This is not about the problems our government has had with its healthcare web site. It is not at all political. It is about the shabby treatment we all get by the medical industry. Doctors aside, (who may be excellent, in some cases) from the moment we enter a facility until we encounter the billing, our experience may be, shall we say, … less than excellent.
Here’s an example. See if you can relate to it. (note: actual names of providers have been altered to prevent them from suing me for defamation, a common tyrannical corporate practice when a person is actually telling the truth.) Recently, I had the unfortunate need to visit a hospital in the “Aberdeen” Health Network. That in itself was a horror, but I’ll skip details and just say I left on my own because after hours of waiting, they could not complete a routine discharge.
But I digress. The billing part was, … well, here’s the story: My insurance carrier, let’s call it “Unicorn” Health Care, had enhanced its web site by teaming up with “Insta-debit” providing me the ability to pay my portion directly to the provider, on-line, from my bank account. Great!! No statements, stamps, writing checks, save time, paper, the planet and payment is super prompt. And I saw the debit at my bank account within one day. Technology is wonderful! (when it works.)
Then, about two weeks later, I got a statement from the payee, asking for the balance, which they said was outstanding. But I did pay it. The money was taken from my account and I have an on-line version of a receipt as further proof. So what happened? A process that was supposed to simplify things, had turned into an unexpected burden.
The statement said, “For billing questions, call …”, and the phone number. So I called. And got a recording. “If this is a true emergency, hang up and call 911.” After listening to five prompts, I finally got, “for billing questions, press 5.” Finally! So I thought. Until I got another recording. “Please leave your name, date of birth, …”, etc., etc. Well, maybe it’s really busy. I’ll try again later.
After five attempts and getting the same result, I realized that the provider is not set up to actually talk to patients about billing. I left a less-than-pleasant message giving my account number and a stern directive to fix the problem, not send any more outstanding balance notices as they would be ignored.
I learned (or confirmed) two things from this experience:
- When big companies collaborate to bring us high tech “services”, it is likely to be a technological nightmare;
- Health Care providers don’t really care about their clients, us patients.
I should expound upon the 2nd point. It does not take a genius to figure out how to treat people with dignity and respect. It takes a desire to strive for excellence. What we see is the exact opposite: a deliberate effort to provide minimal and uncaring levels of service.
Together, these two observations lead to one unmistakable conclusion: When it comes to health care, we are in a very, very sorry state.
There are many underlying causes, the profit motive for one, and I don’t know how we compare to other nations who have different systems, but so long as we are strapped with the status quo, we are doomed to mediocrity – or worse.