Man of steel

I'm working on insurance problems again. You have to be like iron when dealing with this kind of stuff, but today they really got under my skin. The only way I've been able to make progress has been to go over to the hospital, sit down with the account person and wait with them on hold with the insurance company. That way when the insurance folks say misleading or incorrect things, I am there to get the matter back on track.

They were so screwed up today that I was embarrassed for them. At first. Then I was angry, and I'm usually pretty calm about these things. You have to outlast them if you want to get paid. If you get stressed and have a heart attack and die, you lose, because you don't get paid.

But today was insane. First they said we hadn't made an appeal. Except that we made appeals on two claims together. We talked about one, then we talked about the other. I followed up in writing, and listed both claims in my letter. They reevaluated one, but forgot to process the other.

Then they said they didn't have the records they need. Only I had the records mailed to them a month ago, everything they should need, and we had the mailing dates; it was a file too thick to fax. Ten or fifteen minutes on hold, and "John" reported that yes, they did actually have the records all along.

Then it's going to take 30-60 days to process. The hospital was pretty frustrated at this and pressed, since we have been working on this account since July 26th. Ah well, it could actually be handled in 7 days.

The description I would apply to the situation: malicious incompetence.

Still, if you last long enough and don't die you can win, and I still expect things to work out. I've tried to think if I have done anything "wrong" in my appeal, and the only thing I can think of is this. I referred to two claims in the same letter since they were nearly identical and from adjacent months. It could be (in their incompetence) that they filed my letter with one claim and then neglected the other. In the future, I'll refer to only one claim per sheet of paper and just write two letters with the same information to be safe.

Add that to my "lessons on dealing with insurance companies" I guess.