Tag: family

Doctor Wars Episode III: Return of My Money

A war that had been brewing silently for months has finally come to a head.

When I was writing my last blog about annoyances at the doctors offices and their billing processes, I didn’t know a third installment in this saga would come so soon.

The blog in question was the first time I’d ever written a sequel blog. Today, I bring you the third installment of what’s turned into a trilogy of epic proportions.

Star Wars, Back to the Future, The Lord of the Rings, and now: my ongoing battle with doctors hopefully concluded in this final installment:

EPISODE III: RETURN OF MY MONEY

The crazy eye doctor lady plays no part in this third installment. Thankfully, this story didn’t require any prayers.

The villain introduced in the last blog was the dentist and their billing process. It is them who I needed to defeat this time around.

To catch you up to speed: I got my wisdom teeth removed in August. Just before getting them removed, I had to talk down the oral surgeon from removing all four of my wisdom teeth because it was really only the bottom two that needed to come out. It was still going to cost me around $430 after insurance per tooth even after talking them down to just two teeth. I needed to checkout with Affirm to pay for my portion over time, but I did so and then the surgery occurred:

So months go by. I signed up with Affirm to make $75 per month payments for a year to pay off the surgery. Insurance confirmed the amount I had paid, paid their end, and then it was all about recovering and making the payments.

It was difficult dealing with my open mouth holes for a few weeks. I couldn’t have any real food for several days. My favorite thing to eat for breakfast (an everything bagel with cream cheese) was quite literally the very last thing I’d be able to eat.

But I persevered and am now fully recovered. However, the enemy was watching and waiting in silence. They knew exactly when to strike…

It was Christmas Eve.

A few short days following my best friend’s wedding and the Bears beating the Packers, I was running around the neighborhood making Christmas fudge deliveries for my mom.

My mom has THE best fudge recipe on the planet and it’s always a welcome Yuletide treat that’s shared in our home and in the homes of all our friends and loved ones.

Upon my return visiting old friends, I checked my phone to see that I had an email from the dentist saying that a new invoice had hit my account and that I owed another $150 from my surgery.

My heart sank and my temperature rose.

“FOR FUCKING WHAT?!” I said.

Apparently, my insurance policy max had been reached, but the insurance company was notified before the surgery what I was paying to ensure that they could cover it. I was baffled to believe that $150 had gone unaccounted.

I know I signed a bunch of bullshit saying that what I paid might not be a final amount, but the fact that they put a gun against my head before I got the procedure to pay the full estimated amount before I got anything done was pretty sketchy. Plus, now I owed more?

It felt like this:

I had taken out a loan with Affirm to pay for the procedure initially, so now the extra lollygagging charge pushed me past what my insurance could afford. And yes, $150 isn’t a crazy amount of money, but I still felt blindsided and wanted answers.

Since it was Christmas Eve and the day fell on a Wednesday, I would need to wait until Monday the 29th to call my insurance company to figure out what went on. So, I waited and enjoyed my Christmas…

After 4 to 6 days, I called my insurance company.

They were confused by this billing process and sent me a breakdown of what they were sent back in August following my procedure. It was for what the original cost estimation was sent to them, the same cost estimation that I based my Affirm loan on.

Both me and the insurance operator were very confused about where the $150 came from. They knew my policy was going to be maxed, but that was also based on the original estimated amount I owed. So we both felt like this:

It was time to go to war. A war that had been brewing silently for months had finally come to a head. The final straw was this smeckledorf billing job. I had to take action.

I tried to call the offices of my dentist initially, but since it was that weird work week in between Christmas and New Year’s, I didn’t reach anyone.

So, I wrote an email addressing all of my concerns. Here are the main points:

  1. Why am I finding out about this nearly 5 months after the procedure?
  2. The office manager sent me an email on July 14 saying I just needed to pay $802.30. I had to pay over time using Affirm and am still making payments for this procedure. Why wasn’t this cost given to me at the start?
  3. When my insurance company was billed, the invoice didn’t match the original estimate/procedure cost. Why was my insurance overcharged unexpectedly and why wasn’t I notified about proper charges then? I called my insurance company and they were confused about this billing process as well.
  4. This entire billing process is extremely misleading.
  5. During the procedure, I had water splashed on my face and was awake during the second tooth extraction. Being charged extra for the anesthesia during surgery that I was awake for doesn’t make sense to me either.

I threw in the last bullet point because that was my declaration of war. If they could remember $150 after nearly 5 months, I could start remembering things from 5 months ago too.

I also didn’t make it up: I had water splashed on my face during the procedure which woke me from the anesthetic slumber and I was entirely awake for the second tooth extraction. I felt the clamp, I felt it break my tooth, and I felt them yank it out. While I was numb and couldn’t feel the pain of it, I still felt the uncomfortable pressure aspects of having your tooth yanked out.

So, I awaited my reply. Surely my declaration of war would ruffle some feathers and I would hear from them soon…

Flash forward to February: I still haven’t heard from them directly about my billing.

They’ve sent the same canned response about me owing $150 FIVE TIMES. To which I replied with the same questions I asked above FIVE TIMES.

They would not only send an email, but also send an accompanying text. This text and email both welcomed responses within the chains if I had any questions, but apparently not the questions I was asking. I’m curious if they would’ve replied sooner if I were asking these questions:

I tried the phone a couple of times as well, leaving voicemails each time, but it instructed me to also reach out by email, so it was just one big customer service loop nightmare.

In the fifth email, they threatened to send me to collections over $150.

I thought it was over. They had me dead to rights. Even though it wouldn’t be a criminal amount and despite it being a medical procedure, the billing company is some 3rd party company that would impact my credit score if I was sent to collections.

But, they slipped up. In the email threatening to send me to collections, they said “This is to notify you that you have an outstanding personal balance that is seriously past due and we have not received a response from you after multiple attempts.”

“NOT RECEIVED A RESPONSE FROM YOU”

It was my silver bullet. I had them cornered. It was time to send in my entire arsenal of pent up Irish anger that’s been boiling for generations.

Knowing I had phone records, texts, and emails with a paper trail, I was ready to call them out on their bullshit and go straight to a lawyer.

But because lawyers are expensive and Cicero’s own Saul Goodman isn’t available for my current predicament, I had to take this into my own hands.

I looked up what I could do before lawyering up and it appeared the best course of action was to “officially dispute” the bill. I didn’t know I could officially dispute anything, but as long as I disputed it in writing, it counts as an official dispute that would grant me legal protection in the hands of a collection agency if they proceeded with the billing while I was disputing it.

So, I sent them an email with the subject line:

FORMAL BILLING DISPUTE – REQUEST FOR CLEAR ITEMIZED EXPLANATION

This email laid out my original questions but instead of a polite “Thanks” to cap off the email, it ended with a threat of my own to contact the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Better Business Bureau.

Now actually feeling like Saul Goodman, I felt like I needed to not only win, but hit them where they hurt as well:

Following the dispute email, I left negative reviews on their Google Business page, Facebook page, and on Yelp.

A review which you can find here and where you can also know exactly what dentist in Chicago I don’t recommend.

Following my review postings, they called me within minutes.

They apologized for the poor communication and the experience I had and waived the final $150. They asked if I’d consider taking down my reviews and I said I’d consider it.

I haven’t considered it for a second. It’s my trophy of victory. Being on the phone with them after months of bullshit and threats to my good name to collections truly felt like this:

Following the last few years of bullshit from medical professionals, I had won.

Misdiagnoses, prayer-and-scare tactics, nothing or cancer, being billed for nothing, being misled into taking out loans to pay for a procedure, having my insurance being fucked with. All of it led to this.

The war was finally over. My money was returned.

A Yub Nub celebration across the galaxy was in order for this victory and an end to a trilogy that spanned multiple years on this blog.

Evil has been defeated and I have won. This victory was not just for me, but it was for everyone who’s ever been in this position.

This is a declaration to say you don’t have to just pay what they say. You pay what you say. It’s your life, you don’t have to take things lying down just because some official email tells you to.

You can write a blog about it and jump from SpongeBob references to Breaking Bad references all the way to Star Wars and Seinfeld references if you want. But you certainly don’t have to just pay what they say.

To anyone who says I’m being ridiculous across all three of these blogs: you’ve been broken by the American Healthcare System and the evil insurance and pharmaceutical companies that pull their strings from behind the curtain. We do not have to put up with their bullshit. Again, I don’t think the people who’re caring for folks in hospitals and saving lives are evil themselves, they’re the best of people. But they are used as pawns to deal with people like me in the grand scheme setup by these evil corporations so that those on top don’t have to answer my questions.

I mean, really, we have people who nearly bleed to death in the street wanting to call an Uber to the hospital instead of an ambulance or choose to not even go at all because it’ll be too expensive.

SpongeBob even made a reference to this:

But my full thoughts on that might just have to be a spinoff for another day…

For now, like all great trilogies, we end echoing the beginning. It’s like poetry, it rhymes:

Evil can always return. Disney might reboot my story 30 years from now. Who knows?

All I know is that I will be enjoying my victory while I can…

~DS

Money

Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash…

The above song is required listening for the following blog.

It’s been a couple of months since my last blog.

I’m a little less wise than I was since I last wrote something here, as I followed through upon my wisdom teeth surgery referenced in my last blog.

Thankfully, I store most of my wisdom elsewhere from my teeth, so no need to worry: I’m still a wiseass.

Part of what got me to write that previous blog, and this one, is the amount stuff costs.

I’ll forever be pissed about how much it cost for me to get my wisdom teeth removed, however, I’ve recently had a financial awakening and I wanted to write about that today.

While the wisdom tooth blog wasn’t the only one that mentioned finances, I have to wind the clocks back a little bit for this one.

As referenced in another blog of mine, I’ve recently moved out on my own for the first time ever. This came after the better part of the year living back at my parents’ house and attacking my credit card debt a little bit at a time.

Once I became credit debt-free, it didn’t take long for me to find my own place and get to where I am right now.

However, the fear of money still remained. Despite being a little wiser about when and where to spend my debit, my credit, and my savings, I still had this crippling fear of ending up back underneath the water.

This goes beyond my credit card debt, student debt, and more. This was a crippling fear. A fear that would make the toughest of folks stand still in its presence.

Allow me to dig into this a little deeper…

As an Irish Catholic, there are a few things about life that aren’t necessarily guarantees, but more likely than not if we share the same background:

  1. Beer is great every day that ends in “Y” and twice on Sunday.
  2. We’ll sing every song loudly and proudly whether we’re talented or not (or even know the lyrics).
  3. Soda bread always tastes better than it looks.
  4. Talking about money is like talking about Satan, just don’t do it.

The fourth one will obviously be the one I focus on today, but I can return to soda bread too if you’re ever curious in the future.

When I was growing up, I truly had the best childhood anyone could’ve asked for. Despite growing up with 4 siblings, I never had a bad Christmas or birthday in my life. Nor did any of my siblings.

My parents took care of us. Made sure we learned life’s many lessons, but also made sure home was always open to us. We never saw them struggle, nor say they couldn’t do something.

We went to Disney World. We constantly took road trips. We went to movies. We went to baseball games. All without any sign of trouble. If there was ever a time where we couldn’t have something, we always valued what we had at home instead.

There are signs looking back now that probably reveal my parents being better actors than putting on from my aged context clues:

One for sure is my mom getting a retail job right after the 2008 financial crisis. We just saw it as, mom got a new job.

Once I went to college and started having to pay a little closer attention to my own finances, I saw my mom stress over the amount of money the loans were going to cost me in the future to attend college in the present.

She ensured me that it would be possible to pay these loans off one day, but needed to make sure that I was sure about school and that I was sure about what I wanted to do. Thankfully for you, I stuck to writing and graduated:

On the other side of college, my loans all of a sudden became a real thing. I didn’t know what to do or where to begin. My mom would get so stressed about them and money any time I asked.

No fault to her, she’s an Irish Catholic woman with 5 kids. We have generational anxiety from that damned devil and his dollars.

Because money was something we never thought we had to worry about, it was something I never did worry about.

And I don’t mean we had Hawaiian Punch fountains or butlers, we just had so much fun all the time we never stopped to wonder how my parents got by.

They didn’t want us to see them struggle. As an adult now, I completely understand this.

Nobody wants to struggle and if they had to, nobody wants anyone to see them struggling.

Which is why when it was time to get a credit card and begin to pay off my loans, I wasn’t fully prepared for what was next.

I got too used to having fun all the time.

Money isn’t always equated to value. I don’t regret any ballgame I’ve been to, vacation I’ve been on, nor nights out at the bar with my friends (ok, maybe a few of those I would take back).

There’s life-value in those types of things. Life is meant to be enjoyed with the people you care about and I always make sure to have fun where I can and if I have to eat soup for a week or two to afford something, I will.

Unfortunately, money is required to do stuff in our society.

So when all the stuff I do for fun ran into a not very money-knowledgeable brain of mine, I caved. I felt like I failed. The only things in my mind were fine-dining and breathing:

All of that was because of this fear of money. I didn’t know how to approach my parents on the subject and didn’t want to bring it to my friends.

How could I? It is the devil after all.

However, the devil must be dealt with at some point in time. But I had to be prepared to fight this devil by becoming fear itself:

Well, no. I didn’t become Batman. But, I began learning discipline and I learned it from one of my friends whose literal job is to help people not be afraid of what strikes fear into all of us.

Jackson Fleming is one of my best friends. He married another one of my best friends and is the best Fortnite squad mate a guy could ask for.

Jackson and I never really discussed our professional duties beyond whether or not work sucked that day or not.

He is a financial advisor and is trained to become a pro at fighting the devil and his dollars. When he discovered how much it killed me to be piled under debt and to move back home, but even more so when I had recovered from that debt and still feared money, he jumped in to help me conquer that fear.

During a 20-minute phone call that also included a couple dick jokes here and there, Jackson simply turned my fear into confidence.

We have a plan for my retirement. We have a plan for when I can buy a house. I have a legitimate spending budget. I have a plan to attack the remainder of my student loans. I have confidence in myself.

Could I have sought out this help at any time before this? Of course I could have.

I didn’t know how to because my parents didn’t know how to. I also didn’t know how to because schools don’t teach it unless you study what Jackson wanted to study.

I could go down a rabbit hole about how I wish I learned more about finances in high school than the fuckin’ Unit Circle, but I digress.

TRIGONOMETRY TRIGGER WARNING:

Fuck this shit!

I’ll never have Bruce Wayne’s finances. I’ll never have the Bat-Credit Card:

But what I do have now is no fear. But no fear doesn’t mean fearless. Fears exist to constantly be conquered, but you can’t forget where fear got you in the first place.

You have the resources. While you can build your body to conquer life, you also have to build your mind. You have to take some leaps of faith without a protective rope:

You also have to rely on the people you care about. If you need help like I did, contact Jackson or anyone you know that can help you with this kind of thing.

FEAR only has one meaning to me now. Face Everything And Rise.

~DS