gregorian calendar month twenty and Aug. 31st, 2020. within the event that you just do not recertify by 11:59 pm, PDT, on August thirty-one, your confirmation can terminate. The 2021 confirmation is accessible toward the start of the Gregorian calendar month, of course.

As Associate in Nursing uncommon reward, on the off likelihood that you just pass the recertification take a look at by could twenty, 11:59 pm, PDT, you will get an unprecedented QuickBooks-marked blessing sent squarely to your entree.

How We Recertify

In the event that you just passed your recertification the previous summer, or took the complete affirmation before 11/1/2019, you will have to require the present year’s recertification. On the off likelihood that you just confirmed once 11/1/2019, you’ll have to recertify in 2021. the most effective spot to substantiate is the preparation entrance. you may presumably observe the 2020 recertification within the event that you just ought to recertify.

The Most ideal Approach To Set up For Recertification

We have varied approaches to assist your coaching to induce preparedness for the take a look at. We tend to provide week once week on-line courses, even as virtual gatherings found on qbtrainingevents.com. On-request getting ready will be found on the ProAdvisor getting ready tab.

Get Recertification

The certification is accessible in your preparation entree on Gregorian calendar month twenty, 2020 till August thirty-one, 2020 11:59 pm, PDT.

QuickBooks Online Certification and QuickBooks Online Advanced Certification

The off likelihood that you just are Advanced Certified before 11/1/2019, your take a look at can incorporate the 2 degrees of recertification. One takes a look at recertifies you within the 2 confirmations.

Conclusion

The recertification stipulations depend upon your most elevated level of confirmation, thus on the off likelihood that you just finished Core before Gregorian calendar month, and Advanced once a Gregorian calendar month, you’re set till next recent season. You can get to the present from the ProAdvisor getting ready tab within QuickBooks Online Support bourgeois. you ought to end all areas of the take a look at by 11:59 pm, PDT, on June 30, 2020. we propose starting the affirmation after you are capable. Your commonality with QuickBooks on-line can intensely impact the time it takes for you to substantiate.

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oselatra · 6 years

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Scrubbed from the system

Why Medicaid enrollment has dropped by almost 60,000 people in 18 months.

Last September, a few months after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Kyla Brakebill's insurance coverage was canceled by the Arkansas Department of Human Services. Almost a year later, she remains uninsured.

Brakebill, 43, first began having headaches and dizzy spells in November 2016. After an especially intense episode, she was taken to the emergency room at Baptist Health Medical Center in North Little Rock, where a doctor ordered a series of tests. "She thought at first I might have had a stroke, because she tested that," Brakebill said in an interview. "They were going to see about an aneurysm, but that came back negative. ... After my MRI, she came in and said, 'I can tell you don't have this, this or that, but I'm worried.' " The doctor told Brakebill the scan showed "that my brain was like the brain of a 64-year-old woman."

Frightening as the news was, Brakebill thought she at least wouldn't have to worry about paying for medical care: She was on Arkansas Works, the state's Medicaid-funded insurance program for low-income adults established under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. (Arkansas Works is also sometimes called "Medicaid expansion" or "the private option.") Like most on the program, her policy was provided through a private carrier, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield. "It covered everything, and that was great," Brakebill said. The hospital helped her find a primary care doctor, who gave her a probable MS diagnosis and sent her to a neurologist, who in turn scheduled Brakebill for another round of brain scans.

Brakebill never had the scans performed. Late last summer, while taking out the trash at her house, she lost her balance on a rough patch of earth at the edge of the carport. "All of my weight went on my right big toe, and I broke my toe," she recalled. "And when that happened, my body swung around and my mouth hit the post that holds the carport up and knocked one of my front teeth out. It was horrible." A dentist prescribed antibiotics to stave off an infection, and shortly thereafter, Brakebill attempted to fill it.

"I was in Memphis for work and my mouth was hurt really bad," she said. "I get to Walgreens and I find out they won't fill my prescription because my insurance had ended." Baffled, she called Blue Cross and DHS as soon as she returned home. "After a million phone calls and finally getting to talk to someone, they said it was because I didn't send a change of address."

Brakebill had recently lost her home to a foreclosure and had moved several times. However, she had filled out a change of address form at the post office and had her mail forwarded to a P.O. box. She had no idea, she said, that DHS required beneficiaries to directly notify the agency of any physical address change. And because her insurance was provided through Blue Cross rather than directly through the state — a feature born of Arkansas's unusual privatized approach to Medicaid expansion — she wasn't used to communicating with DHS about her coverage. "I never had another conversation with DHS about insurance after that initial application," she said.

DHS requires beneficiaries to notify it of any address change within 10 days of a move, agency spokeswoman Amy Webb said. If mail sent to a beneficiary is returned to DHS and the agency hasn't received notification of an address change, it will close that person's case.

***

Over the past 18 months, Arkansas Works enrollment decreased by almost 60,000 people, DHS numbers show. Enrollment peaked near 330,000 sometime in January 2017. By July 1 of this year, it had fallen to 271,000 — a 15 percent drop.

The state is shedding beneficiaries at a faster rate than any other state that chose to expand Medicaid, according to data from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Arkansas saw a 6 percent decline in its overall Medicaid enrollment between January 2017 and May 2018. The shrinking Arkansas Works program evidently accounted for most of the drop. (The CMS data combines the expansion population and the larger, more expensive "traditional" Medicaid population, which includes children on ARKids, elderly people, disabled people and other groups.) Only three non-expansion states — Texas, Idaho and Tennessee — saw a larger percentage decrease in Medicaid overall.

Arkansas has lately come under national scrutiny for its new work requirement for some Arkansas Works enrollees, with many health researchers and advocates warning the policy could lead to thousands losing coverage. Yet little attention has been paid to the steady monthly reduction in Medicaid enrollment figures predating the work requirement, which began in June. The work rule won't trigger terminations of coverage until September at the earliest. That means the almost 60,000 people pared from Arkansas Works over the last year and a half dropped away for other reasons.

Governor Hutchinson has given two explanations. The first is a strong economy. Because Medicaid expansion is open only to those whose incomes fall below 138 percent of the federal poverty line (in 2018, that's $16,753 for an individual or $34,638 for a family of four), getting a better job often makes a beneficiary ineligible for Arkansas Works. He or she might then gain insurance through an employer — or, if that's not an option, purchase a plan on the individual marketplace with the help of a federal subsidy.

Though such coverage would likely cost more than Arkansas Works (which costs little to nothing for beneficiaries), more people moving up the income ladder would be clearly positive news.

"I would emphasize that this is not a change in services," Hutchinson said at a recent session with the press at which he touted savings in the Medicaid budget. "This is simply the result of people that are working. ... If they got a better job and they just don't bother telling us about it, and they no longer qualify, that's a good thing, because nobody's losing services. It's just that they no longer qualify and we're not wasting our taxpayers' money. If it's because their spouse got insurance and they no longer need Arkansas Works, then that's a good thing as well."

Jennifer Wagner, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., said the picture was more complicated.

"I'm sure some portion is attributable to the improving economy," Wagner said. "The thing that we tend to see, though, is that even when people are able to find employment, often their income does not go up high enough to make them no longer eligible. And often the low-wage work they get does not include health insurance. As we know, a lot of people on Medicaid are working families — they're just not making enough [money] and they're not getting employer-sponsored insurance. So, I wouldn't assume that all drop-off is because of that."

The fact that Arkansas's 18-month decline in Medicaid enrollment outpaced most other states also suggests there's more at play than economic factors. Arkansas's unemployment rate is low, but so are those of other states that haven't seen a similarly steep dip in Medicaid rolls. And while Medicaid enrollment has fallen fairly steadily from January 2017 to June 2018, the unemployment rate over that period ticked slightly upward, from 3.7 percent to 3.8 percent. The Arkansas jobless rate in June ranked 21st in the nation, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In July, DHS released a graph breaking down the reasons behind the approximately 14,000 Arkansas Works case closures the previous month. Only 11 percent of the cases closed in June were attributed to an increase in household income. However, Wagner said that figure likely understates the percentage of people who left the program because of rising wages. Many beneficiaries who no longer need Arkansas Works may simply stop corresponding with DHS, rather than contacting the agency to explicitly request closure.

The governor's second explanation for the reduced enrollment is an improved effort at DHS to "scrub" the Medicaid rolls by removing people who are no longer eligible. That includes many situations: individuals who are making too much money, who have moved out of state, who are incarcerated, who have turned 65 (and are therefore receiving Medicare) or who are dead. But it also includes many people such as Kyla Brakebill, who lost coverage because of a problem communicating with DHS.

DHS figures suggest that changes of address and communications issues are a major reason for coverage losses. Sixty percent of cases closed in June were terminated for one of two reasons: "failed to return requested information" or "unable to locate client or moved out-of-state."

The latter category includes cases in which DHS receives any piece of returned mail, agency spokeswoman Webb said in an email. Webb said the agency couldn't distinguish between clients who moved out of state and those who moved within the state.

Wagner, who studies Medicaid policy across the country, said the DHS approach to returned mail was "a very aggressive stance for the state to take."

It's not uncommon, she said, for Medicaid recipients in all states to lose coverage at "recertification," the annual update of personal information mandated for every beneficiary. "People are often sent a letter and are required to send that back. They may also be required to send additional verification, like pay stubs," Wagner said. "No matter what, there's going to be some degree of fall-off at recertification."

In Arkansas, though, any returned mail — not just at recertification — automatically triggers a closure. That creates more opportunities for a beneficiary to lose coverage. Mary Franklin, director of DHS' Division of County Operations, wrote in an email that "if the information is not returned by the deadline, the case is closed. Many of these closures are automated, and there is an extra 5 days built in to our automated process to make sure that any information that is received has been logged into the system."

Wagner said, "I don't know that other states would necessarily take action to close a case just because of returned mail.That's concerning, especially because this population often moves a lot ... staying with friends or family or things like that. So that's kind of a lot to expect — for it to be constantly updated." The state could take more proactive steps to find a beneficiary, Wagner added, such as cross-checking with the postal service's National Change of Address system. Franklin said DHS does not check that database before closing a case.

"Federal regulations do require Medicaid recipients to report changes that affect eligibility," Wagner acknowledged, "and I'm sure Arkansas could make an argument that they don't know if someone has moved out of state if they didn't report an address change. But that is an aggressive stance, and I wonder how frequently mailings are going out over the year."

In fact, DHS has been sending out frequent mailings to many Arkansas Works recipients to inform them of the new work requirement. Webb said DHS didn't have information on how many Arkansas Works closures occurred at annual recertification and could not provide a breakdown of the reasons for closures during previous months.

***

Many Arkansas Works beneficiaries who lose coverage quickly regain it. Brakebill did not, seemingly due to a combination of bad timing and bad information.

She said she thought she had to wait until November to reapply for coverage. That's likely because of widespread public confusion about the difference between Arkansas Works (which can be applied for at any point during the year) and the individual insurance marketplace (which can typically only be accessed during a brief open enrollment period at the end of the year). People whose income is above 138 percent of poverty can get coverage on the marketplace subsidized by the federal government.

It's not clear which group Brakebill should have been in at that point in time, because her income fluctuated significantly from month to month. (In January 2017, she started working as a marketing manager for a home improvement company that sets up booths at public events. She earns a few hundred dollars each week in base pay and — depending on the season — an additional amount in commissions.) It may be that Brakebill could have simply re-enrolled in Arkansas Works last fall. It's also possible her annual income had exceeded the threshold for a single-person household, in which case she should have transitioned onto the marketplace. Assuming this was so, however, she shouldn't have had to wait for open enrollment: The individual marketplace allows for a 60-day "special enrollment" period after a person loses coverage from a different source.

When Brakebill finally went online to buy insurance at the end of the year, she said, she hit another snag: The marketplace website asked her for employer information she didn't have. That was right before open enrollment ended on Dec. 15. In 2018, based on the income information she provided a reporter, it appears Brakebill makes slightly too much to qualify for Arkansas Works — but she can't sign up for insurance on the marketplace until 2018 open enrollment begins again this November.

In the meantime, she's in limbo. "Just to know that I can't go in and see a doctor — it worries me," Brakebill said. Her multiple sclerosis symptoms come and go, but on bad days she finds it hard to function. "Like this week, my MS is pretty bad. Yesterday, I did everything backwards. Like my job, everything. ... So if I'm talking in circles, that's what's wrong with me. Sometimes I have a really great conversation, and sometimes I can't even speak."

In addition to MS, she suffers from high blood pressure and polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal disorder that causes weight gain and facial hair growth and has been linked to diabetes. Both conditions are controllable with drugs, but she does not have prescriptions for either. She'd like to find a better job, she said, but she feels constrained by her medical problems.

"I'm in my 40s, but I can't have a breast exam or a colonoscopy or anything like that. I can't go for my yearly pap smear," she said. "Until I get the insurance to do all that again, I guess I'll just try to live until I don't live anymore."

The governor has praised DHS for taking steps to scrub the Medicaid rolls more aggressively and pushed back against the idea that the agency's rules may be stricter than necessary.

"That's called responsible management," he said at the recent press conference. "I don't think very many in Arkansas would want our taxpayer dollars paying for insurance for those that may be living out of state, may have moved, may have income that exceeds the limits. And if they are not giving us the information to verify that, then that's the responsible thing to do for the taxpayers."

Hutchinson suggested Arkansas Works enrollment in January 2017 was inflated with many thousands of people who weren't actually eligible. He pointed out the Medicaid expansion was originally predicted to serve about 250,000 people when Arkansas policymakers first considered implementing the program in 2013.

"I think you're seeing numbers now that are where they should be, based on the economy that we have and based on the management we have," he said.

The governor prefers to emphasize a different figure: the zero percent growth rate in Medicaid expenditures in the fiscal year that ended in June. Combined state and federal spending on Arkansas Medicaid (both Arkansas Works and traditional) was $7.105 billion in FY 2018, or $22 million less than the previous year. Because health care costs typically grow year over year, however, flat growth is effectively a reduction when compared to projected expenses.

Some of the savings resulted from "transformation" efforts by DHS to impose discipline on especially high-cost Medicaid program areas. But the majority of the savings (around 55 percent) was attributable to the decline in enrollment. In any case, holding Medicaid costs flat is a major achievement for a conservative governor, and the reduced costs will help pay for tax cuts on high-income earners that Hutchinson and Republican legislators intend to pass in 2019. It also helps the governor defend his decision to continue the Arkansas Works program, which some hardline conservatives want to see defunded entirely.

***

The question is whether Brakebill is an outlier or part of a trend. Is Arkansas Works enrollment shrinking mostly because people have moved up the income ladder and found coverage elsewhere? Or has DHS' zealous approach to rules enforcement resulted in a growing number of low-income Arkansans going without insurance or experiencing periodic lapses in coverage?

Arkansas cut its uninsured rate in half in the three years after it first expanded Medicaid in 2013 — one of the largest percentage reductions in the country. If many of the 60,000 people scrubbed from the Arkansas Works rolls since last January are now uninsured, that metric may rebound. But the U.S. Census Bureau has yet to publish information on state-level uninsured rates in 2017.

Anecdotally, many Arkansas health care advocates say the address change issue hasn't been on their radar. Kevin De Liban, a lawyer for Legal Aid of Arkansas, is familiar with fighting DHS over Medicaid. (He represents a group of disabled beneficiaries engaged in a long-running lawsuit against the agency.) De Liban said Legal Aid has fielded calls from a handful of Arkansas Works beneficiaries who complained of losing coverage due to returned mail or an alleged failure to send in information, but the group hasn't heard back from those individuals.

Still, he was critical of the agency's strict rules for correspondence. "DHS sends them a letter and gives them 10 days to respond," he said. "It gets to them Day 8 ... and many times the client provides it timely, or close to timely, and DHS does not process it quickly enough."

Lainey Morrow is a grassroots advocate who founded a popular Facebook group, "Medicaid Saves Lives," to help beneficiaries and their families navigate the system. (It had over 3,600 members as of Aug. 6.) Morrow said she hadn't heard many complaints of lost coverage explicitly due to an address change. But, she pointed out that people who are terminated for such a reason would never receive a letter explaining why they were cut off.

"I don't think people know why, if that is why," Morrow said, "They may in some roundabout manner find out: They go to a provider, and the provider says their Medicaid number is inactive, and then they start trying to track it down." She's also heard of many people who lost coverage but were unsure of the reason why because they didn't understand the letter they received from DHS.

Many who unexpectedly lose their insurance simply begin the process of re-enrollment. But even when a beneficiary regains her insurance, temporary coverage gaps can cause hardships: prescriptions unfilled, bills left unpaid, appointments missed and hours spent on the phone.

Brittany Keeland, 22, is a single mother of two and the legal guardian of her 16-year-old sister. Her four-person household contains three different categories of Medicaid: Keeland is on Arkansas Works; her children, ages 1 and 2, are on ARKids; and Keeland's sister has disability Medicaid for a severe, exceedingly rare genetically based skin condition called lamellar ichthyosis.

In late July, Keeland received a notice from DHS that said her insurance, and her children's, would soon be terminated due to a failure to report additional income. In a recent interview, Keeland said DHS was mistaken. She didn't have any new income. She was continuing to work as a home health aide at the same company where she'd worked for the past three years. The misunderstanding arose because Keeland's pay stubs contained a different corporate name than the one she listed as her employer. (The company that directly employs her, she explained, is owned by a parent company that cuts her checks.) Someone at DHS saw the difference in names and assumed Keeland was missing information.

Ironically, the mistake occurred only after Keeland notified the agency of an address change. In March, Keeland moved her family from Crawford County to an apartment in Fort Smith. She updated her address and other personal information with DHS, enclosing her recent pay stubs with the mailing. All was well for several months, but then, in July, she received a notice that she needed to get a letter from her employer and that it had to be turned in by July 27 to maintain coverage for her family.

Keeland gritted her teeth, gathered the paperwork and submitted it to DHS on July 26. She called on Monday, July 30, to make sure everything had been processed.

"I asked if my stuff was going to be shut off, and they're like, 'Yeah, because you didn't turn in all your paperwork,' " she said. "I told them that I turned everything in ... so y'all did something with it, and we kind of got in an argument."

"Well, Tuesday or so, I got a letter in the mail saying all of our stuff was canceled due to lack of turning information in. And then Wednesday they called me and said they'd found my paperwork, that it was put in a different program and they're sorry they lost it and everything, and I asked them about my benefits being shut off." Keeland said she was told she'd have to wait on an action from her caseworker to resolve the issue.

"I still don't know if it's going to be on or not," Keeland said when she spoke to a reporter on Saturday. "I got a letter in the mail saying it was pending, so I don't know." As of this week, she was still unsure. In a text message Monday, she wrote, "I tried calling today sat on hold forever so I just hung up." She's also concerned her food stamps will be cut off.

Last fall, Keeland said, she temporarily lost insurance coverage due to another DHS paperwork issue. Though her insurance was reinstated, doctors' bills piled up in the interim. If her Medicaid is shut off again, she worries she'll accumulate more debt. "That's mainly what's on my credit, is medical bills I don't have money to pay ... and they get turned over to collection agencies," she said.

Keeland's family needs insurance. Her sister has appointments at Arkansas Children's Hospital twice a month for her skin condition. Her daughter, who is developmentally delayed and has multiple food allergies, also regularly visits Children's, she said. Her son has hearing problems, and both children see therapists. Keeland herself has prescriptions, too. "And then, regular doctors appointments and stuff. We use it almost every other day, it seems like, for at least one of us," she said.

Wagner, the policy analyst, said states can take steps to minimize disruptions in Medicaid coverage. "How many documents the client is required to send in can make a difference. If the state is using their data sources well, they shouldn't have to ask for a lot of pay stubs and other things," she said.

"There's a lot that the state can do at the recertification point to make it go better," she continued. For example, rather than putting the burden on beneficiaries, the state can use its own data sources to determine if a person appears to continue to be eligible. "They just send them a notice saying, 'We're going to renew you based on this information. If any of it's incorrect, contact us.' "

Instead, most of Arkansas's efforts seem to run in the opposite direction. While DHS doesn't check the National Change of Address database, it does check state wage data to look for unreported income and scans for the receipt of public benefits in other states. Also, a subset of Arkansas Works beneficiaries are now subject to the new work requirement, which adds another layer of bureaucracy to an already complex set of requirements. Unlike with many of the aforementioned situations, not complying with the work rule may eventually result in a beneficiary actually being locked out of coverage for a period of time. In June, about 10,000 people were required to submit additional information to DHS proving they were working or qualified for an exemption. Of those, about 7,000 did not.

Many of those who lost Arkansas Works coverage in the past year and a half surely did so because they failed to follow one rule or another. But some human error is a part of any program. One point of frustrations for beneficiaries is that while DHS seems to give so little leeway to their oversights and mistakes, the state's own oversights and mistakes must be accepted as a part of life.

Like many on Arkansas Works, Keeland is fed up with jumping through hoops. "I don't know what's going on up there and half the time they don't either," she said. "Whenever you ask to talk to your caseworker, they give you a voicemail and then they never call you back. Or you say, 'Hey, I'm working [but] I'm free at this time.' And then they call you while you're at work and then you miss it and it's your fault."

"They act as if we have no life outside their office," she said.

This reporting is made possible in part by a yearlong fellowship sponsored by the Association of Health Care Journalists and supported by The Commonwealth Fund. It is published here courtesy of the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, an independent, nonpartisan project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans. Find out more at arknews.org.

Scrubbed from the system

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fakestatus · 3 years

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Choosing A Reliable Residential Roofing Contractor | OptaMiss

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