health – The Danny Diaries

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:

Why am I finding out about this nearly 5 months after the procedure?
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?
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.
This entire billing process is extremely misleading.
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

Return of the Crazy Eye Doctor Lady

Evil comes in many forms…

I believe this is the first time I’ve ever written a sequel.

People are always quick to judge sequels. Can they truly be better than the original? How have our characters grown or changed since last time? Can the villain outpace the original frightening appearance?

For those wondering, this is a sequel blog to this blog about a routine vision prescription update appointment and how it turned into an absolute nightmare that ended up costing me time, money, and sanity.

To give a brief overview of the situation: I was told that I had either nothing or cancer by an eye doctor. She held my prescription hostage until I got eyedrops and saw a specialist. I sat in the specialist’s waiting room for an hour only to be let go within 3 minutes of seeing the specialist who told me I was fine. I was then billed for my 3 minute visit and that infuriated me.

Caught up? Great. Let’s get into my trip back to the eye doctor from the other day…

It’s been two years since my nightmare trip to that eye doctor. Since then, I’ve had no issues with my eyes and the contacts that I switched to following that endeavor are monthly wears that have truly helped my eye health tremendously over daily/bi-weekly contacts.

In the year since, I changed the location of my eye appointments so I never had to go through that endeavor again. My 2024 appointment went on without a hitch at this new location which made me believe my 2025 one would be just as smooth.

So when I entered this location the other day, checked in, braved the puff of air in my eyes, and began to browse the wall of glasses, I wasn’t expecting any surprises at all.

Just then, a familiar presence rounded the corner and called my name…

Instantly, Boss Music started playing in my head and I felt like I was in the midst of a video game’s final level:

It was her. Of course it was. I go to a chain vision doctor, of course they rotate her around. My life was just a little too happy lately, so something had to knock me down a peg.

She asks how I’ve been.

I say “Great!”

She says “No issues? No flashes of white? Anything?”

I say “Nope, absolutely nothing.”

She says “That’s beautiful, thank you Jesus!”

The last time this woman was saying prayers for me, I was quite scared, so I, too, thanked Jesus for no issues for her to look even further into.

She pulls up the alphabet chart, she checks both of my eyes, comments on my beautiful Irish blues, and then, she sends me home with my prescription and a pair of contacts for free.

Truly, that simple. As simple as any other eye doctor visit ever has been. No ladies frames, just a prescription and a smile.

But, if only that is where our story ended….

As things go, I couldn’t go the week without some sort of health ailment.

The Crazy Eye Doctor Lady had to be an omen for something, but what could it be? I went to sleep that night thinking about how much had happened in life since that encounter.

Plenty of blogs here on this site. A couple of moves. Plenty of work. Plenty of beer. Plenty of laughs. A couple of tears. But hey, my eyes and I made it out alive on the other side, so what could possibly go wrong?

I woke up with a pain in my jaw.

It felt like I had gotten punched in the face and the pain stretched from my lower left jaw to my sinuses. I was curious if it was an allergy related ailment, but no. I was surprisingly breathing well through my nose.

I felt like this, but with a wicked headache:

I went to the mirror and looked inside my mouth. My impacted wisdom tooth on the bottom left side of my mouth was quite visible and my gums were bleeding. My breath tasted horrid and I had this metallic feeling in my mouth.

I’ve ignored the idea of getting my wisdom teeth removed for several years. It’s a risk I was willing to take because some people can live with them if they’re aligned correctly.

Well, mine aren’t aligned correctly. They’re clearly fucked up. And despite the strange joy I had felt after leaving the Crazy Eye Doctor Lady with no extracurriculars, something had to be afoot. It was this. It was time to get my wisdom teeth out.

I went to a dentist who took X-Rays. That dentist then referred me to an extraction specialist. Mind you, these two doctors are in separate offices a couple of miles away from each other.

And yes, I called them doctors. I’m no anti-dentite.

I was in the first dentist’s office for maybe 15 minutes because it was clear that I needed to get my wisdom teeth out. The extraction specialist, however, couldn’t see me until several days later at a different office.

Fine. I’ve gone a while with these impacted wisdom teeth. Religious ibuprofen will do the trick.

That brings us to my visit with the extraction specialist. I will mention that walking 20 minutes from the nearest train stop to this different office during midsummer in Chicago made me sweat like a whore in church, but that was the least of mine or the extraction specialist’s worries.

This doctor couldn’t have been a nicer guy. But, I did sit in the dentist chair watching a stock video loop of a very clear Finding Nemo ripoff fish tank for a half hour before being seen. I looked into the fake tank, thought about how much I was sweating, and zoned out:

Roku should stick to Roku City as its primary screensaver…

Once the doc came in, he explained to me the process of the surgery. He also explained to me that based on how my lower teeth are growing in, there’s a higher than zero percent chance that my jaw could be permanently numb following the surgery since my wisdom teeth are very close to certain nerves that control feel in my face.

He said it’s a “BIG if,” but, it’s still an “if.” Where’s the Crazy Eye Doctor Lady and her prayers when you need her?

Knowing that it’s the two bottom ones that are causing the most issues, these are the ones that certainly need to come out. My top two grew in straight but the doc said that they might eventually cause issues so I might as well knock out all four in one go.

The doc didn’t charge me for the consultation, which is fantastic. Compared to the last time I had to see a specialist, this was phenomenal news.

But then the estimations for the surgery itself came in. This surgery would need to be conducted at a third location and if I were to get all four teeth removed, it was going to cost me nearly $1700 after insurance. If you were unaware, each tooth costs several hundred dollars to remove.

I nearly vomited. I feel like it would’ve been better and more cost effective had my teeth been knocked out in a vicious piñata accident:

I said to the guy who ran my insurance, “That’s a lot. If I were to get just my bottom two teeth done, which are the real trouble makers, would it be less?”

He says, “Well, the doctor will probably recommend all four be removed at once.”

I said, “I know he will and I expect him to, he’s a doctor. However, my wallet recommends that I can live with the top two for now if it saves me a few bucks.”

He kindly reran it through with just the bottom teeth being considered. This was only going to cost me $800. Much better. Not great, but much better than before.

He says “Ok, so here it is with just the two teeth. I’d still like to confirm with the doctor if he recommends getting all four out or not and then I will follow up with you tomorrow or after the weekend.”

I couldn’t help but say, “I want to lean toward just doing the two. They are my teeth, it’s my choice, right? I know what he’ll recommend but I just paid rent yesterday. I’ve got bachelor parties, and weddings, and kids birthday parties coming up – it never ends! If I can just get the two out and survive on the other end, that would be what I want to do.”

This guy looked at me like I was nuts. I couldn’t believe it. Surely I couldn’t have been the only one that’s ever tried to save $800 at the dentist.

I wasn’t just speaking for me, I was speaking for society:

Anyway, that’s where the story ends for now. I might have to continue my fight against paying ridiculous amounts of money for medical consultations and procedures. But in the end, I will have at least two wisdom teeth out.

Let’s just hope it’s not Tim Whatley doing the procedure:

The sequel to the Crazy Eye Doctor Lady almost turned out to be disappointing. Just like Spider-Man 3 or any of the 20 JAWS sequels.

But just like the greatest sequels of our time, a twist is what carries us through a saga. The hero must lose. A new villain must emerge. Empire Strikes Back. The Dark Knight. Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties.

In the end for the Crazy Eye Doctor Lady, she was just the beginning. The real enemy was waiting in the wings, evolving into a new form to try and strike me down.

The evil entity was only acting through the Crazy Eye Doctor Lady and her Specialist. It continued to act through the Tooth Extraction Specialist and his crony at the front desk.

The true enemy has yet to be defeated: The American Medical System Strikes Again.

Insurance is a beautiful thing, but it can’t defeat evil alone. We’ll see what’s in store for me down the line.

Because whether my ailment is nothing, cancer, or a couple of painfully impacted wisdom teeth, the only one who truly suffers is once again: my bank account.

~DS