Howdy, Lizards,

My day began with attempting to schedule an appointment with a hand surgeon to look at my broken finger. I was told since the break was caused by a vehicle (slammed in the tailgate of a truck), the claim would need to be handled through the vehicle owner’s no-fault.

Upon contacting the driver of the vehicle, I learned that he in fact did not own it - it was a rental. I’m currently waiting to get claim information back from the vehicle renter, because the surgeon won’t even schedule an appointment without a claim number. As a backup, I talked to my auto insurance agent as a contingency to see if, failing everything else, we could handle it ourselves.

I’m sure the hospital visit and subsequent surgical procedure in Rhode Island was easily a couple grand, and these surgeons probably don’t come cheap (I’m assuming that - they wouldn’t even give me an out-of pocket cost for an initial consult. No claim number, no appointment.

Sorry to rant. Oddly, my finger doesn’t even hurt at all today, but the tender mercies of the insurance game are giving me a pain in an entirely different region.