pantoum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KAFKA RAMBLINGS I am very tired of seeing the inscribed brick that I bought for the Ginger and me every time I walk into or leave my office and wish I had considered the difficulty Johnny Depp had removing his Winona Forever tattoo for even a moment before forking over all that money for a brick that now annoys me every single day. And speaking of Kafka (well) and my frustration with dealing with bureaucracies, let me describe the mess I got into a couple of years ago because of HIPAA regulations. BACKGROUND: I have a very common name and, unfortunately, at least six other people in this area have the same name and at least one of those people was born the same month and year as me, and this creates all kinds of problems with our medical files. For example, an ER nurse taking my stats insisted once that I had had my appendix removed even though I told her I had not. Now I admit that my defenses were down because an ovarian cyst was rupturing inside me as this woman challenged my awareness of my own body—and the Ginger swears that I was talking about being on Gilligan's Island as I lay curled in a fetal position on the floor of the ER waiting room waiting to finally be admitted—so no doubt the nurse was a little suspicious of my ability to remember any surgeries I may or may not have had. I did know that my appendix was still inside me though and that my symptoms were pretty damn close to those for appendicitis however. Now people who know me will tell you that I have no patience when I am leaving a yoga class (yawn), so I cannot possibly describe how little patience I have after I've been stuck in an ER waiting room for hours while in severe pain. I can tell you that, after arguing with her for what seemed like twenty minutes, I just yanked my shirt up and partially unzipped my pants and pointed at my stomach, and said something along the lines of "Lookit. Do you see a fucking scar anywhere?" Anyway, I got caught in a Catch-22 situation at that medical center after my ER visit and thought that I would never get out of that particular ting of Hell. Through some clerical or computer error, the medical center assigned two medical numbers to me and then started billing me based on the medical histories of two people with my name. These bills were fairly generic and said something along the lines of Procedure 274—basic or Anesthesia—blah blah blah, but did not supply the details necessary for me to ascertain what medical procedure I was actually being billed for. And my confusion was complicated by the fact that (1) I had medical appointments on a few of the days for which I was being billed, but the descriptions did not seem to match my memory and I had already paid a copayment; and (2) the medical center submitted some of the bills to my insurance company and my insurance company paid some of them even though I was not in town during some of the procedures for which I was being billed I told the clerk that some of the bills should have been billed to another person with my same name, which was a huge mistake because then she said did not allow her to provide the details I needed in order to verify which, if any, charges were actually for procedures that they should have been billed to my insurance company. (This was further complicated by the fact that HIPAA requires you to know a patient's full name before the medical center can release information about this patient—and, of course, I didn't know her middle name, since my only association with this patient was that we share first and last names. Oh and that I was being asked to pay her bills.). "So let me get this straight," said I. "You are billing me for procedures I did not have and are unwilling to provide me with the details I need in order to determine which of these procedures I may have had, but expect me to pay these balances nonetheless?" I should have hired a lawyer at that point. But no, I kept telling myself that I am a rational person and most other people are too, so surely we can figure this thing out. Lawsie was that a mistake! It took months of near-daily headaches and phone calls and letters and taking time off work to drive to the medical center and talk with a real live breathing person and eventually getting reported to a collection agency before I finally said the magic words that made those misdirected bills go away. I don't even want to think about how many hours of my life I wasted dealing with that shit! Huh. I seem to be a crankypants today, don't I? Sorry all I have done on my blog today is complain,
Perhaps my crankiness stems from the fact that I overslept and said Shit, shit, shit as I took the world's speediest shower instead of singing a nice relaxing dorky song about me and you and a dog named Boo or something this morning . . . 6:19 p.m. - 2005-03-14 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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