(warning, this time it's personal)
Thursday, Covenant Medical Center right here in mid Michigan, sent me a bill saying that I was in danger of being referred to a collection agency if I didn't immediately pay my past due bill.
Friday, I received the bill.
Note: I received the bill one day after I had received notice that I would be sent to a collection agency for not paying it. Moreover, the bill is not due until December 15. I was a clever enough math student to figure out that December 15 is 10 days away. How does this happen?
This is not my only set-to with Covenant billing, this brick of the American health system which is so-o-o much better than any other health system in the world, like Canada or England or someplace socialistic like that -- (wink-wink). Covenant are serial annoyers and do it with a sense of haughty aplomb. When people like me feel offended and huffy, the supernumeraries at Covenant want to slip into that old "treat him like a crackpot" mode.
They have threatened me before even though I pay all my bills in a timely fashion, I have health insurance (which is after all, a form of socialism), and am responsible for only a small portion of the bills ---- and they have a competitor right here in town, another hospital that I could use. Before I get done dealing with these people on any given transaction, they have managed to screw themselves up thoroughly, and then they blame me, and then they threaten me, and then they say "oops!"
Thank God the doctors who send me there are highly competent.
This is really the old problem of the bureaucrat who walks into her office each morning feeling something like a sleepy God, annoyed at the prospect of having to deal with the unwashed public, and who, with caffeinated nectar in her cup, can wreak darkness on anyone who passes in her purview, like a squid spreads ink.
Enjoy your award.
5 comments:
We've been receiving medical bills all through 2008 for the birth of our son Oliver last November. I have received ominous "last notice" and "due upon receipt" statements many times even though I arranged incremental payment schedules. When I call the billing office, they say that I can ignore the vaguely threatening notices, so I do. Sometimes they decide that something I paid for should be covered by insurance, and I get a nice surprise in the form of a refund check. The last refund check bounced, which left me $7 poorer because my bank charges a penalty for depositing bad checks. I inquired about this and was told that the check they issued me because of their billing mistake was itself a mistake, so they stopped payment before I could cash it. Not to worry though, because they were going to refund my $7. It's been months, but still no $7. Now that the end of my deductible year is drawing to a close, I'm pretty sure I came up a little short of my $5850 deductible. I wonder if they're going to send me the rest of the bills in 2009, after my deductible resets. I asked a lawyer friend, and he seems to think it a possibility, and legal. We'll see.
Jim,
Send them a bill for the $7 they owe you plus interest and penalty. But, send them a threatening note first telling them they are late. And, if need be, I can act like a collection agent. I do it part-time for Covenant.
Felix: Ha-ha-ha
I have heard of someone who is being persistently billed by a hospital, for $1.11. She's waiting for the collector to appear at her door. I hope this individual will share some of that frustration.
I could write you a book about stupid billing. Don't you know it isn't anyone's fault? Its the computers!
Post a Comment