It's Only a Flesh Wound

As you may recall, I got to go to the emergency room a few months ago for some weirdness with my heartbeat. I didn't want to go, but my doctor acted like it was a big emergency, so I went. As usual, it's months later and I'm just now ironing out the whole who's-going-to-pay-for-what situation with the insurance company, and I've learned an important lesson that I would like to share with all of you in hopes that you don't get burned in a similar manner.

So, I received a hefty bill from the hospital, which surprised me, as I though we had met all of our deductibles. So, I find the matching statement from the insurance company, and it says that they didn't participate with our insurance, so we would have to pay for the whole thing. Having previously confirmed that the hospital did accept our insurance, I was, shall we say, perturbed by this suggestion.

I called the insurance company, and then I called the hospital. What I got was the most preposterous statement yet. I was told that while the hospital accepts our insurance, that doesn't necessarily mean that the doctors do.

I'll give you all a moment to reflect on that last statement.

So, having gotten a little terse with the person from the hospital due to my not being able to comprehend such a thing, she went on to give me a helpful suggestion. If I find myself in the emergency room, and I can afford to wait, I should request that I see a doctor who participates with my insurance. This concept intrigues me, because when I actually do find myself in an emergency room, that comes with the implication that there's A &#$%ING EMERGENCY. I'm trying to ponder the situation where I'm there with one of my kids bleeding from the head, and I'm supposed to size up just how much blood they've lost so I can decide whether to wait for a doctor that accepts my insurance. Quite a system we have running here.

Anyway, I'll grudgingly pay the bill, but this just reinforces my attitude of waiting until I'm reasonably sure I'm going to die from something before I go to the doctor. You know, when I called my doctor about this, and they told me to go to the emergency room immediately, I actually hung up the phone and stood there for a minute weighing my options, because I knew that somehow I was going to get screwed on this, and I didn't want to spend the money. Now, I'm even more likely to ignore their advice and just wait out these issues, which is probably not great for me medically, but at the same time, I'd prefer not to be shelling out the Benjamins to find out I need to take iron supplements regularly.