Also just to let you know, there are three different billing departments. One for the physicians themselves and their portions, one for the hospital facility use itself, and if anesthesia is required for your procedure, there will be a bill from the anesthesiologist too. Each has their own sets of billing procedures to some extent. I really only know of the physician side.

If i were to speculate for the hospital side, there is a chance that if your surgery isnt considered serious enough, they could be requiring that payment for the timeslot up front, and if not paid they would move a more urgebt surgery into that time frame. This is purely speculation as I have little to no idea on that side.

So to add to this i will say it depends entirely on the doctor and procedure. The people who call for payment up front shouldnt be using such strong language of it being cancelled and its up to the whims of the doctors. I know a few of the ones who are making the collection calls and they arent a fan of it either.

But to elaborate at least for the doctor portion, some doctors themselves require the estimate portion of theirs up front and will cancel or move a surgery on you until you are able to do so. It also depends on the seriousness of the procedure. A cancer related procedure, i dont know a single doctor who would reschedule unless they were dying. A non-urgent gallbladder removal, some doctors will still do it, some will require that payment. If the procedure is considered elective or cosmetic, payment will be required up front or you dont get it period. Part of this is Cox policy, part of this is doctors wanting their portion up front because of having too many skip out on their bill.

Other comments also have sound advice in looking into financial assistance.

"Now"? They've BEEN a national embarassment. Just like any other megachurch cult headquarters

Had mine done last year, pro tip no matter who you go to, if you feel ANYTHING aside from the needle administering the local anesthetic during the procedure, let the doctor know. Dont try to tough it out, communicate.

Otherwise, Cox Urology in the Ferrell-Duncan Building, any of the doctors really. Youll get pain killers and some meds to relax you prior to the procedure. You'll need a driver if you take the relaxer. Cost depends on your insurance but there are financial advisors that run the cost for you. It has to be paid in advance.

it should be pretty self explanatory? Like a job you make a survivable and sustainable career out of.

Thats good at least, im more on an administrative career path so i wasnt sure in regards to software dev jobs. Springfield doesnt really seem like an area that those would be plentiful.

Yeah Ill back this up too, last I checked, springfield rent prices are only like 100-200 from St Louis/KC prices. There probably are not any career level software dev jobs here or getable in our area, even remote. Very little to do here as well to be honest.

Does anyone know when starlink will be opening up to the area more?

Im stuck out in the boonies nearby and its about my only option aside from centurylink but says it isnt available yet. I know from past posts that some people already have it and they say the service is decent.

Honestly, the only one i can think of is the IT department. Most everything else has a clinic for it, is in house, or they have a partnership.

Regardless, if they are doing that, its not to the extent that Mercy does.

I've worked for both but I'll give some brief bits of my experience.

Mercy:

Constantly laying off entire departments or outsourcing, they may not offer some services at all.

Religious institution and are beholden to catholic values in a politicized environment, even less likely to offer some services.

Most doctors I spoke with my time there were rather... obnoxious or pretentious, very 1% "im better than you" vibes.

Cox:

If there is a service needed, they likely have it and offer it.

Doctors are still split and youll get the pretentious types, but they usually have decent bedside manner, they just treat coworkers bad.

Billing department is kind of a mess at times. If there is a billing issue, you have to be on top of it to get it fixed. (i work in a front facing role, but have nothing to do with backend and I have no idea what mercy is like)

For an actual analysis on it.

There are plenty parts of north, north/central, and west springfield that could do with demoing the abandoned, deteriorated, or otherwise eyesore homes that just need torn down. Just need to offer a good enough price and most people would probably move out. Demo a whole block, build apartments, develop the community by investing in the worse parts of town and making them better, rather than whatever they have planned for one of the more scenic parks in the area. South springfield overwhelmingly is nice as is, we need investments in the north and west. There are some historical homes worth saving, but the majority of houses up there arent worth much more than the land they sit on under normal circumstances. Overly inflated real estate market is the only reason the houses there have halfway decent value right now.

In regards to actual expansion rather than working with the space we have.

The terrain to the north of springfield gets a little dicey but theres plenty of open space. Also potential tornado issues when we do have them.

To the south, there isnt much more to expand without just absorbing Nixa at this point.

West, plenty of open space and buildable terrain, but frequently visited by tornados. So build with caution.

East is pretty viable, plenty of space and developable land between springfield and rogersville. Rarely threatened by storms. Need to redo some parts of hwy60 for the increased traffic and you could develop/expand easily over there.

plenty of space on the north and west sides of sgf that need demoed and developed. build housing ther and get it up to standard

Ive never once thought wherever I lived had the worse drivers, and again I point to the variety of places I have lived and experienced. Hell, at least people use their blinkers typically in St Louis. I have never thought we had the worst drivers until i moved and lived here for an extended period. Your data only accounts for incidents that happened, but nothing to say for the daily occurrences where the rest of us have to read the mind of the many idiot drivers so we arent involved in the wreck ourselves.

Simply put, at this point I truly do not care. There are many people who would agree that the drivers here are the worst theyve experienced, I would agree to that. However you are not doing yourself any favors here. And obviously not changing my nor anyone elses mind. As for the original point of the post and for the initial comment on here. I feel like we can all agree, treating the drivers here like they are dangerous idiots is for the better. The faster that new implants here learn to be hyper defensive, the better.

Fine lets just agree to disagree, you have your experience, i have mine. Ive spent 1/6th of my life here and every accident has been here. I havent had the necessity to be a hyper defensive driver until i came here, and the daily near misses do not support any of your points. Thats my experience, as well as many others in this sub, you have yours, but dont minimize it and use the boomer mentality of "ive had it worse"

I recognize we arent the only people with bad drivers, but in my own anecdotal experience I have had more accidents and near misses in or around springfield than anywhere else in my life on a consistent basis. To me and many others who have travelled or lived elsewhere this is the experience we have had including people who have lived in some of these placest with notoriously bad drivers. Most people I know of, have spoken to, or have read about posting on this subreddit have all essentially agreed we have some of the worst drivers in the US. But everytime we address it on here, people come out of the woodwork to minimize us and say "its not THAT bad." We have bad drivers, we have exceptionally dumb, ignorant drivers. They exist everywhere but in our experience they are especially noticable here. Nobody who speaks to this topic denies that bad drivers exist elsewhere, we just are firm in our personal experiences from several walks of life that we have collectively had terrible experiences with drivers here.

I kind of realized earlier how this has been a relatively normal year with the seasons in comparison to the usual. We actually had a spring that lasted longer than a week, we had a summer that barring the freakish heat ways and drought seemed to last the normal time summer does (Instead of summer taking up three seasons), and so far fall has been pretty on track with temperature, rain, and leaves changing color before halloween itself. Im hoping maybe we'll have a Christmas thats cold, not shorts and t-shirt grilling weather like it has been, maybe, just maybe we could get some snow for christmas too... i know its a pipedream

Not one per year, 2 in one year, 2 in another, 1 last one a year ago. None were my fault.

accident 1. was somebody cutting over and stomping on their brake to cut me off. I braked but their trailer hitch still wrapped my radiator around the engine. Totaled

accident 2. somebody going too fast on wet roads, i was stopped at a stop light. they lost control and skidded into my rear bumper. repaired this one easy enough.

accident 3 a truck lost its brakes on the off ramp at campbell and james river, i had a green light and started going. the only reason they didnt Tbone me is bwcause i was checking the weather or time on my phone when the light changed. They still ran a red light because they couldnt stop, but if i took off as soon as it turned green, i wouldve gotten tboned. Totalled this one too

accident 4 was the same as #2, idiots dont know how to drive in rain around her. didnt even bother repairing this one

accident 5 was somebody trying to merge into my lane without the room to do it. they took the front bumper off my car. Repair it, but sold it later

the only avoidable one by my own standard mightve been accident #1 but i didnt have time to react

some of the earlier ones might have been attributed to not being defensive enough, yet. But thats my point, you shouldnt have to be so overly defensive because of how dangerous the driver are here. You should be able to drive like normal and not have to constantly be a paranoid wreck while driving because of the psychotic idiots who shouldnt have a license. Springfield drivers are dangerous, neglectful, and stupid. They are by far the worst drivers i have ever experience AND THATS THE POINT OF WHAT THE ORIGINAL COMMENT SAID. You have to drive like people constantly blow red lights, which I see once a day. And act like everyone is out to kill you, because they are, maybe negligably, but they are.

Oooh, Jack Henry is a good one, great insurance benefits too. I do insurance validation at one of the hospitals.

I dont have a complete compendium when it comes to cities all over the US, but I have been to St Louis a lot, lived near KC and was there a lot, been to Tulsa more times that I can count, Columbia on a few occasions been to Oklahoma City a few times, Dallas and Houston a couple times each, stayed in San Diego for a couple weeks and drove myself everywhere. Hell, I got a week long resort stay in Cancun a few years ago and while the transport driver was terrifying as well as everyone else on the road, there wasnt a single accident on my way too and from.

I have friends who have been to San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and New York a few times. Some friends have been to Florida for spring break.

The concensus that we have all come to is that the Springfield area has some of the most idiotic and dangerous drivers we've ever experience. Ive only lived here for a few years and every single accident Ive been in has been because of some idiot driver not paying attention or blowing a red light. Five accidents in five years here. Literally none were my fault because i was following the rules of the road. Almost daily I have a near miss on my drive to or from work, I have had people try to run me off the road because im not going fast enough while im already doing 20 over the limit and I dont camp the left lane.

Cities MIGHT have worse drivers sometimes, but theyre usually too gridlocked to allow for it. Here, the idiots have room to breathe and be idiots, so the rest of us get punished for it. Even the amount of times ive been where ive mentioned, i havent had nearly the amount of near misses i experience in 1-2 days here.

I mean.... I have an intense hatred for most cops, especially Springfield PD, and the last few years have completely broken my sense of humor so I found it worthy of a chuckle. The actual situation is of course not a good one, but Ive always used humor as a coping mechanism too.

Coffee elitist and Jan6 crazy... honestly that tracks, most "coffee should be drank black, no sugar or creamer" types tend to fall on that side of the political spectrum.

Speaking of feeling alive, I ended up doing my best to humiliate one of those "Repent now or burn in hell" baptist types that hold signs saying such at a local festival the other day. That was fun. Paraded around for a minute with them yelling things like "Hail Satan, our dark lord and savior" and such. They were redfaced and pissed off by the time i got bored. Plenty of high fives and fist bumps were had.

Hopefully this owner is less crazy at least. I know im asking a lot for this area though.

Ugh, thought so. I googled the shop to see and its the same one. If i remember right their social media profiles got slammed because they were covid hoaxers, anti-vaxx, and pro Jan 6ers, but theyve kept their heads down since mostly.

I believe although Mercy insurances are out of network for Cox, cox urology clinic has a contract exception to have in network benefits for urology and vasectony services. I could be wrong about that though.

Isnt brick and mortar that one run by right wing nutjobs, or am i getting it mixed up with another shop?