Healthcare

Is our healthcare system crazy – hell yes! I have just spent a lot of time – again – on the phone trying to straighten something out. I saw a doctor in a clinic at the beginning of the month, then 2 weeks later saw another doctor at that clinic. Now, this is a clinic I have been going to since about July, 2014. My insurance is under my husband’s name, and he went to one appointment with me, but that is as far as his involvement here goes. For both these last 2 visits, the Explanation of Benefits from my insurance company show that the facilities charge is under my name, and the doctor’s charges for each are under my name. WTF? This happened for a period of time last year as well. It took a while to get it straightened out, with everyone involved telling me I had to talk to someone else to get it fixed, so I jumped on it this time.

And, again, everyone I talk to says they can’t do anything, I have to talk to someone else. I even called the clinic itself this morning, told some lady my whole story, she got it wrong so I had to explain it again, and after all that, she said she would put me through to the clinic. Seems she was at a central department (I HATE these huge corporations).

So I finally did speak to someone at the clinic, who was very sympathetic, but basically is saying that I am probably misunderstanding the EOB, and that I need to wait for the actual bills to come – and be wrong – before anybody can do anything about this. For the record, I know exactly what the EOB is saying – it is wrong!

And what I am concerned about is that I know from experience that the longer these things go on, the worse and more entangled they get, and the harder they are to untangle. And I expect that the bills will finally come and be wrong, and when I contact them again I will be told, “But you waited too long to bring this to our attention – now it will take 6 months to a year to get it fixed.” And at that point, I will no longer go to that clinic – they will have lost my business. And it won’t be because of the people there – the doctors and staff are all great. It will be because of the billing, which is horrible. They apparently don’t know what they are doing, and no one is willing to take responsibility for what they do wrong.

Thanks for letting me rant!