Bait and switch, as you all know is thinking you are getting something for a certain price and then...OH NO, you are most definitely not! The other way for that is the actual item of your desire being switched for a higher priced one and the others have all been sold out!
Tonight’s discussion is not at all about being taken by anyone dishonest, but being less informed at the purchase pricing of a physicians office menu, huh?
Here we go again, but this time with insurance!
This afternoon we received a bill, not that unusual; we still get hard copies, at my request, although, I pay everything online.
But this bill was for the hand doctor’s office visit in January that I thought was paid before we had left the office. You see, I have a PPO and my co-pay is $25 for specialists or non-specialists, but Hubby and I distinctly remember paying also an additional fee for the fluoroscopy of my right hand of $52 which the office said would be my portion to pay since the insurance companies do not pay for the fluoroscopy. It was to determine if I would need the surgery, although, upon examination of my hand the doctor had already determined that I did indeed need to have the basilar joint arthritis surgery on my right hand as I had had on my left hand about eleven and a half years before. Little did I know that that machine which he held my hand a wee bit too tightly under as he swooped it through, not any longer than it takes to do the same motion with your credit card would be a charge of $180! With adjusted contractual of $42.60 towards it and my original payment of $52.00, my new bill asked for me to pay $85.40! What the office staff had said was that I was paying for the fluoroscopy upfront and so I had thought and so did Hubby, and mostly because of my ditsy-ness over these last few years he is my second set of ears! Now, If you see the bill it makes sense what the charge is for and I did mail a check today, only since I will not be dealing with that office for at least two years, when hopefully I won’t have a 4K co-pay for my surgery, any-who, but my problem is with the office personnel and their lack of knowledge, but even that was explained away as them accepting over seven hundred different types of insurance companies and so they don’t know who pays for what! Logical, but not very helpful for me; we depend on them to know the pricing, don’t we? Know your merchandise, as in any good business, why I have taught people that; just like I was taught as a student studying business.
PS For those Baby Boomers out there who remember Buster Brown shoes the machine this doctor uses is the same type as the shoe stores had for us when we were children to see our toe bones wiggling in our feet all those years ago and that was for free!
I had remembered how cool that machine was when he looked and I did too at my hand under it back in 2001, and so I asked if he still used the machine and thus he again used it … I do recall asking about the price and the nurse or tech said the charge would be a total of $77, and with the co-pay of $25 and $52 that equaled the seventy-seven. Could both of us be that non-understanding to hear the same thing and still get it wrong?
Last time I must have had wonderful insurance since I do not recall being billed at all for it!
Anyway, the check is in the mail; as they say, but mine really is… all I can say is buyer beware, again, even at the doctor’s office! Don’t be shy, be specific with all charges. It’s your money and even though we need their services we still have to know what we are paying for and how much! They have taken to calling us ‘clients’ over these last several years, not ‘patients’ unless hospitalized and that alone has given them the image of a business, which it always was before, but some how it all seemed more like their compassion showed,The Hippocratic Oath and all. Which until just now I thought had the phrase, “First do no harm” in it, but alas I just learned something, and here it is for you too to copy and paste: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/greekmedicine/f/HippocraticOath.htm
I must have had incredible insurance when our co-pay meant for the entire visit, not ala cart; I suppose even that has changed, yep it has and so I have been schooled, again.
My ignorance has taught me one thing …and that is there is always room to learn the important life lessons, on a daily basis for me, but I hope not for you as I do the hard way.
On that note of some interesting note, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and we will too!
And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?!