Hospitals' Billing Offices Put us in 'Purgatory'

To the Editor:

In the latter half of March this year, Paul had a medical condition requiring urgent care. For reasons obvious to many, we chose to drive from Altoona to Conemaugh/Nason to receive prompt treatment. In early April, he also received treatment in Pittsburgh at UPMC.

Those events became the less unpleasant parts of a continuing saga in which we ceased to believe that professionals were participating with us to ensure a positive experience.

The adventure with both Nason’s and UPMC’s billing offices proves to be empirical evidence of a particularly nasty region of Purgatory.

Both offices assured us they could not provide a required form for our medical cost sharing program.

Extended, almost weekly phone calls to “customer service” brought long waits and stubborn refusals along with occasional promises that the form would be sent only to be followed in the next call with assurances that it would not.

We asked both hospitals to send the form to the sharing entity, to send it to us. Sending the required form that would ensure payment of the bills was “against the rules” since our paying entity was not an insurance company but medical cost sharing.

Finally, a UPMC official admitted to me that there were “no restrictions” on the form, and in that new light, it had been faxed (twice) and conveyed via the USPS to the waiting entity.

At last, Nason also sent us the form, albeit with no explanation and no indication on the form itself as to what it was. Another phone call confirmed its identity.

The saga continues as we await further requested documentation (copies of itemized bills requested weeks ago).

This ordeal is not our first trek into the medical billing wilderness of negligence and disinterest in helping us solve a problem—and get them their money.

Medical entities exist to make our lives healthier and better. Medical billing offices seem to have challenge-driven mentality striving to achieve the most unpleasant experience possible.

Do they get bonuses for succeeding?

Paul Head

Nancy Head

Altoona