I am fighting a bill.
A few weeks ago my sweet little boy (The canyland master, for those playing at home) fell in the tub, and bit his lip. It was bad enough that on the advice of my brother, an emt, we took him to the ER. (Of course it was 90 minutes before Shabbos).
We didn't go without a plan, we had called a plastic surgeon and he was meeting us there (It turned out I was his fourth patient, as there were three others before me who were meeting him there).
So we went up to the desk and checked in. Then we sat down. An hour later the triage nurse met us, took the boy's vitals, and sent us to the back to see the doctor we had arranged to meet (He ended up not stitching the lip so the whole thing at that point took about seven minutes). Then we went home.
Before I recieved a bill from the hospital or the plastic surgeon, I recieved a bill from some other doctor. When I called the facility that handles this person's billing they told me "he was on call that night." I asked: "So does he gets a piece of everyone who walks through the door?" She just lauged.
I was outraged. Only two people had touched my son, and only one other, the woman at the desk had spoken to us. I called the hospital billing to find out if maybe the triage nurse is billed seperately. It is not. It will be a part of the $600 I will owe for the emergency room visit. I asked the plastic surgeon's office, and they are also not affiliated with the name on this bill.
The very helpful guy from hospital billing suggested I get the records so that I can see if anything is listed that would indicate someone else could bill me.
It's not even a lot of money in the scheme of things, but at this point even if it was only $10 I would put in the effort I have been putting in (going to the hospital to request the records with ID, and in 7-10 days going to pick then up for seventy five cents a page (not much of an investment, since nothing much happened) -such is the level of disgust.
And we wonder why health care costs are high!
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