Re: Hospital/ Ins Co aggravation
Yes, it is a never ending battle with insurance companies. <br />When my youngest daughter was 5, she had brain surgery, and when the dust settled, the final bill was somewhere north of $100 k (20 years ago).<br /><br />Tradition had it that the father's insurance paid first, but in Washington state someone determined that was sexist, and came up with what they called "The birthday Rule" which said the parent whose birthday falls earlier in the year is primary, which was of course her mother.<br /><br />My insurance paid along the way, until they got the actual hospital bill of approx $70 k, at which point they said "Whoa, we better look into this!"<br /><br />They of course then determined they were secondary, and only would pay after the other insurance company paid, which is of course exactly what the other company said too!<br /><br />I got to fight with them for almost 6 months, and called the state Insurance commisioner, until finally her mother's insurance did indeed agree that they were primary...<br /><br />At which point they did a complete review from day one, and paid most of everything, including about $20k that my insurance had already paid.<br /><br />I called my insurance co to inform them of the overpayment, but as I found out, my insurance co's 800 number was manned by some call center who got paid by the number of calls they handled, and since problems can take time to resolve, they resolved to have no problems.<br /><br />So they repeatedly told me this could not happen. So I checked with my lawyer, put the $20 k in a separate CD account in case they ever figured out that it could indeed happen. They never did, and it paid the first couple of years of her college degree, for which I thank them.<br /><br />I will get to the bottom of this, and find out what happened. I'm sure there is some sort of explaination. The one thing I know about hospitals is they may not have a clue how to figure out what is wrong with you, nor how to cure you, but they sure as heck are experts in how to get their money.
