| Try being uninsured. I had a woman come into my room (!) during my ER visit and ask for payment. I asked very clearly if this was covering the cost of the visit. I made it clear I understood the doctor and xrays would be billed separately. I paid. It wasn’t cheap. I got the bill from the doctor. It was reasonable and I paid promptly. I got the bill for the X-ray and it was ridiculously low to my surprise. It was paid immediately. In my mind, I was done. Then I started getting phone calls from a broken machine. Please call <actual silence> at <more silence> about your past due amount of <~$4000>. I assumed they were spam, but after about 10 of these calls over three days, the message variables were randomly filled or not on any given message. At no point was the message clearly about my hospital visit identified, but I figured it out by the phone number and the name of the parent company. At this point I hadn’t even been mailed a bill. And I know they have the right address because the other bills came and I’ve only ever lived at my current house since the first time I went to this hospital. So I went down to the hospital to sort it out. Well, they don’t have a billing department. They have “financial counseling” or something equally not what I need. And even though it was in the hours they are supposed to be there, everyone had gone home for the day. I still haven’t paid. I haven’t gotten a bill, and I’m not entirely sure the calls aren’t just a scam someone is running. |