100 Reasons Why California Pacific Medical Center Sucks
Well, actually, no, I don't have 100 reasons. But it's rather catchy, don't you think? With any luck at all, Google will archive it and a link to this page will be there for the ages. Because let me tell you, I am in a vindictive mood at the moment.
To recap: CPMC sent me an erroneous bill. The reason it's erroneous is because ol' "Tiffany" in Billing told me over the phone that our amniocentesis procedure, for BOTH babies, would run between $2 - 3K, plus extra for the lab (Genzyme). That was a trifle pricey for us, but we agreed to it because I was so worried about something happening to the boys from a bad amnio, and I had faith that Dr. Tex would do the best job possible. (Which he did, IMHO -- my beef is not with Dr. Tex or his staff at all.) Anyway, if you look up the above link you'll see the story of the first bill they sent us, which was approximately TWICE what Tiffany had quoted me.
WTF? says I at the time (back in December), and called up Sutter's billing (separate from Tiffany, apparently). A very nice little girl looked up my records, and shortly thereafter reassured me that it looked like Dr. Tex's office had accidentally double-billed us, and not to pay it while she straightened things out. (My bad, incidentally, for not typing up the end of that particular story.) Relief all around, right?
Well, today another bill came in, again for the same exaggerated amount, plus a little form letter saying that Nice Little Girl had looked things up, all right, and found that the bill was correct in the first place. And pay up pronto, sucker.
WTF???!! (This time in a yell.) Not happy. Called up Sutter billing and got the same Nice Little Girl, except she wasn't so nice anymore. Assured me that the bill was correct, as well as due.
I am just steaming now. I looked around but of course couldn't find my notes for my conversation with Tiffany about the estimate. (Everything is in a tremendous muddle these days, since I haven't been able to stand on my two feet to clean anything up in forever. As a matter of fact, I am rushing this post so I can go lie down again.) I called Tiffany nonetheless and left a voicemail. With any luck (with her track record) she might call me back by the end of next week.
I don't think I have a snowball's chance of winning on this, frankly, since everything was over the phone and I'll bet Tiffany didn't note down what she told me the procedure would cost (nor would she necessarily tell me if she had). But I am going to whine and bitch and kvetch until they are sorry they ever misquoted me a price on this. We expected this to run a MAXIMUM of $4K and instead it's looking like a total of over $6K. I am NOT happy. And CPMC is going to be a little less happy too by the time I get through with them.
To recap: CPMC sent me an erroneous bill. The reason it's erroneous is because ol' "Tiffany" in Billing told me over the phone that our amniocentesis procedure, for BOTH babies, would run between $2 - 3K, plus extra for the lab (Genzyme). That was a trifle pricey for us, but we agreed to it because I was so worried about something happening to the boys from a bad amnio, and I had faith that Dr. Tex would do the best job possible. (Which he did, IMHO -- my beef is not with Dr. Tex or his staff at all.) Anyway, if you look up the above link you'll see the story of the first bill they sent us, which was approximately TWICE what Tiffany had quoted me.
WTF? says I at the time (back in December), and called up Sutter's billing (separate from Tiffany, apparently). A very nice little girl looked up my records, and shortly thereafter reassured me that it looked like Dr. Tex's office had accidentally double-billed us, and not to pay it while she straightened things out. (My bad, incidentally, for not typing up the end of that particular story.) Relief all around, right?
Well, today another bill came in, again for the same exaggerated amount, plus a little form letter saying that Nice Little Girl had looked things up, all right, and found that the bill was correct in the first place. And pay up pronto, sucker.
WTF???!! (This time in a yell.) Not happy. Called up Sutter billing and got the same Nice Little Girl, except she wasn't so nice anymore. Assured me that the bill was correct, as well as due.
I am just steaming now. I looked around but of course couldn't find my notes for my conversation with Tiffany about the estimate. (Everything is in a tremendous muddle these days, since I haven't been able to stand on my two feet to clean anything up in forever. As a matter of fact, I am rushing this post so I can go lie down again.) I called Tiffany nonetheless and left a voicemail. With any luck (with her track record) she might call me back by the end of next week.
I don't think I have a snowball's chance of winning on this, frankly, since everything was over the phone and I'll bet Tiffany didn't note down what she told me the procedure would cost (nor would she necessarily tell me if she had). But I am going to whine and bitch and kvetch until they are sorry they ever misquoted me a price on this. We expected this to run a MAXIMUM of $4K and instead it's looking like a total of over $6K. I am NOT happy. And CPMC is going to be a little less happy too by the time I get through with them.
posted by Hetty Fauxvert at 3:33 PM
1 Comments:
you tell 'em. I always figure they count on people not pushing these things, that you'll give up.
Does it help to go back to DR Tex and ask what their billing is?
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