Re: Insurance
NSVeeneman@aol.com
Sun, 31 Mar 1996 23:31:52 -0500
We were fortunate that Aetna did take care of the bills (both mine and the
children's) in good time. They did, however, leave a gap with the
catastrophic limit and "over and above usual and customary" that amounted to
about $10k.
I contacted the hospital billing department very soon after I was discharged,
and frankly I was treated like dirt. I explained that I wanted to set up a
payment schedule, and all the billing supervisor wanted to know was how much
savings I had. He then told me that only $1000 per month would be
acceptable! I was stuned. I was still in my post delivery hormonal mess, so
I called the hospital's financial ombudsman. I gave him a blow by blow
accounting of what happened. Needless to say, payments (that we could
handle) were arranged, and action was taken so no one else had to listen to
that billing supervisor's abuse.
We finished paying off the kids just before their third birthday. I would
suggest to anyone having a problem with hospital billing to go directly to
the ombudsman. Most hospitals in the US have them.
On the Blue Cross note.... We now have federal BC/BS. (My husband is a
forecaster for the National Weather Service.) We lost an appeal to the local
outlet for additional speech therapy for the children. (We had 3 seperate
MD's write that it was needed.) We then had to appeal to the Office of
Personnel Management to force BC?BS to pay. They had the records reviewd and
we got private speech therapy covered twice per week per child until age 6.
Then I get to do it again if necessary.
I'm being very long winded here, but my point is that preemies need
additional medical services after hospital discharge. I have found that
persistance and doccumentation will pay off, so don't give up!
Nancy (Mom to Alex and Andrea 10/3/91 due 12/22/91)