My wife had outpatient foot surgery (a bunionectomy) May 23 at Kendall Regional Hospital; she was there for about three hours. This was not elective or cosmetic surgery; she was in pain. The hospital billed my employer's health insurer (Aetna) $29,543!

Aetna paid $3,961.70. (The hospital made a ''contractual adjustment'' of $24,830.30! I'm sure that most, if not all, of that will be claimed as a loss for tax purposes at year's end.

Peter Jude, a spokesman for Kendall Regional, said your beef's with Aetna. The insurer paid the hospital what it regarded its proper share; now, it's up to you to negotiate the outstanding amount.

Regarding the Sept. 4 Action Line item on officially recording a release of lien, you listed numbers for Miami-Dade and Broward. Could you give me the number for Monroe County?

Sure. Call the Monroe County Recorder's office at 305-292-3540. To have a release of lien recorded with the county, submit an original, notarized document and $10 for one page ($8.50 for attachments). Add to that a self-addressed, stamped envelope, and the recorder will mail you a copy. The Monroe County Clerk's office is at 500 Whitehead St., Key West.

This is a state mandate; it wasn't always so. It took years of hard fighting against insurance giants, medical academics and others who said universal infant hearing screening couldn't and shouldn't be done.

The Hearing Research Institute of South Miami proved them all wrong! Thanks to this law, all babies born in Florida after June 6, 2000, when Gov. Jeb Bush signed House Bill 399 into law, had their hearing screened within their first 30 days. As a result, we have been able to find many infants with deafness. We can fit them with hearing aids immediately.

The picture you published implied that we doctors want to implant the cochlear implant in all of these babies. Nothing could be farther from the truth! Hearing aids and auditory training are the real answers to giving deaf children the step up in life that they need.

I received a notice from the Miami-Dade County clerk's office that if I don't make a partial payment on a citation, my driver license will be suspended in two days. I sent the payment about a month ago.

First, go to the website of the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles On the lower right side, click on ''Driver License Check'' and enter your license number.

To check the status of the citation, visit Traffic Online Services at the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts site, www.miami-dadeclerk.com/spirit/common/traffichome.asp . Click on Public Search, and search by driver license number, citation number or name and birth date. The citation (or a list of them, if you have received more than one) will have an ''Amount Due'' field to its right.

Luckily, your balance was zero, so your payment must have worked its way through the system. To be certain, check the status again in a few days; if your license is suspended, let us know.

''We've received at least 10 calls from viewers asking for that,'' Henri Bollinger, a spokesman for Jones, said. ''If I Could'' was written by Ron Miller and can be found on Celine Dion's 2004 album, Miracle. We found a copy of the lyrics at wwwazlyrics.com and are mailing it to you. Because of the strong response that he has received about the performance, Jack Jones plans to include the track on his next album.

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