Back to Work

What with having scotched the trip to DC, I ended up with two days of "found time" on my hands. Since I'd taken a few weeks off from my not-so-new part-time job, I figured it was time to put in another shift.

Yes, I realize that many other people would take their two found days and do something fun or frivolous or, at the very least, relaxing. I, however, am a Capricorn and therefore can't help but be practical and disciplined and industrious. (Except when I'm not, of course.)

So . . . I summoned all of my courage and dove into my ever-growing pile of medical bills and insurance statements in the hopes of making some small amount of headway.

And I did, actually. I sorted through everything, updating my ever-growing spreadsheet as I went. I figured out what needed to be paid and what needed to be submitted for reimbursement and what needed to be filed.

That left the dreaded Things That Require a Phone Call, or TTRAPC (pronounced "traps"). TTRAPC is something of a misnomer, of course. The more accurate term would be Things That Should Require One Quick Phone Call But, In Actuality, Take Forever to Resolve, but that's, well, unwieldy.

Here are my three favorite head-scratching TTRAPC of the day:

1. I called to pay a $70.00 lab bill over the phone only to be told that I shouldn't pay it (when has that ever happened?) because it appeared to have been mis-coded by the doctor's office. Apparently, some lab tests associated with our IVF cycle were submitted under codes that identified them as being related to contraception. I'm sure the folks at Fertility Central will get a kick out of that.


2. I called to pay a pathology bill that was overdue and for which we had received one of those lovely "This is your final notice" and "We may be forced to forward your outstanding balance to a collection agency" letters, only to be told that payments by credit card were not accepted and that I'd have to put a check in the mail.
   
   Hmm. I wonder if they've upgraded to touch-tone phone service yet.


3. I got a bill for $3,463.23 from the hospital where we went for egg-retrieval day but couldn't make any sense of it. Good thing I didn't just pay it, because it wasn't quite accurate. Turns out we actually owe slightly less than that. As in $40.00. Not $40.00 less—$40.00 total. Maybe "Total Amount Due" is kind of like "Suggested Retail Price."
   
   And maybe from now on the hospital can include its margin of error when it sends out bills—kind of like Gallup does with its poll results. Because if I had gotten a bill that read "Total Amount Due (±8,558%): $3,463.23," I would have known enough to ignore it.