How to close your EZPass Maryland account

I had some SNAFUs closing out my EZPass MD account recently so I thought I'd pass on what I learned as a public service. Here are four ways to cancel:

In person:

Bring your account number to one of the EZPass MD Stop-In Centers.
Ask them to close the account.
(Just be aware that the center at 6000 Pulaski Highway is not the 6000 Pulaski Highway in Baltimore City. It's way north past Havre de Grace in Perryville.*)

2. BY PHONE

Call 410-888-321-6824.
Press 9 to bypass the menu and speak to a person.
Ask them to close the account.

3. ONLINE

EZPass buries the "Close My Account" link in the bowels of their website. Here's how to find it:

Go to ezpassmd.com
Click MY ACCOUNT
If you don't have an online account, set one up.
Log in.
Click ACCOUNT PROFILE
Click the CLOSE MY ACCOUNT link

4. BY FAX

Fax your request to 410-633-6618.

That's it. Good luck!!

*Don't ask how I know this.

On the subtleties of sales & why people buy

Gary Jones at Muck and Mystery:

I know the risk of being sensible when dealing with customers. They do not want to hear the pros and cons of your product. They want you to reassure them that they are making a wise purchase. It's part of what they are paying for. They want to have a satisfying buying experience as well as acquiring a good product. They don't want to be cheated out of the pleasure of making a buy.

That's part of why I don't do the selling. I'd be honest - it's a mental disorder - and so deny my customer an important portion of what they seek.

Ayuh.

How to save money on college textbooks

Rent them from the Netflix of college text book rentals, at a website called Chegg.com.

Things I hadn't known about baseball gloves

A friend and I had a very pleasant interaction a few weeks ago with a twenty-something sales manager at the Dick's Sporting Goods store in Hunt Valley. Some tidbits we picked up from him:

1. Many gloves these days come with oil already injected into the leather. When that's the case, you shouldn't apply extra oil to the glove.
2. Professional shortstops and second basemen tend to use smaller gloves than I had thought (around 11.5 inches).
3. Professional infielders (except perhaps first basemen) don't insert their hand fully into their glove. They leave the bottom of the hand visible (the inch or so that includes the base of the thumb). This is partly to prevent wrist injuries when diving for ground balls so the glove can fall off rather than breaking or spraining the wrist.
4. Many advanced players put both the ring finger and the pinky finger into the last finger hole. The middle finger goes into the ring finger hole and the index finger goes in the middle finger hole. This helps to create a larger pocket.
5. Some pros now have "flared" corners on their gloves (the corners at the ends of the thumb and pinky). This lets the open glove cover a larger area, when compared to a glove with corners that curl around the ball.
6. A quick way to break in a glove: smear a small dabs of shaving cream on several areas of the glove (the inside of the pocket, the back of the fingers [and the palm of the glove?] and put it in a 300 degree oven for five minutes.
7. Some pros now have "flared" corners on their gloves (the corners at the ends of the thumb and pinky). This lets the open glove cover a larger area when compared to a glove that has more curl around the ball at the corners. But some pros prefer the non-flared gloves.
   
8. One way to build up your arm strength: cut a slit in a tennis ball, fill it with pennies, seal it up with duct tape, and play catch (gently) for 10 minutes or so on a regular basis. Some caveats: don't throw too hard or too far, don't do it for too long and don't do this with your best glove, because it causes extra wear and tear on the glove.

My friend spent more money than he had planned to, but I think he got something that suits him much better and will last longer than the one he had originally planned to buy.

Wilmer Eye, Part 2: my original complaint

[For background, see Part 1.]

Here's the email I sent to Dr. Peter McDonnell under the subject heading "Wilmer Eye Institute: an unhappy customer":

Dear Dr. McDonnell -- here's my story (see link below) . . . I thought you'd like to get some feedback about people's reactions to the services provided by the Wilmer Eye Institute.

By the way, [patient] is fine now and back to normal, and we are relieved and very happy about that. I just wanted to vent, and am not asking anything from you other than to be aware of the weaknesses of your organization and do your best to fix the shortcomings.

Sincerely,

Dave Greene

http://baltonorth.blogspot.com/2009/06/do-doctors-at-wilmer-eye-institute.html

How much does a colonoscopy cost? Here's one answer

If we want to contain healthcare costs, one of the first obvious steps is to make sure that patients receive real prices before they have a procedure.

So, from time to time as I run across real-world healthcare prices, I'll pass them on here.

A family member recently had a colonoscopy in December 2008. Beforehand, we googled around a little to get a handle on the cost, but didn't find much. At one point just before the procedure, the patient asked one of the nurses at Greenspring Station Endoscopy how much the total cost would be. She gave a mechanic's shrug, "I don't know."

Everything went smoothly. Our patient liked the staff, was pleased with the experience, and thought Greenspring was a well-run place.

But, as with all doctors and healtcare providers, it would be a great improvement if they would publish prices (or ranges of prices) for prospective patients. In particular they should publish both the "sticker" price and the actual price.

For the nurse's benefit, and for anyone else out there who wants to know, the actual total price was $2,068. This amount, of course, becomes known only after the patient receives the bill indicating the "reduction of billed charges" negotiated by the insurance company**.

----------------------- LIST -- ACTUAL
ITEM ----------------- PRICE --- PRICE
--------------------------------------
Initial consultation.. $ 195 -- $ 130
Prep supplies............ 20 ----- 20
Anesthesia nurse........ 760 ---- 294
Endoscopy facility.... 1,500 ---- 726
Colonoscopy doctor.... 2,025 ---- 465
Lab/tissue diagnosis.... 600 ---- 433
======================================
............. TOTALS $ 5,100 $ 2,068*

*In this particular case, the procedure included cutting out a small number of benign polyps.

**In this case, CareFirst Blue Cross/Blue Shield

Gibby's Seafood

Taken a day or two ago on York Road in Timonium:

Black & Decker hiding green benefits of cordless mower under a bushel basket?

It costs only about a nickel to charge B&D's cordless electric mower (model CMM1200 ) from a fully depleted state. Here's the math: 0.38 KWH (see reading above on a Kill-A-Watt energy meter) x $0.14 cents/KWH = 5.3 cents.

I wonder why B&D doesn't compare the CMM1200 to a two-stroke gas mower and brag about the difference in cost of fuel and carbon emissions.

And here's another green thing you can do with it.

Carefirst listened and responded ... I like it

They redesigned their health insurance cards just as I suggested last year. Nice going Carefirst, and if you played a role Chet Burrell, thank you.

Are ophthalmologists thinking "outside the eyeball"?

Perhaps not, if my recent experience is any indication.

A family member was suffering from eye pain whenever she moved her eyeball, so I took her to the Wilmer Eye Institute. After Dr. B examined her, the gist of what he told me was something like this:

Dr. B: Her eyes are fine. I don't see anything wrong.
Me: So if the pain comes back, should she see a doctor or can we safely ignore it?
Dr. B: I can't say that. It depends.
Me: What do you think caused it?
Dr. B: I have no idea.
Me: If a thousand patients like her were to come in with these symptoms, what are the odds that it's a serious problem that needs treatment?
Dr. B: I haven't seen any cases like this--ever--where there was a serious problem.

Dr. B's answers didn't ring true. Like so many other doctors in my experience, he was unwilling to give any type of probabilistic estimate. [Why is that, I wonder? - Ed.] I asked some more questions but eventually gave up trying to elicit anything of use from him.

For the record, we later discovered that my family member had Lyme disease, which apparently can cause eye pain. It was serious, and she did need treatment.

My guess is that Dr. B is a fine doctor within his specialty, recognizing and treating diseases of the eye. But in our case it seems that he was thinking only inside the eyeball. When the symptom was in the eye and the cause was elsewhere, he essentially was implying to us that "It's not my problem". And he didn't seem to be in a mood to think about or discuss what the real problem might be.

Somehow I expected more than that.

What's wrong with health insurance companies, Part 1

[UPDATE 6-26-09: BaltoNorth gets results! Carefirst came out with a new card in 2009. Just what I ask for below. Thanks for listening Chet.]

The card that I got from my health insurance company looks like this:

Pretend you're using this card for the first time. Quick, what's your "Membership Number"? What's your "Group Number"? Are you confused? I sure was the first time I used the card.

Why can't Carefirst Blue Cross/Blue Shield* tell us what the numbers mean right on the card? There is an explanation in the Member Handbook, but who brings the handbook with them to the doctor's office?

A message for everyone at Carefirst: Every time I take out my member card I grumble silently to myself. Every time. Every time I look at the card I think "why can''t they live up to their name and care about me by making a few simple changes to their member card? Why can't they design a card that makes things a tiny bit simpler for me? It would be soooo easy."

Chet Burrell, are you listening?


*For all of my gripes about Carefirst (I have plenty more) my sense is that they are not much better or worse than most other health insurance companies.

Banks get failing grade on student checking accounts

If you're a new college student -- or the parent of one -- you shouldn't trust the local branch of your bank to point you to the most suitable checking products.

A friend recently related the story of a student who set up a checking account at a Baltimore area branch of Bank of America. The bank rep never mentioned the most appropriate option for a college freshman -- a no-frills ATM card -- and steered the student toward a Visa Check Card.

Unlike a basic ATM card, a check card can be used for point-of-sale (POS) purchases as well as ATM withdrawals. And, unlike the basic ATM card, a check card allows the student to make ATM withdrawals even when there is no money in the account. And each time it happens – ka-ching! – the Bank of America collects $25 to $35 in overdraft penalties.

As for my friend's story, here's the unfortunate result: over Thanksgiving, the student made a $60 ATM withdrawal and six small point-of-sale purchases totalling about $30. Seven transactions totalling about $90 generated $215 in penalty fees.

To be fair, Bank of America is not alone: all of the other banks seem to do the same thing. As a comparison, I just visited branches of Wachovia and Citibank in the BaltoNorth area and asked them what they would recommend for a student checking account. None of the three mentioned basic-ATM cards anywhere in their brochures. None of the three mentioned basic ATM cards in one-on-one conversations, even when asked for alternatives to check cards.

So, be aware that all of the banks seem to steer you to products that generate more penalty fees for themselves. All banks, even when dealing with their least knowledgeable customers, seem to forget to mention the products most likely to lead to responsible money management.

Buyer beware.

UPDATE: Bank of America's single nod to the likelihood that 18 year old students might mismanage their checking account is to sell the student another product -- an overdraft account -- and give them a ridiculous Stuff Happens® card.

Of course the wiser more-ethical path would be for banks to promote the basic ATM card that leaves no possibility of overdrafts. This product brings home very clearly to the student that a zero balance means you can't take any money out.