Subject to Change

I called about the bills I’ve been blogging about. And, if you’ve been reading you may now be wordering why I used the plural form. Grab a cup of coffee and make yourself comfortable because this gets really amusing.

I decided to make the call to the hospital, to express my disappointment at the way this has all played out. Somehow, during my discussion with the first tier of customer service I discovered that the bill I now hold is NOT for the birth of my son. It’s a bill for the second procedure I blogged about. I never thought to check the date of the procedure on this bill. The representative told me that the bill for the birth, currently $1850, was still awaiting a final response from the insurance company.

I demanded to be directed to a supervisor of customer service. After talking with her for a while I managed to get her to admit that the $1850 had been paid, partially. I still owe $250 for the birth, officially. Of course, you know what I think of that at this point. I was also told that they could find no record of my payment for the second procedure. This woman agreed to send me the itemized bill for the birth, which is a little over a page long and makes for interesting reading. I now have the documentation to confirm that all but $250 of the birthing costs are paid. The manager admitted to me that there had been some training issues in the billing department. You would think that seventeen months would be enough time to get that all sorted out, but I guess not. I was told that I’d need to provide copies, front and back, of the canceled check to confirm my payment of the second procedure. Have you ever tried to request a copy of your checks after more than a year?

I was extremely confident that I’d paid for the other service. I remember finding the bill and the payment when I was researching the “bill” that arrived fourteen months after Cole’s birth. Of course now I was doubting myself, because I haven’t been able to keep organized in years. I assumed it was possible that I’d screwed up.

I made the call to the “consumer advocate” at the hospital anyway, a woman who told me that she was some sort of “educator.” She just happened to be the one carrying the pager for the day. She was nice enough, but wasn’t in a position to do anything for us other than take notes. I gave her our story as I understood it at that point, talking her through the series of statements and when they arrived. Kelly joined me on speaker phone and we made a point of telling her how obnoxious the billing department was the first time we called. We wondered out loud just how many of the “non-bill” bills get paid by customers because they look so intimidating. The advocate took notes and promised that someone would get back to us in seven to ten days.

Tonight I went through all my paperwork, to find my payment and to get everything in one place. I made some amazing discoveries. First, I did pay for the second service, on my Discover card. Kelly said I should try to dispute it to bring it to the hospital’s attention. Since the payment was made more than a year ago I doubt it can be reversed. Second, the amount billed for the second procedure has changed. One of the three charges was changed from over $13,000 to $980. So, if you read what’s going on here the way I do somebody edited the bill and resubmitted it, after I’d paid for the service. My insurance paid again, I assume. I think I’ll be giving them a call to let them know that they’ve been ripped off, too.

This is the story so far, with these two hospital bills. Meanwhile, we’ve received a final notice from another facility. Kelly had a visit there more than a year ago, for which we paid our $20 co-pay. This doctor’s office is trying to bill us for the full amount of the visit, claiming that they didn’t accept our insurance on that date. This is an interesting argument because THEY calculated our co-pay and we had a referral. Our insurance provider tells us that the claim was denied because the facility is incorrectly billing. That’s right, yet another provider is attempting to dump their accounting (and staffing) issues off on the customer. 

These practices are downright unethical and arrogant. I’d really like to find a way to get compensation for the time we’ve had to spend doing someone else’s job. I guess there’s a reason we don’t tip for medical procedures.