draggonlaady

Really rather annoying dealing with labs as the patient rather than the doctor.

Got a bill from a lab. Confused, because while I knew that we had sent in some bacterial cultures from a wound, I didn't recall doing anything viral, yet I was being charged for 2 viral tests that my insurance wouldn't cover. "Viral Testing" is all that's listed on the billing slip.

I call my Doc's office to ask what viral tests they sent in. The nurse is very confused and says that they didn't send any viral tests in.

I call the lab. The woman there basically stonewalled me. Would not give me ANY information, wouldn't even tell me what was tested for. Come, ON woman, this is MY information, MY medical record, MY body, MY pocketbook. Woman will tell me nothing. Says that she needs to be contacted by someone from my doctor's office. Fine. Whatever.

Call my Doc's office back. Nurse explains that the lab sometimes is leery of giving out info over the phone, example she gives is I might be my husband's ex-wife calling or something. Fine, whatever, except that the lab woman 1: never asked who I was, 2: never gave any sort of explanation of why she wouldn't give me my own info, 3: was short and snappy from the start of the conversation. Nurse says she'll call the lab.

Nurse calls me back. No viral tests were done at all. For some GOK reason, the lab lists some bacterial cultures as viral tests. Nurse does not say, but hints that lab woman was also snappy at her, with a "well, yeah" attitude when Nurse asked for verification that these were listed as viral. Nurse and I are both still confused as to why the lab things certain bacteria are viruses. I still have to pay the bill. Bother.

So I finally got a call back from the billing department at the doctor's office--after calling thursday and speaking to someone who said she didn't know why I would have received a bill and my balance was zero in the computer. When I said well, I DID get a bill, and I want to know what exactly is going on and why I keep getting them, she said she'd have to have someone else call back because she didn't know how to look that up in the system. I left my work number, and specifically asked that the other person call me there, since that's WHERE I AM.
She called my home number. From a damn crappy line--I could barely understand her through the static and dropped words. Seriously sounded like she was calling from a basement on a cel-phone. From what I could understand, she's blaming the computers because they "somehow" sent out April's bills instead of June's. Which is total BS, because 1: it was dated June, and 2: computers tend to do WHAT YOU TELL THEM TO DO not just randomly print things nobody asked for.

So. Will anyone else be surprised if I get another bill next month? I won't be.

Ok, technically, in this case it's not the doctor, it's his office/billing department. Please enjoy the following timeline, because I'm about to start threatening someone if this doesn't get resolved.

1/2007: yearly exam/physical, nothing special.

3/30/07: they bill me--a bit of a lag but it had to go to insurance and i didn't really think much of it.

4/10/07: my check cleared the bank

4/27/07: they bill me.

5/5/07(saturday): I received the bill, called the clinic and left a voice mail.

5/8/07: Since I had not heard anything back from the clinic, I called again, and again left a voice mail (apparently they are at lunch until 2PM).

5/9/07: Still no reply, called again (before closing, but nobody answered) and didn't bother leaving a voice mail.

5/10/07: Called again and finally talked to the woman in billing. Who informed me that all was in order, the paperwork was right there on her desk it just wasn't entered into the computer yet. I bit back my remarks about efficiency in entering payments that cleared A MONTH PRIOR, and accepted that she was dealing with it.

6/12/07: I GET ANOTHER BILL. I call and the woman at reception says "Don't worry about it, honey." Honey?!? bullshit. Transfer me to someone in billing. I get VOICEMAIL. again. So again, I have left a message that I don't expect anyone to get around to responding to, saying that I'm getting extremely frustrated with this because my check cleared two months ago and I really don't want to have to deal with them sending me to collections for a bill I already paid.

Copied from: http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/WeightManagement/tb1/1958

By Neil Osterweil, Senior Associate Editor, MedPage Today
Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
October 18, 2005

MedPage Today Action Points

* Advise interested patients that bariatric surgery, while effective at producing durable weight loss, should be reserved for the morbidly obese and for those in whom diet, exercise, and medical interventions have failed.

* Bear in mind that the risk of perioperative death associated with bariatric surgery appears to be greater in males, in people who are 65 or older, and patients of surgeons with lower than average bariatric surgery volume.

* Work with patients to develop individualized diet and exercise plans that are both realistic and appropriate to their health needs.

Review

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 18 - ( Gastric bypass surgery is on the rise, and so too are the rates of hospitalizations and early postoperative deaths related to complications. )

This caught my attention because I recently started hearing a radio advert encouraging people to consider bariatric surgery, and spun it in a way as to sound completely safe and much easier than dealing with diets and excersize. Gotta love advertising.