16.9.10

The past rears its ugly head

Doesn't it seem like I'm going for some kind of record with the number of posts recently? :-)

So, Henry died on 8 May 2007. The hospital there knew enough to contact me by phone shortly after he was admitted. I don’t know if they looked into his wallet or they got contact info from the police but I do know they had his wallet with his insurance card and his driver’s license in their possession because they handed it to me as my friends and I were leaving. Oh, and nobody asked me for insurance info the whole time I was there, either.

When we still hadn’t gotten invoices from anybody involved (hospital, doctors’ group, ambulance, paramedics) after 3 months or so, Larry started calling around. The hospital had no record of him (what?). Call to the Medical Examiner explained that people admitted to the ER get a crisis (?) name (I think Henry’s was Zulu something). Back to the hospital: oh, yeah, Zulu ….. So, Larry gave the nice man in accounting our names and address. ……………. Nothing for weeks. Another phone call, yes, they have our info.

Eventually, the Doctors’ Group tracked out down (after we had called them, too) and served us with a delinquent notice and threatened us with a collection agency. The insurance got involved and so did Human Resources at Larry’s employer and this was all taken care off. Not without hurt feelings and harsh words being exchanged, the woman who answered the phones at the Doctors’ Group was an evil bitch (and that’s putting it nicely).

After months of all this, SF General finally sent the insurance a bill, they paid, but we never heard from them. Until this morning, when a letter marked personal and confidential and addressed to Henry arrived. Delinquent notice, pay within 10 days or else.

Are these people thinking? Is there a connection between doctors, nurses and accounting?

I certainly wonder.

I am not disputing the amount outstanding, far from it. We have been wanting to pay for years now. What I’m upset about is the way all this has been handled/worded, trying to make us look like deadbeats. We’re not, we’ve tried to get an invoice for years and now we’re the bad guys? I don’t think so.

But I feel a whole lot better now. I just called the guy whose name is on the invoice and complained. I was nice, no bad words, no yelling, just explaining and asking what had been going on. I should do that more often :-)

2 comments:

abeadlady said...

This sucks. Had the school my Michelle was going to call me about her tuition. When I told them what had happened, they immediately dropped the whole thing. I never heard another word from them.

Anonymous said...

I really like Kaiser because most things are in house and what isn't gets handled with help.

Tuesday I was at an oral surgeon and today at an endodontist and I had Kaiser's Dental Plan book with me both times. Fortunately, I didn't have any problems with them, either, they went right by the book.