Jiminy Christmas!
Jun. 9th, 2003 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bronwynrhAnd so we have another chapter in the dramatic saga of healthcare bills.
But first, an update. I have yet to see the approximately $400 owed to me by Megadeath for my migraine medications - a prescription I filled and paid for 3 weeks ago. I am told that I should soon see the $28 I am owed for a doctor's visit from a little over a month ago. We'll see if they remembered to include the check in the envelope (they forgot to do that with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ashfault76's claim).
In our last episode, our intrepid heroine sat in the office of one Eileen Day, fighting the evil, sluggish MegaDeath and trying to stave off the collections demon. The neurologist's office claimed the demon-threat was only a default and not really a threat, but they wanted their money nonetheless. Well, they had their money by Friday. Things move quickly when our heroine gets in people's faces.
Our heroine's relief was short-lived, however, as she opened an envelope in which was folded the tell-tale blue and white bill from Unity Physicians Group, P.C.. At the bottom of the statement was the evil, evil line, "BALANCE IS OVERDUE. TO AVOID COLLECTIVE ACTION, PAY BALANCE TODAY."
What?!? Has all my work been in vain? I cried out. Actually, I shouted a few epithets, the content of which I'm sure you can all well imagine. You see, since March 16, 2003, the so-called Date of Service (Hah!) I have done everything in my power to ensure that both Bloomington Hospital and Unity Physicians Group, P.C. were properly paid. Of course, I had to wait until they sent their first bill before I could do this, but I have done all the paperwork - sent in duplicate by mail and by fax - and made phone calls to all the right people, apparently to no avail.
Phone call #1: Unity Physicians Grp. - a summary
I explained to the woman who answered that I had called their office previously to inform them that this was an issue for Risk Management, NOT MegaLife, that MegaLife had paid in error, that I had been in contact repeatedly with MegaLife, RiskManagement AND UPG over the course of the past two months, and that it was unjustified to threaten me with collections when it was clear that the people in three offices were not getting their acts together.
She basically told me that she had been magnanimous enough the first time in "extending" the pay period. The "most" she would be willing to do would be to "extend" it one more time by 30 days to allow me more time to work it out. Then I would just have to pay it.
"Fine. I'll see what I can do."
"Well you just do that." *click*
Imagine, if you will, the venom dripping from this woman. My god.
Phone call #2: MegaLife - a summary
I asked the woman who answered if she had a record of the mailed and faxed copies of the form I had sent stating that my claim was to be handled by Risk Management. To my complete and utter amazement, she answered in the affirmative and said,
"We asked both the hospital and physicians' groups for our money back on 5/28."
"But, they sent this dun letter to me on the second of June! Not only are they wrong, they're double-wrong! Jeez!"
"Yes ma'am. They need to reissue the bills now directly to Risk Management. They can't send you to collections until they've been through that office, then have billed you and given you the proper amount of time. It starts all over again."
Uh-huh. Tell that to the biatch at UPG.
Phone call #3: UPG - a summary
Reiteration of the information gleaned from MegaLife.
"We have no record of that."
"Well, it's coming, so you may as well contact the Office of Risk Management to get the ball rolling so you can get your money before MY TIME runs out and you decide to destroy my credit over this."
"No, you are still responsible for this bill within the time allotted."
"I sent the information for the Office of Risk Management to you over a month ago. Do you still have it?"
"Yes, but that doesn't matter. YOU have to call them and tell them to call US. THEN we'll bill them."
*sigh* I tried a few more times and then hung up before I lost it.
Phone call #4: Office of Risk Management, Tammy Blazier
Now, here is a woman who understands that you can catch more flies with honey! I gave her the briefest of run-downs: Mean lady at UPG insists on a phone call from RM before sending a bill, is threatening me with collections, MegaLife only recently got themselves out of the picture.
Tammy tells me the UPG lady is WRONG!! UPG should just send the stupid bill. Ha! But she also told me not to worry about it, just fax the bills to her and she would deal with it from here.
Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!
I'm going to call next week to see how well things are progressing. Do you want updates?
In other news, I'm still waiting to hear from an appraiser. At this rate, I won't be able to close before the end of the month, which means I'll have to pay that dreaded higher July mortgage payment. Grrr! I don't like appraisers. My every encounter with them has shown them to be very very bad about making appointments, calling back and meeting their commitments. Annoying, to say the least!
So I got my lawnmower back on Saturday, thanks to my wonderful handyman, Pat. (Pat thinks I'm great - he wishes I were 10 years older, or that he were 20 years younger, if you catch my drift)
I get it back, and the repairs that I had requested had not been done! Wha'fu'? So I call Sears to ask why, and I'm told that the repairman must have ignored the "special order" request to replace the skirt, but that he had fixed the carburetor instead of replacing the choke cable, tested it and that it had worked.
Yes, well, Tim. . . that's all fine and dandy, but I had requested the replacement of the skirt and choke cable. Now, it took me two dozen pulls of the cable to get it started. Does that sound fixed to you? I know it's not your fault, Tim, so I'm not angry with you, but I need to know who I can speak to to get this taken care of.
I get an 800 number and an apology from Tim who thinks it stinks that he's not given more power to help his customers. Good Tim.
I call the 800 number to find that it's a branch in Louisville. The gravelly voiced woman informs me that she can do nothing for me, nothing at all and that I have to call a (513) number. Oy.
I call the (513) number and explain that this is the third number I've called and that it's long distance for me, I really hope she's the one who can help.
"Oh! Well, give me your number and I'll call you right back!"
SCORE! Nancy gets MAJOR brownie points.
Within 15 seconds, my phone rang. Double score. I told her about what I had requested, she read to me exactly what was on the order - no one had told them about the skirt or the choke cable. The problem had been on the Bloomington end, it appears. Oy. I explained the problems I have with transporting the mower and that it would be quite an inconvenience to get it back in to them a third time. (Mom the first round trip, my advisor and handyman the second). I didn't get any further before she asked me where I keep the mower at my house.
She then said that she would have someone come to my house to fix it on Thursday. A freakin' house call for my lawn mower.
Holy cow! Now THAT'S customer service done right! I was completely taken aback by this. Stunned, in fact.
So, that's been my Monday so far. I need to do a bunch of reading, since I didn't set up to do benchwork today. I had a migraine yesterday that pretty much kept me on the couch. At least I managed to mow the lawn (once I got the mower started) and I vacuumed the house. I was pretty pathetic yesterday.
I did another little something this weekend that you'll all make fun of me for, so I won't tell you about it just yet. ;-)
But first, an update. I have yet to see the approximately $400 owed to me by Megadeath for my migraine medications - a prescription I filled and paid for 3 weeks ago. I am told that I should soon see the $28 I am owed for a doctor's visit from a little over a month ago. We'll see if they remembered to include the check in the envelope (they forgot to do that with
ashfault76's claim).In our last episode, our intrepid heroine sat in the office of one Eileen Day, fighting the evil, sluggish MegaDeath and trying to stave off the collections demon. The neurologist's office claimed the demon-threat was only a default and not really a threat, but they wanted their money nonetheless. Well, they had their money by Friday. Things move quickly when our heroine gets in people's faces.
Our heroine's relief was short-lived, however, as she opened an envelope in which was folded the tell-tale blue and white bill from Unity Physicians Group, P.C.. At the bottom of the statement was the evil, evil line, "BALANCE IS OVERDUE. TO AVOID COLLECTIVE ACTION, PAY BALANCE TODAY."
What?!? Has all my work been in vain? I cried out. Actually, I shouted a few epithets, the content of which I'm sure you can all well imagine. You see, since March 16, 2003, the so-called Date of Service (Hah!) I have done everything in my power to ensure that both Bloomington Hospital and Unity Physicians Group, P.C. were properly paid. Of course, I had to wait until they sent their first bill before I could do this, but I have done all the paperwork - sent in duplicate by mail and by fax - and made phone calls to all the right people, apparently to no avail.
Phone call #1: Unity Physicians Grp. - a summary
I explained to the woman who answered that I had called their office previously to inform them that this was an issue for Risk Management, NOT MegaLife, that MegaLife had paid in error, that I had been in contact repeatedly with MegaLife, RiskManagement AND UPG over the course of the past two months, and that it was unjustified to threaten me with collections when it was clear that the people in three offices were not getting their acts together.
She basically told me that she had been magnanimous enough the first time in "extending" the pay period. The "most" she would be willing to do would be to "extend" it one more time by 30 days to allow me more time to work it out. Then I would just have to pay it.
"Fine. I'll see what I can do."
"Well you just do that." *click*
Imagine, if you will, the venom dripping from this woman. My god.
Phone call #2: MegaLife - a summary
I asked the woman who answered if she had a record of the mailed and faxed copies of the form I had sent stating that my claim was to be handled by Risk Management. To my complete and utter amazement, she answered in the affirmative and said,
"We asked both the hospital and physicians' groups for our money back on 5/28."
"But, they sent this dun letter to me on the second of June! Not only are they wrong, they're double-wrong! Jeez!"
"Yes ma'am. They need to reissue the bills now directly to Risk Management. They can't send you to collections until they've been through that office, then have billed you and given you the proper amount of time. It starts all over again."
Uh-huh. Tell that to the biatch at UPG.
Phone call #3: UPG - a summary
Reiteration of the information gleaned from MegaLife.
"We have no record of that."
"Well, it's coming, so you may as well contact the Office of Risk Management to get the ball rolling so you can get your money before MY TIME runs out and you decide to destroy my credit over this."
"No, you are still responsible for this bill within the time allotted."
"I sent the information for the Office of Risk Management to you over a month ago. Do you still have it?"
"Yes, but that doesn't matter. YOU have to call them and tell them to call US. THEN we'll bill them."
*sigh* I tried a few more times and then hung up before I lost it.
Phone call #4: Office of Risk Management, Tammy Blazier
Now, here is a woman who understands that you can catch more flies with honey! I gave her the briefest of run-downs: Mean lady at UPG insists on a phone call from RM before sending a bill, is threatening me with collections, MegaLife only recently got themselves out of the picture.
Tammy tells me the UPG lady is WRONG!! UPG should just send the stupid bill. Ha! But she also told me not to worry about it, just fax the bills to her and she would deal with it from here.
Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!
I'm going to call next week to see how well things are progressing. Do you want updates?
In other news, I'm still waiting to hear from an appraiser. At this rate, I won't be able to close before the end of the month, which means I'll have to pay that dreaded higher July mortgage payment. Grrr! I don't like appraisers. My every encounter with them has shown them to be very very bad about making appointments, calling back and meeting their commitments. Annoying, to say the least!
So I got my lawnmower back on Saturday, thanks to my wonderful handyman, Pat. (Pat thinks I'm great - he wishes I were 10 years older, or that he were 20 years younger, if you catch my drift)
I get it back, and the repairs that I had requested had not been done! Wha'fu'? So I call Sears to ask why, and I'm told that the repairman must have ignored the "special order" request to replace the skirt, but that he had fixed the carburetor instead of replacing the choke cable, tested it and that it had worked.
Yes, well, Tim. . . that's all fine and dandy, but I had requested the replacement of the skirt and choke cable. Now, it took me two dozen pulls of the cable to get it started. Does that sound fixed to you? I know it's not your fault, Tim, so I'm not angry with you, but I need to know who I can speak to to get this taken care of.
I get an 800 number and an apology from Tim who thinks it stinks that he's not given more power to help his customers. Good Tim.
I call the 800 number to find that it's a branch in Louisville. The gravelly voiced woman informs me that she can do nothing for me, nothing at all and that I have to call a (513) number. Oy.
I call the (513) number and explain that this is the third number I've called and that it's long distance for me, I really hope she's the one who can help.
"Oh! Well, give me your number and I'll call you right back!"
SCORE! Nancy gets MAJOR brownie points.
Within 15 seconds, my phone rang. Double score. I told her about what I had requested, she read to me exactly what was on the order - no one had told them about the skirt or the choke cable. The problem had been on the Bloomington end, it appears. Oy. I explained the problems I have with transporting the mower and that it would be quite an inconvenience to get it back in to them a third time. (Mom the first round trip, my advisor and handyman the second). I didn't get any further before she asked me where I keep the mower at my house.
She then said that she would have someone come to my house to fix it on Thursday. A freakin' house call for my lawn mower.
Holy cow! Now THAT'S customer service done right! I was completely taken aback by this. Stunned, in fact.
So, that's been my Monday so far. I need to do a bunch of reading, since I didn't set up to do benchwork today. I had a migraine yesterday that pretty much kept me on the couch. At least I managed to mow the lawn (once I got the mower started) and I vacuumed the house. I was pretty pathetic yesterday.
I did another little something this weekend that you'll all make fun of me for, so I won't tell you about it just yet. ;-)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: June 9th, 2003 09:53 am (UTC)Yay on your mower - I think. Booooo that they screwed it up, but hooray that they're making an effort to remedy the situation.
I hope that migraine stays away for awhile, now!
You go girl! Stick it to the man!
Date: June 9th, 2003 10:24 am (UTC)Yes please! :)
Ok lots of things to say.....
Date: June 9th, 2003 10:34 am (UTC)2: lawnmower, Again yay on you!!
3: The weekend.. NOO tell us now you tease!!!
And 4: Oooh sexy new pic...Its about tme.... ;-)