Medical Billing: Scamerrific Racket

If we are to ever solve the problems with medical care, costs of medical procedures need to be made known publicly before potential patients visit doctors. This would encourage competition among doctors and help reduce the need for costly insurance.

I submit the following scenario for review. For the purpose of simplicity in relaying, I am referencing this as if I have visited the doctor, despite it being a member of my extended family.

I recently visited an E.N.T. doctor concerning some problems with my hearing. Knowing fully ahead of time that the doctor will likely need to test my ears, I would expect this to be a routine part of a visit. Knowing that my insurance covers the visit with a co-pay also entices me to pay the doctor a visit.

I visit the doctor, who, over the course of the entire exam, spends between 5-10 total minutes with me. This is an estimate, and 10 actually seems a bit high.

I undergo two quick hearing tests, and the doctor performs a quick nasal endoscopy. I am a bit perplexed as to the need for the endoscopy, but I presume it is somehow tied to possible hearing problems.

Nothing really serious is detected. I get a prescription. I pay my co-pay, and I leave.

Later, I get a bill, for a number much larger than my co-pay.

Apparently, everything the doctor did during the visit does not count as part of the visit. Despite me staying in the same room the whole time, I have three additional items on my bill that have been considered "Major Medical" expenses by my insurance.

The two hearing tests, despite being viewed by me as being highly routine and a necessary part of an Ear doctor's ability to diagnose ear problems, are not apparently considered routine by the doctor. These incur additional charges....each. I equate this to a general doctor charging me an extra fee to have my tongue pressed down while I say "Ahhh" and charging me an extra fee to shine a light into my eyes.

Of course, the nasal endoscopy is a massive charge as well. I have decided to equate this to the doctor charging extra to use a stethoscope to check my heartbeat and lungs.

Also of course, there is a fee for the doctor, part of which has been covered by my insurance, less my co-pay.

Basically, we're looking at the fact that, to get my ears checked, I had to pay a doctor to charge me extra to check my ears.

All in all, this results in a total bill between $500-$600.

It should not cost $500 to spend 10 minutes getting my ears checked.

I complained to the office about their deceitful practices and their lack of communication about their billing procedures. Their excuse, which baffles me, is "Well this is how everyone does it". This is not a justification. This is a fraudulent practice, but it's OK, because everyone does it.

They tried to spin it as though they would have no way of knowing that items would not be covered by my insurance. This is a blatant lie, but it was irrelevant. I was not concerned about the fact it wasn't covered by insurance, I was concerned that they did not take the effort to communicate that there would be additional costs for their routine diagnostics.

Their response, "The doctor does not know what the prices are. He just circles them on a list." This just seems silly. I can understand not knowing all the prices if there are many. It concerns me, though, that the doctor has absolutely no regard for what he is charging folks and does not bother to make it clear that additional expenses will accrue. The doctor clearly knows that everything he does costs extra, why not mention that to the patient?

"You sign paperwork telling us you will pay for all expenses not covered by your insurance." Yes, this is true, but that does not mean you should be allowed to toss any expense you want in my direction without telling me and require me to pay it.

Again... "Well, that's just how everyone does it. We can't change it. There is no other way for us to do it."

I decided to have the person on the line clarify that her excuse for engaging in deceitful business practices is because all other doctors do it that way. She responds with "that's just how it's done."

...

I wound up speaking with a few different people over the course of my unpleasant phone calls. One person made the analogy that it is like going to a restaurant. "You pay for a burger, some fries, and a drink, all separately. Each item you add costs more money."

Well, this is an interesting analogy. Except that, at most restaurants, you are typically allowed to look at a menu and choose items based on prices. In the event there are no prices on the menu, they don't typically bring you random food and force you to pay for it.

Still, let's look at this analogy a bit more. Let's say I go to a burger joint, and I order a nice burger for $12. I sit and wait on my food. After a few minutes, I am brought a plastic platter with a burger, some fries, and a glass of water. I did not specifically order the fries and water, but I presume them to be part of the deal.

After I am done eating, I receive a bill. I am charged $12 for the burger, then $8 for the fries, $7 for the water, and a fee of $20 for being allowed to eat in the restaurant and have the waiter bring me my food. When I confront the manager, I am simply told that this is how all restaurants are billing now, and there is nothing he can do to change how they advertise their prices.

This scenario would not be acceptable. For whatever reason, we tolerate this with medical expenses.

...

I guess the whole summary of the rant is that medical professionals should be required in a non-emergency to make it clear that any procedures they charge extra for are billed separately. It should also be made clear that procedures presumed to be routine are not simply "part of the visit" if this is the case.

I honestly would not have expected that having an ear doctor run hearing tests would not be routine. This makes me wonder what, if anything, would simply be considered part of the office visit; My initial guess would be waving at the doctor in the hallway.

The world of medical billing needs to change.

Ellianna's Masterpiece

This is Ellianna's most recent painting, done entirely with fingernail polish.

Donald Duck Orange Juice?

I came across this while buying some juice at the store. There seems to be very little emphasis on the fact that the juice is made from oranges. My first impression was to ask myself, "What is Donald Duck juice?"

Is there some special reason why they chose just Donald?

Oh well. I figured I'd share this interesting find.

Pepper Roulette

A couple of weeks ago we played Pepper Roulette at work. Some of the peppers on this plate are orange bell peppers. The rest are habanero peppers. Apparently these are generally indistinguishable to the untrained eye.

The object was to choose a pepper to eat and hope you get a bell pepper.

I lost.

I did, however, learn a lot about habanero peppers. They generally taste like a bell pepper until you hit the pack of seeds, and not all of the seeds are spicy.

I eased into the challenge. I sniffed the pepper, I licked the pepper, then I bit into it a bit. No problems. I ate a bit more, no spice at all. "I got a bell pepper", I declared. Silly me.

I did not finish my pepper, and the others who had chosen wisely were entertained by my folly. Of course, I was not the only person who lost the game.

It was an interesting experience.

Annual Arithmetic

1: Choose any positive integer
2: Triple it.
3: Multiply the result by three (yes, again).
4: If the number contains more than one digit, add them all up.
5: If the result of step 4 results in a number with more than one digit, repeat step 4.
6: Add ten.
7: Store your current result in memory (MM).
8: Decrease the number by one.
9: Subtract the result from 100.
10: Store the new result in memory (NN).
11: Concatenate the two numbers in memory - MMNN.
12: Subtract MMNN from the current year, 2010.

The end result is my new age! :-)

Stride Permamint Gum

Today I received notice from my mother that I had received a package in the mail at her house. I decided to stop by after work to pick it up, thinking that maybe someone had mailed a gift for the baby. Though, when my mother handed me the package, she mentioned that it had a funny smell.

I decided to check the smell, and it almost seemed to have a bit of a minty scent. This was a little confusing. The person from whom it came was listed as "Cadbury Adams". I did not immediately recognize the name, nor the sender's address. My mom became a little anxious as I decided to open the package. To help keep her at ease, I decided to open it very carefully... "just in case".

So anyway, I get the package open, and inside I find a letter with a giant Stride logo on it. It immediately dawned on me that I had entered a contest many months back to "Rename Stride Non-Stop Mint". The contest prizes promised a substantial chunk of change, and a year's supply of gum. For some reason, I felt this was worth a shot.



I decided to submit several names that I could think of for their "Non-Stop Mint". I cannot remember what all of them were now. Not long after entering the contest, I received an email from the company stating that they were forced to end the contest early, and they apologized. (I found another blog poster who mentioned this too...)
Here is the text of the first email I received:

Thank you for your entry and for your enthusiasm around our Rename Nonstop Mint™ contest. Your Nonstop Mint™ name idea was awesome, but we had a technical glitch in connection with the selection of the finalists and therefore, had to close the voting and the contest.

We are really sorry about this, especially after we saw such energy for the contest, with you and all our STRIDE® fans.

We are still going to give away great stuff and money – and more than you thought. We will be conducting a drawing among all those who submitted names, and five people randomly selected each will get $25,000. Yup, you read that right – you are eligible. Stay tuned, and we will reveal those people shortly.

We are also sending you – and all the other folks who submitted the same names as the finalists (because yes, it seems great STRIDE® minds thought alike) – custom packs of Nonstop Mint™ featuring one of the ten final names that most resemble yours. Those custom packs (there will be 12-packs of Stride gum in a box) will be ready in about six-to-eight weeks.

We hate to spit out our own contest, so we really appreciate you sticking with us.

- STRIDE MARKETING TEAM

As it turns out, I must have chose a name similar to that of one of the finalists.
They sent me 12 packs (each containing 14 pieces of gum) with one of the names I chose.....

Permamint

Hurray! Free Gum.

My First MRI

I had my first MRI today. I hope it is the last.
Apparently MRIs make me nervous (maybe it was the enclosed space).
When I am nervous, I sometimes become hyperactive.
Asking a hyperactive ME to sit still and not move at all for an hour... well... just crazy.

I was uncomfortable, and twice I had an itch on my face that I could not scratch.

On the Horizon

Yarrr! Thar be a little one headin' this way. Come November, the Davis Krewe shall have expanded from ME to THREE.

XM Radio Customer Service Woes

In January of 2008, I purchased a Honda Civic that came with a 3-month trial subscription of XM Satellite Radio. I tried it out, but I was not a major fan because the signal was intermittent. It seemed highly annoying to deal with the constant interruptions of static, so I did not purchase a subscription when my trial ran out.

I occasionally received advertisements in the mail regarding specials they were running. Depending on how long I agreed to have their service, I could get varying percentages off the total cost.

Eventually, I came across a decent deal that I was willing to try for a couple of months because I was going to be doing some traveling and figured I would get a better signal when traveling the Interstates. This was mostly true, except that it would still cut out for a moment when passing under several bridge underpasses.

I decided to call and cancel my subscription, but they were desperate to keep me. I told them I did not want to pay for a service that was annoying to use. They kept tossing more "deals" at me, and I kept refusing. Eventually, they offered me three months for free to continue trying out the service and hopefully resolve my signal issues. I told the person on the phone that I would have no problems with a free trial. I made it clear that I did not want to pay for the service. I was told that, to avoid having the subscription renew at normal price, I would need to call by the end of February (2009) to cancel the subscription. I agreed to this.

For the three months leading up to February, I rarely listened to the radio, because it was highly annoying to have the signal go out so much. Driving around town I would get a lot of static, especially if I was near trees or buildings. You know what we have a lot of in the city? Trees and buildings!

Wanting to avoid getting charged, I decided to call and cancel the subscription yet again. I called XM while on a break at work at used up more than my break time waiting on hold. I kept getting a recording telling me they were experiencing high call volumes due to the high demand of their "Best of Sirius" package. I refuse to believe this for two main reasons. One being the bad service, two being the price of their stock. Regardless, I was forced to hang up and try again later. Therefore, 20 minutes of my time was wasted.

I decided to take a lunch break later in the day. I called XM while driving home to grab some food. Again, I sat on hold for about 20 minutes before someone finally answered the call. They had the same annoying recordings talking about how their new service was in high demand. Yeah, sure.

Finally, someone picked up, and I told them I wanted to cancel my subscription. They asked me why, and I told them the signal was lousy and I could not use the radio. For reasons following logic I cannot quite follow... they then offered me several discounts to use their service. It seemed to be difficult to explain to the customer service rep that I did not want the service at all because it was annoying to use their service.

After several more minutes of back-and-forth discussion, I was eventually able to convince the customer service to cancel my subscription. YAY. This agreement was made on Thursday, February 5th, 2009.

Fast forward to Monday, February 9th, 2009...
I decide to do a quick check of my balances to make sure there has been no weird activity recently. I do this on occasion just because I don't trust the world.
What do I find? I see a charge from XM Radio for their service. It apparently applied on Friday, February 6th, 2009. I found this very annoying, as I had called the day before to cancel the service.

...
So I call XM to check on this issue. Again, I have to sit on hold for a while. For a period of roughly 17 minutes, I have to wait on hold. I finally get someone on the line speaking broken English, and try to explain to them that I was charged for their service despite the fact I had put in a request to cancel the service. I mentioned that wanted to make sure my subscription was canceled and I wanted a refund of the charge. Strangely enough, at that moment, the call connection started to become weak. I find this very strange because it had no problems while I was sitting on hold. After several moments of trying to talk to the customer service rep... the call went dead.

I thought this was very fishy, because my phone had been sitting in the same spot for the duration of the call, so I know it wasn't my end.

I took a moment to ponder the situation before immediately calling back, because I did not want to sound super angry. Then I convinced myself that I would likely have to sit on hold for a while again, and I would have plenty of time to calm down while waiting on hold.

I called back. Luckily, this was the shortest amount of time I had to sit on hold, only about 13 minutes this time. I get in touch with a live person. The English is still a bit broken, but more easy to understand than the previous guy.

I explain to her that I was just talking to someone and got cut off. I then tell her I was calling because I had called last week to cancel my subscription and then was charged a large fee after putting in the request. I wanted this to be checked, and I wanted to get a refund for the errant fee. She says she can help me with that, then states, "but first, I will need to verify your name". At this moment, the call goes dead.

Again, this is highly fishy because I had a perfect connection until the moment I stated I wanted a refund.

XM is testing my patience.

Once again, I called to try to talk to someone. This time I was on hold for 19 minutes. What a way to spend an evening! The person on the line asks if they can help me. I tell them I hope so, because I had already been cut off twice tonight. I then explain that I had called last week to cancel my subscription, but was then charged a large fee. I explained that I wanted verification that my subscription was canceled, and I wanted a refund of the money I charged.

He then asks me to confirm my name. He then confirms my address. He asks how many radios I canceled, and I tell him just one (the only radio I have). He then states that he needs to check some information on my account and puts me on hold. After about 2 additional minutes of holding... the call drops.

Yet again, fishy. I did not lost my signal, the call was terminated by XM.

After being disconnected from XM three times when trying to get a refund, I shall just have to assume that XM IS RUNNING A SCAM. Yes, XM lawyers, I put that in print. Since I have plenty of evidence to suggest this, I have every right to actually print it.

I'll strike you a deal...
Refund my money plus some to cover the cost of time I have wasted talking to your customer service (I figure about $200 should cover it), and issue me a formal apology. When this is done, I shall remove the specific comment above about you running a scam. The other information about your deplorable customer service shall continue to remain unless you strike me an amazing deal. I'm open to suggestions. Keep in mind that I may increase the $200 amount above depending on how much more time I spend dealing with your company trying to get my money back. Also, if you feel compelled to take me up on the "amazing deal to remove negative feedback" offer above, please note that the minimum I will accept will depend on how long you wait to make an offer.

Your's truly,
RMWMP0W4
Former XM Subscriber


******* UPDATE ********

During my fourth attempt this evening at contacting XM, I was finally able to confirm that they are applying a refund to my account. Hurray.

I wonder how many people would have given up and just let XM charge them the money. It still seems sketchy to me that my three previous calls dropped within moments of mentioning that I wanted a refund.

Oh well. I guess patience and persistence pay off.

Happy New Year

I know I have neglected this blog some. Hopefully I will spend more time with it in the coming new year.

So anyway, I wanted to make a quick post to say Happy New Year!
Blessings upon you.

Bailout Woes

Many people reading this would already know that I was never a supporter of the $700 Billion bailout plan that Congress passed a few weeks back. In fact, I called my congressman to berate him for voting for it when it seemed none of his constituents supported it.

Now, I am met with more news that angers me further.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/12/campbell.brown.bailout/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

So, they plan to change how to spend the money. Paulson states that the facts have changed since the bailout was passed. Instead of spending the money on failing mortgages, they are instead going to buy stock in banks.

There are so many things wrong with this plan, especially considering this seems to be the Government's long-term plan to control everything.

What concerns me the most, though, is the fact that it seems that our government passed a bill to spend over $700 Billion without actually doing any research into why they were doing it. They just passed it.

Nothing like this should ever be passed without the proper research, and all congresspersons (including Senators) that voted in favor of the bill should be ashamed of themselves.

That's my 2 cents.

Intolerance

Intolerance is only tolerated when one is intolerant of intolerance.
-- or --
Intolerance is only tolerated when directed toward intolerance.

Debt Woes

When looking through some old files on some sites today, I came across a weird little gadget on an old site that, for some reason or another, was set to display the number of milliseconds that had passed since midnight on January 1, 1970. At the time I accessed it, the count was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.2 trillion milliseconds.

What scared me was the fact that our National Debt was actually about 8.5 times higher than that. In trying to compare the actual National Debt to milliseconds, I came up with a comparative date somewhere in mid 1681. Yes, you read that right. If you were to go back in time the number of MILLISECONDS corresponding to the number of dollars in our debt at the time of this post, you would find yourself in the 17th century.

I decided to take this a step further and come up with a general estimate of how much money our country has spent, on average, per second, since our founding. Assuming that the country was started on July 4, 1776 and ending at 11:59PM on October 15, 2008... This country has spent, on average, just over $1400 more than what we can afford... per second.

How horrible is that!??

Sadly, most of that has been in recent years. At the time of this post, the debt is increasing, on average, just under $30,000 per second. This is deplorable.

Something needs to be done. We need to stop borrowing money and get our debt under control. If we let it grow much more, we will not ever be able to afford paying it back. At an average growth rate of 8.50% annually... Our payments of less than half a trillion dollars per year result in the debt increasing annually. Even if we were to double the payments we currently make, the debt would never decrease. We would have to increase our annual payment to roughly $1 Trillion to even start making a dent.

Something is wrong.

Jeff Sullivan: Master of Web

To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under Heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal ...
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to lose and a time to seek;
a time to rend and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

So Long, Jeff. We shall miss your stories, anecdotes, laughter, and presence.
Until we meet again...

Rest in Peace, Buddy.

The Idiot Box - Ziggy Shwa

Ok, today a coworker suddenly remembered a show he had seen a while back called "The Idiot Box". I had never heard of it, so I decided to look it up.

I was quite surprised at the return I received from Google.

Here is a quick screenshot of my results:


I thought this was very odd. Why on earth would it pop up results for "ziggy shwa"?

I just don't know.

Oh, and BJD, you might appreciate this. When I finally found some information about the show, I learned that they once had a contest called "Win a Chance to Sacrifice Your Daughter to GWAR!"

Thus ends my post.

Carlin

I'll miss you, George.
I hope that garage is spacious.

FD4HD3D

I took a small vacation from work to be an Extra in the film Final Destination 4, which is being filmed in 3D in High Definition. I played a security guard. Though, if I even appear in the film at all, it will be very briefly. The way I figure it, I spent a week-and-a-half filming for a chance to be in the film for a few seconds.

I guess I shall have to wait until next year to see if I actually make it into the film at all.

The funny thing is, I do not look like a security guard. I look completely ridiculous. I picture my character being some scrawny dork that found a security guard uniform and wanted to act tough for a bit. Who knows? Maybe they will use some video editing tricks to make me look a little buff or something.

I have tons of pics, but I shall have to sift through them to see if there are any at all I can safely post without taking some heat from the studio (or its lawyers). We'll see.

Mmmmm.... Fresh Blood

OK, so I was at Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market yesterday when I noticed a new flavor of Orbit gum. The flavor? Sangria Fresca. In case you cannot tell from the title of this post, the translation is "Fresh Blood".

Is it bad that I like this flavor?

Perhaps I am becoming a vampire.

Hurray for Clean Water

Well, Forbes has released a list of cities with relatively clean drinking water.
Mobile made the list!
Apparently our water has some of the least lead. That's good, right?
I should say so.

Clean Water