32w6d: Anyone who is satisfied with American health insurance...

...has clearly never had to deal with it.

At this point, I don't even know who to blame: my evil MFM (god I hate these fuckers) or our seemingly-awesome but potentially evil old insurance.

In short: I got a bill for $5,600 in the mail yesterday. This bill is for my original anatomy ultrasound (which, come on, how is that not completely standard maternity care? I don't know a single woman who doesn't get "the big" ultrasound), my follow-up ultrasound (which we had out of concern as we were unable to see the babies' hearts, and because of growth concerns), and then the evil evil ultrasound (which we had because of my cervical funneling and continued growth concerns), at which point I was told steroids+delivery.

According to this little letter, I have 30 days to pay, and S1. (S1 means either they had no insurance on record, or my insurance denied the claim.)

So of course I call them (the billing office of the evil MFM, because this must be some horrible mistake) immediately, because what the fuck? They had my insurance, and my insurance covered maternity 100%. You read that correctly: 100%. No deductible. No co-pay (except for hospital admission). Yeah, that is a very large part of why we were on this more-expensive plan and were extremely sad when it was taken away from my husband's company.

As soon as I reached an actual person, she was like, "Well, here's the note we have." Seriously, she didn't even ask me why I was calling or what she could help me with. According to the note, they don't have my telephone number. Yes, bitches, you do. It's right there next to my address. Also, I'm in the office all the damn time, so if you needed it, surely someone could ask. Anyway, the reason they sent the bill is because they don't have my phone number.

Oh well, that's makes tons of sense.

Except not at all.

There was another note from someone in charge, saying something about needing a letter of medical necessity. From me? No, from my referring doctor (whose name and number they have, of course). Is that different from the original referral I gave them? And are they aware that it was their own office who deemed the subsequent ultrasounds a necessity?

"Well, we'll need to look at your records."

Well, please do.

I didn't even understand half of the rest of the conversation. The woman I was speaking to was, sorry to say it, an absolute moron. She had no idea what was going on, and of course everyone else was out of the office. And won't be able to talk to me until "sometime next week".

Here is what I was able to get out of the conversation: My insurance company was probably not billed in the first place. (She wasn't sure--she thinks that her office looked at my coverage and decided I needed a letter and so decided not to do anything about it.) Which I think makes sense, because the other MFM group that I saw did bill my insurance, and I got a statement in the mail saying it was 100% covered. So unless these assholes decided to wait 3 months before filing the initial claim and my insurance looked at it and was like, "WTF, we already paid for her to have 2 ultrasounds by an MFM group, why are we getting billed for more", then I don't see why my insurance would happily cover the one but not the other.

I don't need to do anything. No really, I'm not the one who needs to get the letter, I don't need to sign any HIPPA forms letting them disclose all my information to my insurance company (pretty sure those were the forms I signed that had my phone number on them, by the way), I don't need to call my insurance company, nothing.

So then why send me the damn bill in the first place? Why wait until 4 months after my initial ultrasound? Why keep treating me if you don't think I'm covered without even so much as mentioning it to me???????

No answers.

But the supervisor person will call me sometime next week.

I don't even know what to do. I'm supposed to have another growth scan (and NST) this Friday. But frankly, I don't trust them on these growth scans at all. My OB herself laughed at the statement that Damien was too big. So if Damien isn't too big (which I agree with) and Atticus isn't too small (which, since he's been following the same curve since we began taking measurements, I also believe), then why am I being scanned if it won't be covered at all? Or will it, with my new insurance? Or will I only find out some time in July or August?

I'm just so frustrated. I hate everything about how we pay for health care in America. And I hate that I can't even get an accurate picture of our finances because bills can spring up months and months after the fact, with no warning at all.

And if we have to pay this bill, it will go on our credit card, and we just finished paying off our IVF. So this is even more money we don't get to actually spend on our babies, as we'll be cutting corners to pay it off as well as the unexpected need to meet a deductible with our new plan and paying 20% of maternity with that. Sigh.