Healthy Story: Blood pressure raised by annoying customer service phone calls!

OK, I don't actually test my own blood pressure, so I don't actually know that it rose this morning dealing with Kaiser, but I'm betting it did. You tell me...am I asking too much?

Five months ago I had my annual exam. While there I paid a co-pay for both the exam and for the lab work. 4 months later I got a two bills. One for $20, one for $5 for that day. I already wrote about how lame I think it is that a self-contained entity like Kaiser, that is both insurance carrier and service provider, can't simply have an integrated system that lets them charge me the right amount when I'm there, but I had moved on.

Then yesterday I got another bill. $20. For "professional services." On a date when I didn't go to the doctor.

OK, sure, $20...how many of you would just pay the damn thing? But I was curious. I wanted to know what it was for. Silly, silly me.

45 minutes later the answer was still lame...

See, the nice customer service rep could not seem to understand my question. Yes, I know I owe a co-pay. Yes, I know that until I hit my deductible there will be other charges. Yes, I understand there's a doctor's visit fee and a lab fee.

But as far as I knew I had already paid those, and this was a third thing. And I didn't remember doing a third thing.

And she could not tell me.

She put me on hold.

She talked to a supervisor.

She came back and explained the same stuff I already knew to me.

Finally, finally she explained that the original lab bill I got the month before was a bill for the facility to take the pap smear (if you must know) and prepare it, while the $20 yesterday was for the lab to analyze it! Wha'?

OK, weird as that sounds, I guess I'll buy it, but seriously...why couldn't they just say anything close to that on the bill they expected me to pay? "Professional Fees" is meaningless. The rep told me it was due to privacy laws (via HIPPA) so that if someone stole my mail they wouldn't know what tests I had done.

Fine. Great. I feel protected. But why did it take 45 minutes for her, the Kaiser employee, to figure out what a bill was for?

Oh. My. God.

I think my blood pressure rose again just writing this post.

Comments

[David D]

Professional fees are always billed seperately from facility fees, as are lab charges.

So you had a doc visit (or PA or NP, whatever) and then a lab visit, and then an encounter with a pathologist a few days later - even if most of you was only at the first visit.

The customer service rep should have known this, and explained it right away. It should have been a 90 second conversation.

Maybe the rep was new at the job.

However, billing for copays often costs more than it collects in revenue, so training on these issues is often pretty lame.

Aside from actual care, I'm of the opinion that financing is the most complex and messed-up aspect of health care.

[Elisa Camahort]

I'm guessing she must have been new. At one point she took my number and called me back! And still didn't have the answer. Messed-up indeed. (But she was very polite and respectful and apologetic, so at least that part was OK.)