Isn't it great getting jerked around by people who are supposed to be helping you but they can't because they haven't got a clue? I've been talking to the hospital financial office, the hospital billing office and two different departments at the health insurance company. Nothing anyone said jives with anything anyone else said. Like, I'm supposed to be the one to sort it all out?
The hospital may have overcharged me by maybe $1,200, maybe $13,000, maybe more, maybe not at all. They're going to bill it all over again and see what the insurance company will pay. This is nuts. People are making me do math.
18 comments:
OMG, doing math makes my head hurt. I hope they find out they overcharged you a lot and you get a big chunk of change back. Serve
'em right.
That would be nice. The way it was explained to me by David, the hospital contracts prices for the different procedures with the insurance company. Then the hospital jacks them up. Most people don't know that they're entitled to get the same contracted rate the insurance company gets. Like a CAT scan that shows up as costing $1000 on the bill actually costs about $300. So even with their "generous" offer to cut Jim's bill by 50% they're still raking it in.
The hospital had told me that they don't contract with Jim's insurance company but it turns out they do. They had told me that his insurance only covered $400 per day for his room. But because he was in ICU that coverage was actually $1,200 per day. So, the lesson here is if you're dealing with the hospital financial department do NOT believe what the insurance girl says AND do NOT believe her supervisor, who stood there waving her hands telling DAVID, "I'm trying to get you to understand...".
When I talked to the people at Mega Health they were a bit appalled. So now I just have to wait a few days to see what goes through. I'd really love to see what those contracted rates are.
Oh my god, Macs are freakin' awesome! I've been having trouble with Blogspot since Google took it over. It doesn't seem to recognize my password so everytime I try to leave a comment I have to sign up again and then I lose what I just wrote. As you can see the last comment I posted is long.
I save the whole page to my desktop, signed up AGAIN for Blogspot, got back to the comments page, opened the one I saved, highlighted the comment and dragged it over to the new page. Ka-bing! I love this dragging thing!
Heh! Lower than effluent. Yep, I've met those people.
Welcome to the world of medical insurance :(
Kyle could have told you that Macs are awesome :)
An easier way of doing it is highlight all your text and copy it. Once you get to the comments page (after you sign in) just put the curser in the text box and paste it in the box.
I think it's apple/c for copy and apple/v (or maybe p) for paste. Save you some steps.
Hey, so I want to know how one find out what the contracted prices are so I never have to pay the jacked up prices again. I remember once being in the hospital and seeing my itemized bill and OMG I couldn't believe the prices. It was kind of like the government paying 6k for a hammer.
Oh hey, and another thing. If you are using firefox (I assume you do) are you using the tab function? If you are just leave the blogger page open all the time and you only have to log in whenver you open a new page. Like I leave my browser open for weeks and have the same page for blogger up all the time. So I rarely have to sign in.
RUSD employees just got a letter in the mail informing us that Community Hospital has a practice of refusing services to people who won't pay money in advance of said services. They refer to it as a copay and coinsurance.It isn't consistent with industry standards.
Coinsurance, the letter says, is paid after the services. It says that some providers are demanding an "estimated" coinsurance fee on the day of the appointment and before services are rendered. Pigs.
Oh, Hi Dean! See my hard-boiled-egg post on the last series.
Mary
I think we may have told you - Jon got a bill for one of his mom's hospital bills, and it was over $1,000 and it was all in code - it said something like:
Procedure: 302939lxxft $350.82
Jon contacted the billing people, and told them that - As the Trustee of my mother's esate, I am not going to pay any bills that are not written in English nor that I cannot understand - and within two weeks he received a letter saying "Please disregard previous billing." Apparently it had been paid by the insurance, but they were attempting to double-bill him. And, you're so right - how many people in a dis-combobled state can be counted on to follow everything that's going on?!?!???? i shudder to think of what people with less knowledge and skills than we have go through. I guess they just don't pay, and the hospital writes it off - I've herad that happens, too..........
Oh, sorry - Jon is pushing Buckethead around on the automan, announcing that he's in the Rose Bowl parade - see? You always have to keep some perspective in life...........
Love you
Mary & Jon
My goodness, you've been busy, my cheeky little monkeys! (whip crack!)
Dean, did you write that?
I might get this story wrong and if I do BillyC will correct me.
We asked to see an itemized bill for all kinds of charges that Zoe had apparently run up in various visits to the doc. We got it and there was a line item for someone named Mary V - if I remember correctly she'd had a very specific test (and apparently was no longer alive) and the billing people insisted that Mary V was Zoe and it belonged to us. It was kind of funny to hear BillyC tell the billing people that Zoe was not Mary V and she was still right here.
So yes, it's important that all line items be in english.
Mary- Who's Buckethead?
Hey Dean GOOD JOB! I knew it was Rawhide on the first verse - great minds think alike! Here's one for you:
We're boilin'; we're boilin'; I hope you like boilin', too.
We're boilin, we're boilin' we're boilin' we're boilin'
I want to boil with you!
(Sung to the tune of "Jammin' - Bob Marley)
Buckethead is the BIG tuxedo kitty Uncle Tom left with us when he moved to New Mexico last July..
Buckethead is a guitar player. He has a bucket on his head. Hence them name....aw, you figure it out.
My parents wouldn't let me read Mad Magazine. It was to subversive.
too
too
too
I did hear that Buckethead was a band - I didn't name him.
Mary
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