Reaching the Billing Office....

 Babygirl had an appointment with her vascular surgery team today.  More on that later.

Taking the afternoon off for a 1 PM appointment can leave one with a free weekday afternoon. Perfect. This is just what I need, so I can start calling hospital billing offices and insurance companies about the bills. 

Let's go back to October. Hubby was admitted TWICE in October. The first bill has been paid. The second was deemed "Not Medically Necessary." Well, since his admitting diagnosis was "Anaphylactic Shock," and they needed to remove the pump that was shoving in more of the antibiotic he was suddenly allergic to, AND try to find a NEW antibiotic that wouldn't kill him, control the ongoing BONE infections, and control the super-high blood sugars that resulted from the emergency allergy treatments?  Well, I beg to differ. I contested it, was told it would be covered. All $12,360.52.  

But I have in my hand an EOB (explanation of benefits) that says the insurance isn't going to pay for ANY of it, and I can't for the life of me figure out what the attached code even means. 

Next to that is an EOB for Babygirls $4187 ambulance ride on New Year's Eve. Same code. Same "we ain't paying" vibe. 

Now, I know that the 12/31/21 ED visit at the local hospital was covered and has been paid. But not the ambulance ride.

Following this? The $134,424.27 we owe U of R hospital for saving Babygirl's life (the Covid she caught there? No extra charge). According to our insurance, they don't have enough information about her OTHER insurance to decide.  

Same-same for her blood work at the local hospital, $1504.10, from early February. 

Now, I can understand that U of R and the ambulance company COULD be missing some information, but her U of R DOCTOR visit in December was covered, no problem. And it's not like the change of year seems to have any impact there: 12/31 is as unpaid as 1/1-1/14.

But then:  WhatTheLivingDUCK is the issue with OUR hospital? 12/31/21 correctly billed and paid for, and 2/3/22, you don't have her (entirely unchanged!) insurance information?

There is no way to connect these dots sensibly, so I started making phone calls. I don't have any actual bills in my hand, and my goal is to NOT have any by getting ahead of this. But if you DON'T have a bill, you don't have a billing office phone number. The Ascension website was willing to get me financial counseling, set up a payment plan, and half-a-dozen other fun things, but not cough up a number. Twice I ended up waiting for "the next available representative" only to discover that I was talking to PHYSICIAN billing and not HOSPITAL billing. 

It took me WAY too long to think of calling the hospital operator. Seriously. They know things. 

Then I spent the NEXT 56 minutes coming to a Really Good Idea of why I'd waited so long.  The woman I spoke to had to search by Hubby's and Babygirl's birthdays since I didn't have actual billing accounts. Then SHE had to figure out what the codes meant, and what to do about it.

Apparently they changed operating systems (or something?) and some bills still needed to be entered into the new system as they were discovered. Hubby's October visit and Babygirl's ambulance ride got "entered into a spread sheet" for further evaluation. Chat again in 45 days. Super. 

The rest of everything had to do with a lack of insurance information. She was as puzzled as I as to why, if they weren't confused in December, they are confused now? 

My next idea was to call the insurance company. She said, "That can be challenging. Let me do it. I'll call you back." I must have sounded, well, as they say, some kinda way.

We are past business hours now, and I've not gotten a call. I feel like there's an ice pick in my left eye, and honestly, putting it there myself would have been less painful than all of this Ducking nonsense. 

DeeDee