I have been waging a quiet war with one of Lee’s medical providers.
At the end of January, I received a bill from a lab for a lot of very expensive blood and tissue tests. I was really annoyed, because I had paid off all of Lee’s medical bills and thought I was done. I put the bill aside. The total was about $2300. About a week later I received a bill from them for the same tests, but it was reduced to about $1850.00. I then analyzed the bill and checked the dates of service. All of these tests were done about one or two days before he went into hospice. We had known he was going into hospice and so did everyone at the hospital. Now I was really annoyed. I called the company and talked to someone with a very thick accent who sounded like she was talking from a cigar box at the bottom of the sea. I asked her why these elaborate and costly tests were done on a patient who was going into hospice. She did not know (of course), but told me not to pay the bill because it was still being “worked on”. After getting a reference number for the phone call (so we both would have a record of my call) and her assurance that I would not be put in for collection, I let it go.
Today I got an explanation of benefits from Medicare and the bottom line is I owe the lab
$136.02! What if I had paid the first bill? I know for sure that I would never have seen that money.
Thank you Medicare.
I am not a big fan of large government bureaucracies, but this is not the first time I have had a good experience with both Medicare and Social Security.
I guess some of us old dogs can learn new tricks (or change our minds about some things.)
See you tomorrow.
God bless everybody.,
Patty