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TheSanDiegan

Hospital Rant. Working title: f*cking millennials

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Okay. Story time. 

So I have a minor surgery scheduled this week and my wife - who carries the same insurance policy number and whom we just verified was my emergency contact - went in to pay my copay/coinsurance today at the hospital where my orthopedic surgeon is based.

That was the only task at hand. She had my credit card with her, which obviously has my name in it. 

It was that simple, really. Here, ma'am. Take this card, and charge the amount the man who's name is on the card owes you, and hand the card back. It. was. that. simple.

 

But nooooooooooooo... instead the girl at the counter told my wife she couldn't "release [my] medical information" to her because she was not authorized to have access.

So FaceTime ensued. I explained to the girl that my wife was there to pay a bill, not request records. That the surgeon's scheduler - we'll call her Irma (who, like the girl helping my wife, was somewhere in her late 20s) - told me I had to pay $X before this week's surgery. I explained that my name was on the CC, that they did not have to release any records - they didn't even have to give her a receipt - just run the CC and let my wife leave. She again countered with the profound statement that she "cannot release any records" to someone not authorized to receive them. :rolleyes: I asked her if "Irma" was on site, was told she was, and requested she talk to her to verify this. 

We waited. 

The girl returned. With forms. Forms she said both my wife and I had to fill out, and which had to be returned to the 5th floor to their supervisor. Forms so my wife can hand over my credit card? No. Just no.

This had just transcended into the absurd.

I tried to protest to the woman who had been helping my wife, explaining everything I just typed above. She shut me down directly - "SIR. I am not going to talk to you. I am talking to your wife." Fair enough... I honestly didn't know whyTF this had to involve me in the first place. :shrug: By this point my wife had already been there for nearly 15 minutes, time she really didn't have to spare today. I told her not to go up to the 5th floor, that she had tried and I would just call the scheduler.

Which I did. 

The scheduler again repeated the same nonsense - that my wife had to return with these forms to the 5th floor to their supervisor before they would let her hand them my credit card. To pay a f*cking bill. 

I told her that would not be happening, that my wife's window of time had closed (no one had anticipated this shitshow) and requested an alternative solution since they would not take my credit card today.

She proceeded to once again - making it the fourth time - tell me that in order for them to accept my credit card from my wife's hand, we would have to fill out these forms and return them to her supervisor. I know the intent Is good - to protect patient privacy - but this might be the dumbest f*cking process I've ever heard of. Which I didn't say to her.

Instead, I responded by telling her we were talking in circles and repeated that I was simply asking for an alternative solution because my wife would not be returning with the form the following day and that this had already taken too much time. I literally asked her for a solution.

And that's when she said something to the effect of, "I am informing you that I no longer wish to talk to you something something..." after which I just said "have a good day" and hung up on her.

And that's the story of how I think I triggered two millennial twatwaffles today with my micro aggressions. :waiting:

St-Javelin-Sm.jpgChase.jpg 

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13 minutes ago, TheSanDiegan said:

Okay. Story time. 

So I have a minor surgery scheduled this week and my wife - who carries the same insurance policy number and whom we just verified was my emergency contact - went in to pay my copay/coinsurance today at the hospital where my orthopedic surgeon is based.

That was the only task at hand. She had my credit card with her, which obviously has my name in it. 

It was that simple, really. Here, ma'am. Take this card, and charge the amount the man who's name is on the card owes you, and hand the card back. It. was. that. simple.

 

But nooooooooooooo... instead the girl at the counter told my wife she couldn't "release [my] medical information" to her because she was not authorized to have access.

So FaceTime ensued. I explained to the girl that my wife was there to pay a bill, not request records. That the surgeon's scheduler - we'll call her Irma (who, like the girl helping my wife, was somewhere in her late 20s) - told me I had to pay $X before this week's surgery. I explained that my name was on the CC, that they did not have to release any records - they didn't even have to give her a receipt - just run the CC and let my wife leave. She again countered with the profound statement that she "cannot realize any records" to someone not authorized to receive them. :rolleyes: I asked her if "Irma" was on site, was told she was, and requested she talk to her to verify this. 

We waited. 

The girl returned. With forms. Forms she said both my wife and I had to fill out, and which had to be returned to the 5th floor to their supervisor. Forms so my wife can hand over my credit card? No. Just no.

This has just transcended into the absurd.

I tried to protest to the woman who had been helping my wife, explaining everything I just typed above. She shut me down directly - "SIR. I am not going to talk to you. I am talking to your wife." Fair enough... I honestly didn't know whyTF this had to involve me in the first place. :shrug: By this point my wife had already been there for nearly 15 minutes, time she really didn't have to spare today. I told her not to go up to the 5th floor, that she had tried and I would just call the scheduler.

Which I did. 

The scheduler again repeated the same nonsense - that my wife had to return with these forms to the 5th floor to their supervisor before they would let her hand them my credit card. To pay a f*cking bill. 

I told her that would not be happening, that my wife's window of time had closed (no one had anticipated this shitshow) and requested an alternative solution since they would not take my credit card today.

She proceeded to once again - making it the fourth time - tell me that in order for them to accept my credit card from my wife's hand, we would have to fill out these forms and return them to her supervisor. I know the intent Is good - to protect patient privacy - but this might be the dumbest f*cking process I've ever heard of. Which I didn't say to her.

Instead, I responded by telling her we were talking in circles and repeated that I was simply asking for an alternative solution because my wife would not be returning with the form the following day and that this had already taken too much time. I literally asked her for a solution.

And that's when she said something to the effect of, "I am informing you that I no longer wish to talk to you something something..." after which I just said "have a good day" and hung up on her.

And that's the story of how I think I triggered two millennial twatwaffles today with my micro aggressions. :waiting:

Oppressor!

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59 minutes ago, Stealthlobo said:

OK boomer

That's how I felt. Well, that and the opening airline scene in Anger Management. 

But seriously... if casually pushing back on nonsense like this is going to set off alarms and send clerks into panic rooms, I think I'm going to pack up the wife and cat and volunteer the three of us for one of those Mars thingies.

St-Javelin-Sm.jpgChase.jpg 

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3 minutes ago, TheSanDiegan said:

That's how I felt. Well, that and the opening airline scene in Anger Management. 

But seriously... if casually pushing back on nonsense like this is going to set off alarms and send clerks into panic rooms, I think I'm going to pack up the wife and cat and volunteer the three of us for one of those Mars thingies.

Next time, send your wife with a bag full of pennies for your prepayment. 

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9 minutes ago, TheSanDiegan said:

That's how I felt. Well, that and the opening airline scene in Anger Management. 

But seriously... if casually pushing back on nonsense like this is going to set off alarms and send clerks into panic rooms, I think I'm going to pack up the wife and cat and volunteer the three of us for one of those Mars thingies.

Seriously though, that does seem pretty excessive to me.

Personally, I do get spouses who get pissed at me for not being able to release their partner's medication costs for taxes due to HIPAA, but that's also medical info. Maybe someone got in trouble or sued for a borderline issue related to payment so now they've made their rule much more excessive.

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31 minutes ago, Stealthlobo said:

Seriously though, that does seem pretty excessive to me.

Personally, I do get spouses who get pissed at me for not being able to release their partner's medication costs for taxes due to HIPAA, but that's also medical info. Maybe someone got in trouble or sued for a borderline issue related to payment so now they've made their rule much more excessive.

Dude I was standing there on the FT call, CDL in hand to verify it was indeed me (which she had already done BTW)... I mean, I was there, in a Zoom kind of way. The scheduler knew me too. And it didn't even have to involve disclosure of the medical costs, as there was an arbitrary amount the scheduler had asked me to pay. :shrug:

The whole thing left me disliking people so much I briefly thought about packing up the wife and cat and moving to the Idaho backcountry where I could use my ministerial powers to gay marry @halfmanhalfbronco into a thruple against his will.

St-Javelin-Sm.jpgChase.jpg 

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Accept my expired coupon!!!

 

 

All joking aside, fcuking legalese thinking overrides common sense thinking way too often.

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I can guarandamtee someone has been sued up the wazoo for doing something like you are requesting.  It shouldn't be that way, but some shakedown lawyer could extract a nice settlement from that.  

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Wow that's frustrating. My guess is this particular desk worker got in trouble for giving out info by mistake and got chewed out for it by someone higher up. Now she's just ultra careful and not taking any chances. 

0918_FootballVBoise(Weir)6081.jpg.91934a8a511e3532b39599f1988bbacb.jpg

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