If You Have to Ask for the Price.....

 Have you ever window-shopped near Radio City Music Hall? There are never any prices on the items displayed.  And if you go in and ask, you are likely to hear, "If you have to ask me the price, you can't afford it." 

Medical care falls into this category, for SURE.  

I've been working with my insurance company since the EOB's (Explanation of Benefits) began rolling in with many, many indicators that they didn't plan to pay unless we clarified our insurance status.  Babygirl has my BC/BS, Medicare (for disabled folks, old folks, and folks on dialysis) and Medicaid (for poor folks, because she's an adult and her disability money is about $700/month after this year's, um, "generous" cost of living adjustment). Apparently, I have not been entirely successful in this endeavor. 

The bills are rolling in.  

The local ER doc sent a bill for $1653.

The local ER sent a bill for $1700, plus or minus.   For the record, she was in the local ER for 4 hours.

The ambulance company sent us a bill for $4700, mostly for mileage.

The prize-winner, of course, is UR Hospital. They sent me a politely worded request for a check in the amount of $147,639.33, with instructions to "resolve this matter" within 15 days.

Nearly $160,000 for 15 days. For a little over 10 grand a day, we'd have had a better time, well, nearly ANYWHERE. 

I was off yesterday afternoon (2 appointments for myself, thankyouverymuch), and spent 2 hours in between things on hold with insurance and billing offices. 

The problem is this:  When you have multiple types of insurance, there is a fight among them as to who is primarily responsible for these huge bills.  Receiving a letter from Medicare stating IN WRITING from the Federal Government that they are SECOND in line and that BC/BS MUST own up to the fact that they are FIRST has helped some.  Sending all of Babygirl's insurance information (which I now have stored in my phone!) to everybody has helped.

But BC/BS has been mightily slow to take responsibility for all of this, and we are past the 3-month mark on all of this.

Our BC/BS finally agreed, yesterday, that all of these things need to be rebilled.  Once they are (and this will take 30-45 business days to do!), everybody will be able to bill Medicare, and, finally, Medicaid for the balances successively remaining. There should be no residual balances.

THEN I will get to see what remains of our deductible and go after everybody for refunds on the bills I have paid for hubby and me since January 14.  I suspect that we hit our family's full annual deductible by 2 AM on January 1st.  

Today I am traveling to NYC (again) to a Long Covid specialty clinic with Curlygirl.  I'll be on the phone most of the way there, discussing with various doctors' offices and hospitals that things are being fixed, and we need more time.  If anyone balks, I'll put things on a payment plane for the minimum they will accept until things are fixed. I like my credit rating as it is. 

DeeDee