Health Insurance, part 6
This is coming a lot later than I would have liked. Unfortunately, upon reaching Michigan, I found that I could not check my voice mail. Of course, I didn't have very good Internet access there either, but I stole away to the airport to work on things a little bit there. I contacted some people at the BMC, and they faxed some of my statements up to where I was. I looked through the insurance brochure and found a few interesting things.
When I finally got back to Boston this week, I noticed that I still had not received a revised EOB from Aetna concerning my Pathology charges. In order to appeal the insurance decision, I need all the EOBs so I can try to sort things out. Thus, I needed to figure out why this hadn't gone through. Call sequence!
First: Chickering. Gotta find out why I hadn't gotten it. Answer: They hadn't received a request for resubmission. They said I needed to call the pathologist for resubmission. I looked back through previous posts to find the pathologist's number, but I realized that bigger billing office I had finagled my way to find might be the problem; I probably needed to talk to someone else.
Second: Chickering. I called back, asking whether they had a number for the Pathologist. They did! I'll probably need this one later: (800) 214-2888 (Pathologist).
Third: Pathologist. This is another billing office. I gave them my information, and the extremely helpful lady said she saw where they might have believed it to be listed as "routine" (this is why it was denied by Chickering, even though it's on the same day as my big surgery. Thanks, Chickering). The lady said that it was unfortunately in collections, so they were unable to simply resubmit it. I couldn't believe this. I had contacted the collection agency and billing before about this. How had this happened again? I fixed my mailing address with the billing office and gave them my phone number. The lady was very sympathetic; she came up with the following plan: they would change the billing code and talk to chickering. At the same time, they'll ask the collection agency to put the account on hold, in order to not destroy my credit. (Isn't it already pretty much dead after this entire fiasco?) Hopefully this will all work, though she couldn't say that it definitely would not affect my credit. Ugh.
This would all have been avoided had one of the following two things happened:
1) My address been recorded correctly by BMC. I spelled out the name of my street to the woman who put it in the computer, and my father was sitting next to me. How did it get off by two letters? This prevented me from seeing any bills from people until far too late.
2) Chickering/Aetna had sent me any Explanation of Benefits. They didn't, until I specifically called them up and asked for them. I couldn't even access them online, and no one I talked to knew why I hadn't been sent anything.
Either of these two things would have let me know that I was getting charged for anything before bills were sent to collections.
This has been a nightmare, and the worst part is that I have to be the middleman for the whole thing. There are too many companies and parties that I have had to deal with and are incapable of interacting with each other without a personal request from me.
I can only hope that I actually get this EOB sometime soon.
Before quitting, I will make one more call. This time to the Otolaryngologist's office, to tell them that this whole thing is under review.
Call...
Wow, they apparently have someone there who is well-associated with my account:-P I talked to someone and she said I needed to talk to the person who has handled my account in the past. That person is out of the office, so I left them a voicemail with my name, account number and phone number. I hope to hear back from them on Monday.
Okay, I'm tired and I have plenty of things to actually get done today. I'm sick of being the middle man to fix the incompetence of my insurance and all the different people billing me.
-Kyle
When I finally got back to Boston this week, I noticed that I still had not received a revised EOB from Aetna concerning my Pathology charges. In order to appeal the insurance decision, I need all the EOBs so I can try to sort things out. Thus, I needed to figure out why this hadn't gone through. Call sequence!
First: Chickering. Gotta find out why I hadn't gotten it. Answer: They hadn't received a request for resubmission. They said I needed to call the pathologist for resubmission. I looked back through previous posts to find the pathologist's number, but I realized that bigger billing office I had finagled my way to find might be the problem; I probably needed to talk to someone else.
Second: Chickering. I called back, asking whether they had a number for the Pathologist. They did! I'll probably need this one later: (800) 214-2888 (Pathologist).
Third: Pathologist. This is another billing office. I gave them my information, and the extremely helpful lady said she saw where they might have believed it to be listed as "routine" (this is why it was denied by Chickering, even though it's on the same day as my big surgery. Thanks, Chickering). The lady said that it was unfortunately in collections, so they were unable to simply resubmit it. I couldn't believe this. I had contacted the collection agency and billing before about this. How had this happened again? I fixed my mailing address with the billing office and gave them my phone number. The lady was very sympathetic; she came up with the following plan: they would change the billing code and talk to chickering. At the same time, they'll ask the collection agency to put the account on hold, in order to not destroy my credit. (Isn't it already pretty much dead after this entire fiasco?) Hopefully this will all work, though she couldn't say that it definitely would not affect my credit. Ugh.
This would all have been avoided had one of the following two things happened:
1) My address been recorded correctly by BMC. I spelled out the name of my street to the woman who put it in the computer, and my father was sitting next to me. How did it get off by two letters? This prevented me from seeing any bills from people until far too late.
2) Chickering/Aetna had sent me any Explanation of Benefits. They didn't, until I specifically called them up and asked for them. I couldn't even access them online, and no one I talked to knew why I hadn't been sent anything.
Either of these two things would have let me know that I was getting charged for anything before bills were sent to collections.
This has been a nightmare, and the worst part is that I have to be the middleman for the whole thing. There are too many companies and parties that I have had to deal with and are incapable of interacting with each other without a personal request from me.
I can only hope that I actually get this EOB sometime soon.
Before quitting, I will make one more call. This time to the Otolaryngologist's office, to tell them that this whole thing is under review.
Call...
Wow, they apparently have someone there who is well-associated with my account:-P I talked to someone and she said I needed to talk to the person who has handled my account in the past. That person is out of the office, so I left them a voicemail with my name, account number and phone number. I hope to hear back from them on Monday.
Okay, I'm tired and I have plenty of things to actually get done today. I'm sick of being the middle man to fix the incompetence of my insurance and all the different people billing me.
-Kyle
posted by Kyle at 11:51 AM
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