Due to having a special account to pay for medical care from, I document in detail all payments towards medical care.
I paid, lets say, $1,400 for account at hospital over this year. I got a bill saying that I still owed them $700 and had already paid $700. And the running total of the page documented $1,000 owed.
I called, pissed, rattled off all the info from the receipts I retained and asked them to justify the additional expense. They tried to say "oh its from stuff from before" but they couldn't be specific, and the transaction history did not display that (the transaction history showed 3 different procedures/visits, that had a total of $1,000 in cost). They could not explain why they did not retain the $1,400 or who had it, or why they would be "from another department" (and why that would use the same account number, if different bills/accounts/departments). I told them, listen, y'all, if I took you to court with the bill you sent me and all the receipts, you'd be ordered to refund me that $400 difference. So lets skip it and you send me a check already. They said they'd send me an itemized bill.
That was over a month ago. Silence since then. I've got a lawyer because I recently had to sue an ex-employer, I think I'll throw her $100 to send them a threat over the $400. If they don't pay, I will take them to small claims court for $500 ($400 for bill overpayment, +$100 for legal expenses+filing fees)
Honestly the only way they’ll ever change is if enough people fight back. Most people don’t want to deal with the hassle or be perceived as a “Karen” type. My wife and I routinely go to one another appointments to advocate for one another and it’s drastically improved our outcomes.
While being a polite Karen (insisting, forcing my way up the chain of command, getting shit done when noone wanted me to succeed), a state representative once called me "a significant disruption." while they were being forced to fire 3 prominent public-facing employees over time fraud, documentation fraud regarding who physically had an at-risk nonverbal special needs child in state custody, and racism respectively. Gave me such a rush I almost got it tattood on my chest. It was my job to advocate for the mom of that special needs child at the time. :)
And yes my wife and I go to eachothers appointments. Thankfully we found a doctor who doesn't try to mess with us now.
I finally have a good doctor and I will sing his praises till the day I die. It's amazing because after the upfront investment of going through my history with me, he rarely needs to see me for more than a few minutes because we have great communication and he has fixed many of my issues. Being a good doctor took effort in the short term but has rewarded him with free time in the long term, as well as a very compliant patient who will be fully honest and who refers literally everyone to him.
My first few visits with my good doctor were quite long, because I had a huge gap in my medical history due to doctors refusing to send me to the correct specialist, so I stopped bothering, because they'd be like "I can't help with that but you're not unwell enough to see a specialist, lose weight fatty."
I got to see the specialists I needed, and I'm losing weight thanks to hormone correction (I literally could not lose weight before, I'm eating more than ever but still losing weight now that the hormones are being managed).
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u/AristotlesBoyPussy Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
Due to having a special account to pay for medical care from, I document in detail all payments towards medical care.
I paid, lets say, $1,400 for account at hospital over this year. I got a bill saying that I still owed them $700 and had already paid $700. And the running total of the page documented $1,000 owed.
I called, pissed, rattled off all the info from the receipts I retained and asked them to justify the additional expense. They tried to say "oh its from stuff from before" but they couldn't be specific, and the transaction history did not display that (the transaction history showed 3 different procedures/visits, that had a total of $1,000 in cost). They could not explain why they did not retain the $1,400 or who had it, or why they would be "from another department" (and why that would use the same account number, if different bills/accounts/departments). I told them, listen, y'all, if I took you to court with the bill you sent me and all the receipts, you'd be ordered to refund me that $400 difference. So lets skip it and you send me a check already. They said they'd send me an itemized bill.
That was over a month ago. Silence since then. I've got a lawyer because I recently had to sue an ex-employer, I think I'll throw her $100 to send them a threat over the $400. If they don't pay, I will take them to small claims court for $500 ($400 for bill overpayment, +$100 for legal expenses+filing fees)