Carl Miller
Screenwriter
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2002
- Messages
- 1,461
I'm gonna try to keep this as short as possible, but I could use some advice here. Back in 2001 my father was a terminal cancer patient. About 2 weeks before he died, my father had broken his arm leaning on a cane (cancer had spread to the bone and the arm just snapped) and ended up in the hospital for his final weeks.
6 days before he died, and just a few hours before he was transfered to a hospice care facility, an orthopedic surgeon visited him when nobody was around and did an exam on my fathers arm.
For months after his death, my mother got tons of health insurance invoices, bills from various doctors and the hospital. She couldn't deal with all that and gave them to me to handle.
In the middle of literally hundreds of these invoices, receipts and bills was a charge from the orthopedic surgeon for $1,100...For the consultation and 2 subsequent consultations that allegedly took place at the hospice center we were never aware of.
The insurance company labeled these consultations unnecessary and refused to cover them. Within their rights according to the policy, and I agree in principle with their determination.
The man was days away from dying, and there was no need or purpose for an orthopedic surgeon to consult. That's the insurance companies position and my position.
After about a years worth of bills from the hospital and several battles with a collection agency, I finally managed to get the hospital to cancel the bill. I have written correspondence to this effect, and thought this problem was long solved.
Then, out of the blue the other day, my mother got another bill for this same charge. I contacted the hospital, tried to speak to the same person I had dealt with before only to find this billing manager was no longer working there.
It seems the re-opening of this situation was caused by a hospital auditor, whom I spoke to. The auditor claims the billing manager I had gotten the letter from didn't have any authority to "forgive" the charge and took it upon herself to eliminate the charge from the computer system...So the hospital now insists my mother owes this debt.
My mother is retired and on a fixed income and really can't afford to pay this. I could pay it just to be done with the whole damn thing, but it's a lot of money to me too and I'd rather not absorb the expense. Add to this my opinion that this consultation is a blatant abuse of the insurance system and I just don't want this bill to be paid.
My question is how to best go about dealing with this. Is there anything we can do? Small claims court? Anything? My mother paid out about $22,000 in uncovered claims of the near $400,000 in hospital/doctors bills it cost to treat my father over the last year of his life...I can't believe we're having to even deal with this crap 2+ years later.
6 days before he died, and just a few hours before he was transfered to a hospice care facility, an orthopedic surgeon visited him when nobody was around and did an exam on my fathers arm.
For months after his death, my mother got tons of health insurance invoices, bills from various doctors and the hospital. She couldn't deal with all that and gave them to me to handle.
In the middle of literally hundreds of these invoices, receipts and bills was a charge from the orthopedic surgeon for $1,100...For the consultation and 2 subsequent consultations that allegedly took place at the hospice center we were never aware of.
The insurance company labeled these consultations unnecessary and refused to cover them. Within their rights according to the policy, and I agree in principle with their determination.
The man was days away from dying, and there was no need or purpose for an orthopedic surgeon to consult. That's the insurance companies position and my position.
After about a years worth of bills from the hospital and several battles with a collection agency, I finally managed to get the hospital to cancel the bill. I have written correspondence to this effect, and thought this problem was long solved.
Then, out of the blue the other day, my mother got another bill for this same charge. I contacted the hospital, tried to speak to the same person I had dealt with before only to find this billing manager was no longer working there.
It seems the re-opening of this situation was caused by a hospital auditor, whom I spoke to. The auditor claims the billing manager I had gotten the letter from didn't have any authority to "forgive" the charge and took it upon herself to eliminate the charge from the computer system...So the hospital now insists my mother owes this debt.
My mother is retired and on a fixed income and really can't afford to pay this. I could pay it just to be done with the whole damn thing, but it's a lot of money to me too and I'd rather not absorb the expense. Add to this my opinion that this consultation is a blatant abuse of the insurance system and I just don't want this bill to be paid.
My question is how to best go about dealing with this. Is there anything we can do? Small claims court? Anything? My mother paid out about $22,000 in uncovered claims of the near $400,000 in hospital/doctors bills it cost to treat my father over the last year of his life...I can't believe we're having to even deal with this crap 2+ years later.
