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Comment on RFK Jr. Wants Every American to Be Sporting a Wearable Within Four Years

Wolf314159@startrek.website ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

The best part is the random bill.

Go to the doctor. Get blood drawn.
Doctor send the blood to a lab for the test. Doesn’t tell me who. I don’t care who. It’s their subcontractor, let them worry about it. *Go back to the doctor or get a call for results. Pay the doctor the standard co-pay. *Months later a random company sends me a bill. This is a company that I have never interacted with or entered into any contract with, for work that somebody else (presumably my doctor, but who the fuck knows for sure) asked them to do for them, sending the results to that other person and NOT to me.

The system is broken. If any other company subcontracted a part of their work to a third party, you as the client would reasonably expect that work to be paid through the original contract, not get a bill directly from the subcontractor. I didn’t hire them, the doctor hired them. As far as my tmethic compass spins, that’s the doctor’s debt, not mine. I paid the doctor already.

Or another variant.

Go to the emergency room.
Get separate bills FOR THE SAME SERVICE from the hospital, the doctor, and somehow the hospital again but this time it’s the emergency room (which is somehow separate with a different billing company).

The system is not just broken. It is designed to fleece us and train us to always accept whatever debt the institutions decide to levy on us without question.

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Geodad@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
As medical bills can’t currently ding your credit score, I just throw them in the trash.

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- shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Only up to $500 though? And if you keep ignoring them, what will you do when you run out of providers? I can’t go to the one hand expert in the area because I owe him money. Same for the CVS doc.
  
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  - Geodad@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    They send it to the same collection agency. They have never denied us care yet.
    
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    shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Thanks for answering! Maybe I just need to go back?
    
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AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Or how about the variant:

submit prescription refill request —- check back —- check back —- check back

escalate —- “we don’t have your insurance info” —- yes you do but here it is again

resubmit prescription refill request —- check back —- check back —- check back

escalate —- “we don’t accept that insurance. Find a new doctor”

New doctor

“why don’t you take your prescriptions regularly?”
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vxx@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
That would be a violation of the hiipa act. Your samples get sent anonymous to the Lab with only a case number. They only know the adress of the doctor.

If your doctor didn’t anonymise your sample and the lab used it to send you a bill, they’re in deep waters.

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- DemBoSain@midwest.social ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Not when the lab and the hospital are owned by the same company. Promedica (local hospital) sent my sample to Promedica (lab) and I got a bill from the lab. Because Promedica (lab) didn’t have my insurance information.
  
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- Wolf314159@startrek.website ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Somehow I think the national lab test company’s lawyers have got them covered. This wasn’t exactly a fly by night, no name company. Having in known third party send you a medical bill months later is pretty fucking common place. This was just one anecdote of many, not an isolated incident.
  
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shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The doctor bill is separate because they’re not hospital employees. The only have privileges to work at a given hospital, not for them.

The separate ER bill is likely some fuckery I’m ignorant of.

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