Can You Hear Me Screaming, Again.

Getting back into writing the blog is proving to be more difficult than I thought. Honestly, if I'd known what a struggle these last few days would be I'd have continued writing it over the holiday.

Over the years I've gotten used to the total lack of personal mail. With Email and texts, people no longer write letters. 

I receive some basic advertisements for vacations. Every two years I'm inundated with political mailers and I get a birthday card from our real estate agent each December. Every other month I get magazines from AAA and AARP. They go directly into the bathroom. If not for that rare or random notice and the yearly Princess Cruise Catalog for Extraordinary Travelers I would stop checking the box altogether. 

Wanda still likes to bring in the mail. 

Last night she handed me an envelope from LabCorp. 

LabCorp is the company that bought out MuirLab which was the company that took over WestLab. WestLab originally was EastLab until it expanded, well, you get the idea. Every few years the names change but every six months I go to one of these places to have blood removed from my body for testing. 

I've been doing it for ten years.

For ten years I have been seeing the same doctor twice a year. For ten years I have been getting my blood drawn twice a year. The tests vary and alternate but once each year my blood sugar and prostrate specific antigen (cancer screening) tests are done. For ten years I've had these tests. These tests are covered by my insurance. These tests are covered by Medicare. 

The envelope Wanda gave me last night from LabCorp was a bill for $120.43. 

According to this bill: For service on 11/25/14.

My services $721.00 

Medicare adjustments $513.04

Medicare paid $87.53

I owe $120.43

Pardon my French.....What the Fuck?

Looking at this bill I have no way of knowing what test was, or was not paid. I can't even begin to understand why the medical system of this country is so screwed up. With initial service billed at $721 and the accepted payment 12% of that, is it any wonder? 

And while I'm at it; I had a BLOOD TEST. There is a lab fee of $25 for venipuncture. That ladies and gentlemen is sticking a needle into a vein. Do you know of some other way of getting blood?

"Hi there and welcome to LabCrop."

"Would you like the standard $25 venipuncture, the $12.50 special rusty razor blade cut or the free vampire blood draw today?"

I suppose if I ever need a urinalysis I won't be charged unless I have help inserting my penis in the collection container.

I HATE getting bills I know are incorrect. I've come to believe something like this is a harbinger of wasted time and frustration. I can anticipate endless phone trees and time on hold listening to recordings of last months Michael Buble's Christmas release. 

So being a modern senior citizen first I went to the computer and logged in to MyMedicare.gov. I found the sign-in page and proceeded to do just that and here I had my second problem. The site did not recognize my password. I tried upper case, lower case and a combination of the two. I switched my password and user name. Nothing worked. Lucky for me Medicare must be used to dealing with forgetful old fools who sometimes mistake the computer for the toaster so it was fairly easy to retrieve and reset the information.

All I had to do was enter my name, social security number, date of birth and answer my secret question which was: In what city did you meet your spouse?

Pardon my French.....

In what city did I meet my spouse? Which spouse? The bad spouse or the good spouse? Now I assumed since my Medicare years do not include the bad spouse I had to remember where I met Wanda. It isn't enough a man needs to remember his anniversary and the wife's birthday. Now I must remember what city I was in the first time I laid eyes on her?

OK, it was going on 28 years ago.....I know, Pittsburg.....INCORRECT.

I'm not feeling enough pressure here. Now I get a prompt telling me I have two remaining attempts and will be locked out if I can't get my secret question right.

Luckily I got it on the second guess and was instantly whisked over to a new password page. Now I had to resubmit all my information. Medicare has date-of-birth selection years going back to 1901. 

I sure hope I can still see the drop-down-menu when I'm 114-years-old.

Eventually I connected to the on-line site and found my recent lab work. After spending the time equivalent of the last five minutes of a professional basketball game I had no more information than what was provided on the LabCorp bill. 

It was now on to the 1-800-Talk-To-Us help line.

First I had to deal with a monotone voice giving me instructions on how to properly state my name....."First say it like THOMAS and then spell it like T-H-O-M-A-S." 

They really must think us old folks are a bunch of idiots. 

Then I was informed how to designate my date of birth.

"Be sure to pronounce the full month like December not just the number like 12."

I did say something about idiots.

And everything input was repeated back to me asking for verification.

"You said CHARLES...C-H-A-R-L-E-S. Is that correct? Press one for yes or two for no."

After spending another basketball game talking to Roberta the Robot I was informed of my prescription coverage status, I have Humana and it is current, my deductible amounts, I have nothing paid so far this year and any preventative tests I am eligible for. 

I was not able to retrieve the information I wanted. 

So it was now on to talk with a real live person.

After a short time on hold, after all it was just after 6 a.m. here in California, I was connected to a friendly most helpful woman who looked up my claim and told me the charge of $120.43 was the denied payment of glucose and PSA tests because LabCorp did not code them as "medically necessary".

Silly me, I can only think of several hundred thousand reasons why screening for potential diabetes and cancer would be "medically necessary."

The nice friendly lady said I could "file an appeal" (oh my god) or I could, "Call LabCorp and tell them they entered the wrong code and ask them to resubmit the bill."

So at 8 this morning I called the customer service center at LabCorp. Thank goodness for speaker phones. At least they changed their holiday music and after thirteen minutes on hold I was greeted by Alex.

I explained my problem to Alex. I told him what Medicare said. I asked him to make the necessary changes in the coding and resubmit the bill. He said, "We only put in the codes the doctor's office gives us. So if you have a problem you need to call and have them re-file the request. They can send the new form to us and we will forward it on to Medicare."

Pardon my French.

So far I've spent over an hour on line and on-hold with two agencies. Now I need to call my doctors office. All this paperwork must be resubmitted and processed. All because someone, somewhere checked the wrong box or input the wrong number. I know mistakes happen and I can live with that.

What truly bothers me is this bill for $120.43.

Just paying may become easier than dealing with it.

It is (and was) someone else's error and now I'm stuck fixing it.

And that's not right. 

Screw you and the horse you rode in on!