Thursday, June 3, 2010

Exasperation

I am just a little exasperated with our hospital system here. About 4 months ago, I recieved a bill for over $1,000 for the birth of Chloe Jo. I thought I had paid everything and had no idea that I still owed money...not to mention the fact that Chloe Jo was 10 months old when I recieved this bill. Plus, there was a late notice in it that said if I didn't pay within the next 10 days they would send my bill to a bill collector. To say that I was mad would be an understatement. I am very good to pay my bills on time every time. I don't just set bills down and forget about them. With each hospital bill I recieved, I paid it that day so that I wouldn't have to worry about them. I let myself calm down before I called the billing department about that bill. I talked to a girl who explained that the last bill I had paid didn't go towards what the bill said because more things came through insurance between the time they sent the bill and I paid the bill (which was maybe a total of 3 or 4 days) and that was why it had a late notice. It made sense when she explained it even though it may not make sense the way I'm explaining it. I then asked why it had taken 10 months for this bill to be sent and she said that it was pending with the insurance company and they couldn't do anything about that. She also was very nice in insisting that I did owe the money and that the account was not wrong even though I thought it was. Well, low and behold, today I got a refund check in the mail. Don't get me wrong, I am super thankful that they sent me this refund check! But on the other hand...SERIOUSLY!?!?!? I called to make sure that I really owed what they said I owed, and not just with this last bill, but I also had called about the two bills before that to make sure they were correct because there were things on them that didn't look right. The refund wasn't for the whole $1000 and some odd dollars, but it was for over $700. I'm so exasperated with the hospital, but am also thankful that we got that money back. I wish I knew more about insurance so that I would have been able to say exactly why things didn't look right to me. Oh well, it will be nice to have this money to pay on our credit card.

2 comments:

Miss Tori said...

Lisa, if you have your hospital bill and it appears that there are charges there that you didn't receive (such as use of DVD player when you clearly didn't use one - just an example) you can actually call your customer service number on your insurance ID card, let them know there are charges that you dispute, and they should help you to fight them, or at least be able to do another review of them. Believe me, lots of things end up going on a hospital bill that do not belong there. It is up to you to look it over and make sure you're not paying more than you should. Good luck with it!

Janet said...

How frustrating! I've been dealing with some similar issues as well. Like an extra charge for having my c-section at 3:30 in the morning. Because our girls were in the NICU for so long & our bills were so insanely high, I requested an itemized bill. They charged us $74 for 1 roll of toilet paper! Yep, $74 bucks!! We also got billed for a circumcision and I had two girls!! I'm glad it all worked out in the end for you, but I understand your frustration!!