October 11th, 2007 by Atomictumor
So, I’ll admit it. I’ve been hella fortunate to have the insurance company that I had, or the coverage that I had, or whatever.
Its an HMO through Cariten, and I’ve always thought HMOs were crap, but when I started getting all the big money “Explanation of Benefits” papers, with anywhere between $120,000 and $15 bucks, with a big old goose egg next to “Total Patient Responsibility”, it sure helped. I couldn’t imagine losing BJ to this freaky ass sick, and then going bankrupt paying for the bills.
But thats another conversation.
No, I’ve been fortunate. Cariten had my back.
So I was surprised to open my mail the other day and find a bill addressed to BJ for a catheter inserted on Nov. 17th, in the total amount of (get this) $666.00.
Wow.
Anyway, I called the insurance company and spoke with a lady there who said that the claim was denied due to a screw up on the submitting party’s end, and apparently the submitting party didn’t own up to the fact that they’ve been notified about this. She called them, and left me a voicemail this morning saying that it was all taken care of.
But $666? WTF?
October 11th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Wow, I bet that was a heck of a jolt.
$666 … that’s so telling isn’t it.
I hope it’s the last of those surprises.
October 11th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Did you ever watch Doom Generation?
October 11th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
I used to work for a large property management company in Chicago. It literally made me ill, but part of my job was handling evictions, and a large number of those evictions were due to someone having to choose between paying for medical care or paying the rent. Evicting someone who is facing life-threatening disease is a horrible thing. And, if the true measure of a society is how it treats its sick (and elderly, ahem) then ours measures up quite poorly.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Whoa, Jen…
Thats a good call.
And that movie has, um, a lot of Rose McGowan in it, and I have no beef with that…
October 11th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
I’ve been trying to figure out the name of the movie where… well, anyway, thanks jen
AT, that’s just disturbing. Love ya bud
October 11th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Yeah. That movie still comes up in conversation occasionally. It leaves quite an impression.
October 11th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
You do know the mark of the beast is 616 right? For those that don’t want to go to Reality Me for the back story, you MUST listen to The Wait Wait Show Introduction Debacle!
October 12th, 2007 at 11:10 am
[…] of catheter: $666. Nearly a year later, Atomic Tumor still receives an occasional bill in the mail. Someone who has his back helped him with this one, but $666!! for putting in a catheter?!?! I […]
October 12th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Nashville– you read my mind. $666? For a catheter? It takes 2 minutes to do and costs the hospital what, $5??? Wow.
October 12th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Unless it wasn’t a foley catheter, but some kind of an arterial catheter or central IV line or something. I could see the cost in something like that, but I don’t know why they would put a catheter in on the 17th anyway, ’cause she already had one.
October 12th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Hey Jake. Well, I know it sounds crazy but Damama is probably right on target. Doesn’t sound like it was a “regular” plain old catheter. If it was an arterial or central line or a Swan-Ganz catheter or something like that… yeah, that charge would be about par for the course.
In any case pretty certain it’s not just your usual catheter. If there is a CPT code or “procedure code” listed on there that you can find (should be a five digit number like 31540 or something), email me and I can tell you exactly what it was.
October 13th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Nah, I don’t doubt that its not a regular catheter, although I’m not sure why, on the 17th, they’d have put one in, seeing how she was flatscanning by then. I’m not making a “what the hell is the hospital charging” point, just a “what the hell” point.
However, I got a call yesterday from the insurance company woman, who said she talked to both the biller and the company and its all buddy buddy now.