It's a Conspiracy I Tell Ya!

Others that know me will  readily confirm - I'm generally a positive, happy person.  Seriously, I'm a firm believer in the fact that I am the one who makes the choice every day to be either up or down, and a vast majority of the time, I'm up. 

 

But I gotta tell you, and I'm not being paranoid, I swear there's a conspiracy to drive me over the edge, into the depths of down, and it's a bunch of health care providers that are the conspirators.

Without the gory details, I'll just tell you this latest charade of "healthcaring" began when I made an unplanned visit to my local CICU - that's Cardiac Intensive Care Unit - in July 2007.   Though I was constantly reminded that I did the right thing, followed the right protocols for my symptoms, it turned out to be a lot less scary after 24 hours of tests and observation.   The little angel on my shoulder reminding me how lucky I am was counterbalanced by the devil on the other shoulder reminding me how the bills will really start rolling in.  And, oh, how right that devil was.

Over $20,000 for my short visit, officially not even a hospital stay as I was never admitted, just "observed" in the special unit.   The bills did start arriving in the mail box within days, funnily enough just shortly after the last of the morphine and other drugs had cleared out of my system.  And the bills kept on coming for a few months.  And then things settled down to no more bills for almost a year.  This month I got a significant bill with claims I alledgedly hadn't paid.  Research and multiple phone calls revealed the story.   Apparently, the doctor's group had a lousy biller, and this new biller just discovered my outstanding invoice.  Great.

Of course I have a new insurance company since then, so tracking it all down has been less than fun, but I'm determined to be sure it's a legitimate bill and that I'm not paying twice.  Sure enough, one charge was never sent to my insurance company, so now it starts all over again.

Here's the thing.  I think there should be a statute of limitations on things like this.  No way a person who thinks they are all paid up and debt-free should get a big bill 15 months later and be expected to pay it.  If the doctors can't monitor their own business, to know that their biller isn't doing their job sooner than over a year later, then they should eat the cost.  It's not that I don't want to be responsible for my bills, but this is ridiculous.

I took good care of myself, always have, but I surely hope I don't have to make another trip to the hospital any time soon, because the anxiety of knowing what I'll go through to get the bills paid could be overwhelming.  And I don't want to even think about the issues of a real hospital stay, for multiple days, and/or surgery, would take me.  

If that's not enough incentive to stay healthy out there, ya'll, nothing else will be.