Don’t Forget to Read the Fine Print

Before Pooky was born we were told by a number of people to check our hospital bills carefully for errors. I’m really glad I took that advice to heart, because it saved us over $500. Our health insurance, which we have through my work, gives a discount for identifying billing errors made by the hospital. Unfortunately, they offer no such discount for their own billing errors. Identifying these errors took a lot of time and patience. It involved requesting itemized bills from the hospital, then cross-referencing them with the Explanation of Benefits forms from the insurance company. Figuring out what each line item meant was frustrating. Still more frustrating was the fact that once the errors were identified, it took the insurance company almost six months to square everything with the hospital, by which time the hospital was threatening to sic a collection agency on us.

Happily, it all worked out in the end, and I used the money we saved to buy baby a lifetime supply of iPod themed onesies. It would have been nice, though, if our insurance company had been even a little bit contrite instead of treating us like mosquitoes. It took multiple emails and phone calls to finally get the situation resolved. The lesson: Go over your bills with a fine-toothed comb, and if you find an error, be very persistent. I was just kidding about the onesies, by the way. The money all went into diapers.