UPDATE ON THE
HALIFAX HOSPITAL BILLING ISSUE:
JUNE 18, 2008 AT 7:48 pM
I spoke to Joan, and she does not want to talk to
Congressman
Feeney's office. Joan feels that it is a waste of
time to try and get
Halifax Hospital to be more efficient in its billing.
Joan has had
experience with inefficient billing departments, and is
sure that Halifax
Hospital will not budge, and will not send a request for
payment for
doctors' services to United Health Care, until it gets
denials from
Blue/Cross Empire.
Joan has corrected me on one issue I had
with Congressman
Feeney's office. Joan says that
United Health Care will
pay for services on the strength of an EOMB
document
(explanation of member Benefits statement).
According to
Joan, when Blue/Cross denies payment for
doctors' services
the EOMB is sent by Blue/Cross to United
Health Care, and
UHC sends payment for the doctor's services
to Halifax
Hospital. I told Joan that this is
hard for me to believe.
United Health Care gets an EOMB from
Blue/Cross, reads it
and realizes that they have to pay for the
doctor's services?
Joan says she will get out an EOMB and show
me. I have to
be shown.
But if this is the case, then I still
wonder why the doctor's
bill should be last on the list to be paid,
and need wait
for a denial from Blue/Cross, which denial
always come.
And I still wonder, why I get bills from
Halifax Hospital
telling me that my medical insurance has
not paid.
In such cases of bills from Halifax
Hospital, the statement
gives me a document case number, but does
not tell me
which services in that case number have not
been paid for,
and which medical insurance company has not
paid. I am
of course on the short end of all this, not
knowing when and
whom the hospital has requested payment
for, including the
date of services, and what services they
are seeking payment
for. That might be ok with them, but
I do not like to be asked
for $21.00 and I don't know what I am
paying for.
Much to my dislike, Joan said that the
whole thing doesn't
bother her, because we never had to pay for
what we
should not have. I wonder how she knows?
I know that in
the two cases that Halifax Hospital
threatened to put us
into collections it took a lot of time and
investigative work
by us and the Hospital Administrator to
find out what it
was that the billing department wanted
payment for. They
discovered that payment was still owed the
two doctors,
and since they discovered that payment was
denied by
United Health Care because the request for
payment
reached them after the 90 day period, the
hospital relieved
us of not having to pay the bill. And
so, the tax payer
picked up our bill that was not paid by our
very expensive
medical insurance coverage.
Look, if Halifax Hospital can not, or won't
send a timely
request for payment for doctor's services
to United Health
Care, how can we expect Obama or McCain to
fix our health
care medical cost crises? And I would
not be relying on
Congressman Feeney to help resolve the
situation either.
So, let's play with them. The next
bill I get from halifax
hospital which says I owe them money,
because one of our
medical insurance companies did not pay, I
am, as invited
on the billing statement, calling Halifax
Hospital billing
department, and asking for a detail
explanation of what
they want to get paid for. And let's
see if they can tell me the
date of service, the kind of service, which
of my insurance
companies refused to pay, and when
they sent their
request for payment to the proper medical
insurance
medical. This will be fun, and I will
report the telephone
conversation to you. I think we will
get a kick out of
calling Halifax's billing department up for
information.
Hey, it's only our taxpayer money, so let's
kill time
on the phone as Halifax invites me when I
don't understand
a bill from them.
--- hank
poimages@cfl.rr.com
===============================
June 18, 2008 at 3:59 PM
I just got off
the phone with Barbara, Congressman Feeney's office.
Barbara phoned me.
She told me that she is sending me a letter with
some information regarding what HALIFAX HOSPITAL
is required to do by law regarding sending requests to
medical insurance companies for reimbursement
of payments for services. The last
time we spoke
she told me that Halifax hospital
is not required to
send a request for payment for doctors'
services
performed in its hospital, to a third party
insurance company.
Medicare pays, Blue Cross/Empire pays
for hospital services,
but only United health Care , part of
Blue/Cross Empire
in my plan pays for services
performed by doctors in
a hospital. Barbara seemed to imply
that everything was
resolved with my issue when Halifax sent
her and me a letter
that the bill had been paid. I told her
that payment of the bill
was not the issue, and she should
understand that by now.
I told her, that Halifax hospital does not
finally send a request
for payment to United health care
until about 2 and 1/2 months
after the date of service, because it
will not send such requests
to United Health Care until I scream
at them to do it.
Barbara tried to throw me off the issue by
indicating that some
medical insurances do not pay for doctors'
services unless they
are part of the participating plan. This
is not the case here.
United health care always pays
for doctors in a hospital which
is part of the Blue/Cross Empire
participation.
Barbara tried to tell me that Halifax
hospital is doing me a courtesy
by sending the request for payment to my
medical insurance company
I told her that I would prefer to send my
own request for payment to
my medical insurance companies, because I
would do it right,
and know what exactly is going on.
But I cannot, because
I need a doctors' signature with the
correct diagnosis code et al
on a request for payment.
Barbara tried to tell me that when
I get the EOB Explantion of Benefits,
I could use that to send
to my medical insurance company. I
told her that the EOB does
not come to me until after the
hospital sends in a request to
the correct insurance company, so how can I
make my own request?
We went over my issues again, and I think
it finally sinked in with her,
that Halifax hospital does not send
the request into United health
care in a timely manner, until I scream at
them to get that request
into United Health care within the 90
day period.
I told Barbara that I didn't think she was
on my side, but
was sticking up for Halifax hospital.
Barbara told me that she
did not like the idea of me publishing
her name on the POI web site.
I asked why not, since my name is on
everything I say, which I vouch
for is true, and if she wanted
to contest what I write, send me
an e mail and I would publish her
side of the story.
It seems so hard for Barbara to deal with
the issue, as
something that is not about me having to
pay a bill,
but an issue about Halifax getting their
money in a timely
fashion. After all, we are
paying Halifax tax money,
and I am paying dearly for my good health
insurance.
Halifax seems to want to deal with
Medicare and
Blue Cross empire. Perhaps it has an
attitude, of screw the
doctors, and who knows when they will get
their money, if
they happen to get the request for payment
in within
the 90 day period.
Barbara told me what she knew when she
worked in a doctor's office.
It is time for Joan to speak to Barbara and
Joan can tell her what
she knows about medical billing. Joan
was an office manger of
5 MRI centers on L>I> and supervised all
the billing.\
Joan and Linda started a billing company,
Medical Claims Solution,
which helps doctors' office billing
departments with secondary billing.
Joan left MCS but Linda still runs
the billing company.
Barbara manages to skirt around my
concerns,
insinuating that I am talking about apples
and oranges.
Look, it is not difficult. Halifax
hospital wants to get paid
for their doctor's services,
but maybe they don't give a damn
if the doctors ever get paid.
When you send a request for
doctor's services in to
Blue/Cross Empire. It will be denied.
ALWAYS! What to do, now?
Tell Hank Springer that his
medical insurance company did not pay, so
he is responsible for the
bill. INDEED, HALIFAX IS DOING
ME A COURTESY BY SENDING
requests for payment into my medical
insurance. companies.
So the alternative, is that we pay up
front, and we send our
request for payment to our correct
insurance companies?
How much money
do you think Halifax would get
paid in such a scenario.
It doesn't matter, they will pass
the loss on to the tax payers.
We do pay taxes to this inefficient
hospital.
Just recently, Halfax sent me a bill
telling me that my medical insurance
did not pay the bill so I owe them 21.
dollars. Which medical insurance
did not pay the bill? What and when
were the services?
Now in our 60s and 70's we go to the
hospital for services
more often than ever. Too much
trouble to put that information
on piece of paper when they ask for a bill
to be paid?
I am going to start writing back to Halifax
in encryptation and
deviance. "To halifax hospital.
Regarding the money you want,
i already paid it. Also, my
medical insurance company has already paid
you. I spoke to them about it.
And someone at your hospital said
everything is paid for. But you owe
me money. check your records
Please send me the money before
I put you in collections.
This correspondence in response to POI's case numbers
IHU #00011234Gf slinky 08.
GTH #00011235 Gf stinky 08
and BBB # 01, 02, 03, and 04.
DATE: Forever
-- hank springer"
I will ask Joan to call up Barbara. Barbara
thinks she can throw baloney at
me, and I would accept it. --
sincerely, hank
I would like to hear from POI readers on
their thoughts
about halifax hospital. -- hank
poimages@cfl.rr.com
PDF]
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat -
View as HTML
Start Winning With Efficient Billing. When You Bill More
Efficiently, You Always Win. TrialNet Is Flexible, Stable—And
Affordable. ...
www.trialnet.com/TrialNet_Ebill.pdf -
Similar pages -
Note this
|
They offer cost-effective solutions to ensuring accurate, timely,
and efficient billing and record-keeping processes,
all of which translates to more ...
www.usingmedicalbillingcompanies.com/ - 10k -
Cached -
Similar pages -
Note this |
