Ten steps!

It’s a pain in the arse deal with medical bills—well, any bill—that wasn’t properly bill-ified. As I type this, I’m on hold with a local radiology clinic’s business office. During a recent medical appointment, the doctor recommended an
X-ray, which was available just down the hall from my exam room. Easy enough. I walked ten steps and had my abdominal situation shot up with radiation. Okay, WEIRD side note: As I was typing the word “radiation,” my playlist served up Marvin Gaye singing the SAME EXACT word into my ear holes. I guess “Mercy, Mercy Me” WAS the perfect song to hear whilst on hold with a billing office. I mean, being stuck on hold is enough to make you shake your head and ask for mercy, right? This essay is NOT about The Prince of Motown, but it’s always a good idea to give that man a respectful nod. R.I.P.

Back to being on hold. I was calling because my insurance had declined the claim for the aforementioned X-ray. What? Why? Upon further inspection—and a deep dive into two-factor authorization—I saw they had insurance listed, but it was the one that ended in March.

After many minutes of music interspersed with robotic recorded messages, I connected with a pleasant enough person who was ready to help. She informed me that EVEN THOUGH I ONLY HAD TO WALK TEN STEPS to receive my abdominal radiation blast, it was not part of the same healthcare system that DID have my correct insurance particulars. What kind of tricky trick was THAT? I might as well have gotten in my car and driven to a completely different clinic instead of taking TEN STEPS down the hallway of what I thought was same clinic. What if my insurance hadn’t covered that radiology clinic? No one even asked me if I wanted to check with my insurance company before they digitally captured my insides. I felt I’d been a little hoodwinked, to be honest. Anyway, they corrected my info and told me to ignore other communications until they ran the charges through the new insurance company.

You know, this is the kind of time-waster that annoys me. Although I DID manage to write this post during my “on-hold due to hoodwinkery” time.

Listen, with all that’s happening in the world, my issue and accompanying rant are SO incredibly small, and I realize my complete privilege in simply having health care available to me, insurance, the money to pay for it, and the freedom to travel to a clinic.

But TEN STEPS? Mercy, mercy me.