Well, I'm all choked up about it.
- Well, back in September K-Kitten fell and had to get two stitches. We took her to the local hospital ER and were triaged and put into a room. We waited… waited… and waited some more. We were there a total of four hours when we finally decided that at 11pm she needed to be seen. We had not seen a physician or even a nurse the whole time we had been in the room. We signed out AMA and took her to another hospital. Had she not needed stitches we would have just skipped the whole thing.
At the next hospital we were immediately placed into a room and were seen within fifteen minutes of arrival. Even though there was a trauma… I repeat, a trauma, come into the hospital, we were finished had two brand new stitches and on our way home in an hour and a half.
I tried to call and file a complaint with Hosptial A about six different times, left voicemails, wrote emails and sent a letter. I never recieved a return call. It took them two months to finally send me the bill. The total?
$75.48 – For being triaged and sitting in a room for three hours.
I understand that we dirtied some sheets, so the $28.75 that they charged for the “Emergency Room” doesn’t bother me too badly. There was a $46.73 charge for “medical/surgery supplies” that baffled me. They didn’t even offer to change her band-aid that we applied.
So I called. The $46 was for an O2 sensor and a cold pack. A sensor that they used to get a vital that they 1) didn’t have to have and 2) couldn’t get an accurate read on anyway. The cold pack? Well, we never got one of those. I’d guess some other imaginary patient used that up.
Hospital B on the other hand, sent their bill promptly and I requested an itemized statement. I got the statement and it’s not itemized. It has fewer lines on it than I think the summary did. Total patient cost:
$579.76
I’m not going into that right now, but lets suffice to say that there will be many phone calls and negotiating. They’ll get their money, I just don’t know how much of it. Being insured and still having a $600 bill for two stitches…. equals crazy in my book.
I called Hospital A again today and made sure my complaint actually was filed. I called their billing department and asked for an audit of the medical records and the bill itself. Hopefully, I’ll only have a bill from the Hospital that cared to treat my daughter by the end of the week.
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This was supposed to be post #2 and post yesterday for my participation in NaBloPoMo. It didn’t publish when I thought I had scheduled it to publish though. So here’s my sincere apology and my imaginary slap on the hand. I’ll do better. Sad that I’ve already had to say this for a post on day 2 
