| rev:text
| - Long story short, I woke up on Christmas Eve of 2014 with Bell's Palsy - an onset of paralysis in half your face. After being turned away from the only open places for lack of insurance, I finally went to the ER here out of desperation. It was a ghost town, and the staff was kind to me and assuring me I wasn't having a stroke (which is great since I'd been driving around for about two hours at that point being rejected by UrgentCares).
I get into the ER bed/stall thing, and they get a few more urgent emergencies - and I waited, because honestly, I don't want to be bad off enough to beat out Captain Alcohol Withdrawal and the case of the Cake-binging Diabetic Coma across the way.
The doctor was thankful for my patience, and said someone would be in. And after about an hour and a half sitting there alone, a nurse goes, "Why is she still here?" Uh.
Finally, the doctor comes in, and in about ten minutes, not only diagnoses me, but tells me what I can do (which is nothing but take some steroids for a few days and hope for the best), gives me my prescription, and I am discharged. Generally speaking, the staff was fairly pleasant, but I think being not a complete asshole of a patient and being only one of 5 people in two hours probably helps.
I get to the financial dept on my way out, and they tell me I owe them $800+ dollars. I burst into tears, I had spent all my money to have Christmas. They 'did me a huge favor' and reduced it to $450, and put me on a payment plan of $50/mo, which at the time I was in school, it was kind of a lot for me, but they'd take no less. I thought it sucked to get charged that much, but at least I had peace of mind I wasn't having a stroke, right?
Flash forward another week, I received a $655 bill for physician's services. LOL. So I call the hospital, and the friendly finance lady was either not there or turned into a snarling werewolf,not sure which. . I finally get told I can "dispute the charges" by someone in a completely different billing dept (which, yes, the hospital charges you itself and the physician charges you from a billing company in another state). So I write my letter, explaining I really received ten minutes of care of a, I quote, "textbook case" of Bell's Palsy, and that frankly, the charge was out of my price range. Of course, they never contacted me or acknowledged they got the letter (I got a tracking number and I know they did), and I can't access any information on it, because I don't have anything but a number that links to no case (at least according to the billing company's site.) I wrote another letter (and again, tracking number to confirm it got there) and inquired again about the status a week later (as per instructed). Well, the time to dispute had elapsed, and I was sh*t out of luck, I guess. Already in collections! A few weeks later, the grant I was on to go to school got defunded (thanks gooberment!), and I had to make up some money, and had to miss a payment on that first bill - they sent it immediately to collections even though I had communicated with them that I would continue making what payments I could.
Now, my credit is ruined, I am constantly harrassed by bill collectors from both parties, and guess what? The $250 I paid towards the first bill magically disappeared from the balance owed and they're asking me for the full $450 again.
Why this review so late, you ask? Because I'm 29, and I have to live in my mom's house until I come up with $1000+ (for TEN MINUTES OF CARE) so I can fix my credit to get an apartment again.
Thanks for nothing and making me sorry I was a decent, patient human being. You didn't earn $655, doc, and the hospital sure as hell didn't earn $450 either. Hell, I don't think anyone even took my vitals.
If any customer service rep even monitors this, I would *LOVE* to hear from you and hope you and your organization would be willing to resolve this issue reasonably and for a more reasonable price.
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