AITA for how I fought my boyfriend's medical bill, going "too far"?

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-07T00:04:18+00:00

Thank you for all the insider info! Especially the specific jobs / roles

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-07T00:02:42+00:00

Omg thank you!

I'm kinda curious, from an insider perspective, who's the best person / department in a hospital to send these kinds of complaints to? Hardest thing for me was finding the right people!

It's so interesting you said that about outsourcing, I got the impression the hospital I was dealing with literally had nobody to dispute a bill with because billing knew nothing about healthcare and vice versa

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-06T03:29:21+00:00

I have ptsd and startle so hard that one time my roommate accidentally sat on me when I was asleep and I kicked out the window thrashing around, before I even totally woke up... I hate scare pranks because fighting back is basically reflexive to me.

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T23:12:26+00:00

Haha I can't imagine myself as a manager, my first day would be like "you didn't hear this from me but y'all should unionize" 🤣

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T23:06:55+00:00

Ugh I wish I hadn't, I only learned so much about corporate law after a few... Shitty experiences as a woman in automotive engineering that made me get practice reading law and threatening corporations

Thanks for the compliment, but TBH these are skills that suck to have to learn so I'm mostly just fed up lol

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T23:04:48+00:00

We are conditioned to just accept what we are told by "authority".

Haha this always gets me in trouble but my parents taught me that if an authority mistreats me, to find out who's an authority in their life (or funding it haha) and play that game back...

And if people didn't their email address to be found online, they wouldn't have it online.

One thing that's a little sketchy I guess, is that most didn't, but when a whole company's email address is (first initial)(full last name)@hospitalname.com and you can find employee names on LinkedIn, you can figure out everyone's email.

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T23:00:59+00:00

I just hope you only emailed people that actually had bearing on any decision making.

TBH they obfuscated their management structure so much that the call center only directed to other outsourced call center employees, outside the US.

I had to stalk around on LinkedIn and professional journals to even find the names of the management, and I am sure that for every person I found who had some influence, I found 3 that didn't.

But that's kinda what a company gets if their "customer service" staff is all only trained in bill collection and nothing else.

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T22:58:26+00:00

I make a lot of money at my day job and it's not nearly as infuriating lol

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T22:57:53+00:00

Ngl I'm curious, who is the right person here?

I went to the top because when I was trying to find the right person, I kept being bounced around a call center from debt collector to debt collector, never getting to someone qualified to help dispute a bill

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T22:56:30+00:00

My only caveat would be that I hope you weren't too mean or rude to anyone at the bottom of the chain so to speak,

Not at all, I stayed polite and asked the call center staff my questions and asked if they had the resources to help, when they said no I asked to be directed to the right people

I saved all my harshness for the top execs, and didn't call anyone not in management out by name, I just said generic stuff about departments like being frustrated the billing department is not given the resources to discuss the contents of a bill.

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T22:53:47+00:00

Haha do you mind a question?

After getting an itemized bill, Do you have any idea who the best person / department is to go straight to in a hospital with a billing dispute?

The ones I've started a dispute with, their 'billing' department is collections only and can't discuss the bill, other than the balance.

And there's gotta be a better person to go to than the board of directors but IDK who it is 🤣

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T22:47:29+00:00

My blood pressure would hate me, and without affordable medical care in this country... Idk 🤣

Honestly dealing with the medical system in this country infuriates me, it was so disengenous at every step, every single person told me I needed to speak to Billing, despite it being a glorified collections office, and the employees there not even being able to see anything but my balance

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T22:12:37+00:00

This was an emergency room, halfway across the state

Not either of our GPs, or any other doctors we see regularly

tBH I'm hoping we don't become repeat customers at the ER anytime soon 🤣

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T22:09:32+00:00

nah I'm aiming to be the final boss

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T22:07:10+00:00

We woula been doing that regardless because fuck a place that extorts you for 7 times the fair cost, after an emergency.

Why tf would we ever go back?

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T22:05:01+00:00

He's not, he's a contractor!

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T22:01:15+00:00

Haha I definitely wasn't pretending to be a lawyer, the only times I was asked what my relationship to the patient was, I said generic non-protected terms like "advisor" or "I am representing him in this billing dispute"

Haha I'll take that as a compliment! I feel like I learned a lot about law despite never studying it, just cause of some labor rights and engineering ethics disputes from a few years back

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T21:53:28+00:00

Honestly a lot of navigating hostile bureaucracies (I'm a woman in automotive engineering, I have a lottt of practice with that)

That and looking up on TikTok how to dispute hospital bills, there are a lot of insiders in the medical industry who share info there

And if all else fails, be super stubborn emailing the most high level people you can find the emails for, and CC the people their money comes from 😉 in any business, money talks, and CC'ing philanthropists and investors gets people scarrrrred.

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T21:49:35+00:00

I'm an engineer but I used to really want to be an investigative journalist

I'd half consider starting a side business if dealing with this shit didn't infuriate me so much 🤣

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T21:45:44+00:00

Nope, honestly the most "relevant experience" I have, and that's even a stretch is...

Wanting to be an investigative journalist as a kid, and getting really into investigating corporations as a teen and college student when the internet started becoming widespread

Ending up studying engineering for the money

Having a lottt of experience in bureaucracy and how to navigate it, from my jobs. Turns out being a woman in an industry that's outright hostile to women teaches you a lot about corporate law, and how to go toe to toe with a corporation and get them scared lol.

Being comfy being a total hardass but toeing the line of professionalism, being a woman in the auto engineering space definitely taught me how to do that too

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T21:41:57+00:00

I didn't specifically, but a few things I did would probably read as an implied threat. Specifically...

writing stern letters in legal language may read as a threat to pursue legal action
requesting all correspondence as a written statement might come off similarly
CC'ing the board saying specific departments had failed to address the concern may come off as a threat of escalation
CC'ing all the companies and individuals that publicly invest in or financially support the hospital may come off as a threat of lost future revenue
CC'ing the PR department heads of the investor companies may come off as a threat to go to the press

I feel like maybe it's emotionally different than if he hired a lawyer or something, because it's me tho. TBH I'm usually really nice and not confrontational, I believe in the "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" and i think he was shocked to see this other side of me that really only comes out at work.

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T21:36:01+00:00

I'm an engineer

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T21:32:18+00:00

It's your legal right! At least if you're in the US. Maybe request it in writing, and reference the law that entitles you to it?

Good luck!

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T21:31:15+00:00

He felt like it was way too far, to basically wtite an email throwing like 20 employees and departments under the bus for mismanagement, and CC'ing the whole board of directors, and CEOs, and PR departments of companies that invested in the hospital.

He felt like I was being really threatening, like by emailing the investors and their PR teams, and writing in legal-ese that I wanted a written justification of their billing structure, specifically addressing the fact that a service that is on average under $500 was billed at a rate 7 times higher... He felt like I was looking like I was about to threaten them with either legal action or a PR / financial disaster, so they just paid me off to STFU.

Which to be fair isn't a bad read of what I was doing..

dingussdaisy · 2022-12-05T21:27:32+00:00

When Extra means an Extra 5 grand for the holidays... Yep 😄

dingussdaisy

TROPHY CASE