The unbearable weight of being squeezed between an imploding behemoth of a healthcare system and a Kafkaesque insurance apparatus
Being Swedish, and an ex physician, I find that the US system of health care and insurance (as well as an obstinate hanging on to a vastly inferior system of feet and pounds) is a truly masochistic exercise. Imagining a sick person having to do this...it seems that you would inevitably loose your will to live after a few rounds of being a go-between between Health Care Provider and Insurance Company. Someone should make a study of how much time through a lifetime an average American looses trying to navigate the system, and it is not hard to imagine that the stress and frustration is shortening the lives of people.
Trying to submit a bill to Metlife, our insurance, it turns out that I first have to prove that the surgeon exists. I get the bill back with a Note 1: Please provide:
name of treating dentist, treating dentist licence, date treating dentist started at location, billing address if different than office address, office address where service was rendered, office telephone number, effective date of tax identification number, legal name to tax identification number.
Dr Schendel's bill doesn't come with the CDT procedure numbers, but another Diagnosis Code system (?!) and Billing Codes so I have to send the bill from the Waverly Center too, which totally confuses Metlife.
Our Jerusalem bill is having a hard time. Whoever looked at it, totally missed the detail of New Schekel and US
Dollars. Next round they say the bill hasn't been submitted. Then I give them the number they assigned it.
Next they inform us that Dr Schendel cannot have performed 'perioradicular surgery' on #27 since 'tooth previously extracted on 03/05/14'. Good Grief! Obviously their Dental Division can't read surgical reports.
Trying to submit a bill to Metlife, our insurance, it turns out that I first have to prove that the surgeon exists. I get the bill back with a Note 1: Please provide:
name of treating dentist, treating dentist licence, date treating dentist started at location, billing address if different than office address, office address where service was rendered, office telephone number, effective date of tax identification number, legal name to tax identification number.
Dr Schendel's bill doesn't come with the CDT procedure numbers, but another Diagnosis Code system (?!) and Billing Codes so I have to send the bill from the Waverly Center too, which totally confuses Metlife.
Our Jerusalem bill is having a hard time. Whoever looked at it, totally missed the detail of New Schekel and US
Dollars. Next round they say the bill hasn't been submitted. Then I give them the number they assigned it.
Next they inform us that Dr Schendel cannot have performed 'perioradicular surgery' on #27 since 'tooth previously extracted on 03/05/14'. Good Grief! Obviously their Dental Division can't read surgical reports.