Ever tried to put drops in the eye of a 4yo pink eye? Back in March, our 4yo had pink eye, also known as conjunctivitis. It’s a very contagious infection, which my sweet husband had the bad fortune to get. After that, it was my turn. Bummer! Because there are so many eye infections out there, adults have to be seen to diagnose and get the prescription. So we both went in. Then it was the 7yo, but he didn’t have it. A couple days later, he had some other issue and went to urgent care again, where he learned he did have pink eye.
Between the stow-away viruses from our spring break Wisconsin Dells vacation and the pink-eye, we had 6 weeks of doc visits. We resolved a few years ago to pay all co-pays at time of service so there was never a question. We held to that during the time in question. Total bill for our optical troubles should’ve been $95, including meds. So you can imagine my surprise as I opened an onslaught of medical bills the last few weeks that told me that I owed $12 + $15 + $50 for EACH visit. Add to that the almost $10 for each set of eyedrops and we’re talking $385 for a family of 7 to have a bout of pink eye.
Yesterday I hung up the phone on the insurance folks. After many hours of calling, pressing 1, pressing 2, pressing something else, saying “yes,” and it saying, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you” because my children were talking loudly and altered the input, I ended up on a conference call with my insurance company and a hospital from whom we’d received a bill.
Actually, we’ve received 3 bills. I paid ONE bill at time of service. It was equal to the amount of my plan’s co-pay. Then I got a bill for half of that. Then I got a bill for twice that amount.
I spoke with each agency separately. I heard the discrepancies and got them on the phone together. And they both changed their stories and ganged up on me. I needed to drop one child off and pick one up and they wouldn’t call me back or hold for 2 seconds. Then one asked me, “Why did you go when you did? Wasn’t the clinic open?”
No you didn’t. Really? You just asked me why I went to urgent care instead of the clinic. Because the clinic was closed. She said, but the date of service is. I went on to explain that the date she was reading was the first business day following that and if she’d look closer she’d see that… blah blah blah, you get the picture. Then they both started telling me why I had to triple pay my co-pay. I was tired. It was 4:40. I didn’t want to say something I’d regret. So I hung up.
I called the third agency today. He gave me renewed hope — and his direct number with permission to have my insurance company call conference so he could explain it to them. They did. But they didn’t believe him. So he got off the phone. Then we conferenced the hospital again. And we got the guy. The greatest guy ever (after my husband, dad, grandfather, and a few others) said to the insurance company: “You may want to check the code. The code for urgent care is ###. The ER code is ###. Can you verify that because we show an urgent care code.”
She checked. She had an urgent care code with an ER amount. Their error! You go, hospital billing department customer service rep guy!
I was able to wash the dishes in the time it took for me to give her all the associated account numbers for each invoice. There were five in all. They are resubmitting the claims.
All this to say, if you are fighting the insurance beast, stay calm. If you lash out, they mark it on the file and then they’re mean the next time you call. And the reps are not the lawmakers. They are the messenger. Don’t shoot the messenger. Find out the codes; ask folks to verify. I learned so much today.
Pink eye is expensive. And not just cause I had to replace all my eye shadow!
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