A friend sent me the link to this story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (actually, several friends sent it along). I can't say that I'm surprised, because I had a lot of problems with the billing office at SCCA during the years I was a patient there.
The bill that Thomas Smailus keeps getting is for a procedure that the medical bureaucracy insists took place in June 200 --four months after his wife died, the story says.
"At this point it's gone from painful to comical," Smailus said last week in reaction to receiving his fourth bill for the procedure that wasn't.
Here's the story: Wife dies but new hospital bills keep coming
Meanwhile, among our own circle of cancer blogger friends, Amorette has been hassling with insurance problems--and was told that she couldn't possibly be on Medicare, "because Medicare is only for old people"!!!
Amorette wrote on her blog: I tried to explain that I was disabled, on Medicare, and that the state insurance was intended as a supplement. He explained with much patience and derision that I needed to learn the difference between the state health plan and Medicare, that he was certain I was mistaken about having Medicare, that Medicare is for old people.
Go to her blog to read the entire post:Thanks, everyone....
Another one of our cancer blogger friends was not able to start treatment as scheduled because of problems with an insurance company. Hard not to feel very cynical when you hear these stories over and over again.
@ Jeanne Sather 2008.
YES, YES, YES, I have insurance issues as well. I am getting shafted for about 4000.00. I am working on it, but I tell you, if the hospitals do not get you the insurance will. It is really getting to be horrible.
Posted by: john | May 08, 2008 at 08:57 AM