Rant #2,406: Every 1's a Winner

I finally won something late yesterday.

No, I did not win the lottery, nor did I win a job.

And no, I did not win against the coronavirus, which my sister still has, and still is suffering from, but supposedly it hasn't reached anyone in my house, so maybe, all of us here have won out against it.

No, I won something that proved that even during a pandemic, you have to open your mouth, voice your concerns when things are as dire as possible, and you must let people know when things aren't done the right way.

Several months ago, late last year, before anyone knew what the coronavirus was and how it would impact our lives, I woke up one morning and could barely get out of bed and walk.

I was hoping that it would go away, but it didn't, and one day, I decided to go to an orthopedist to find out exactly what was the matter with me.

I chose an orthopedist based on having used one several years ago, when I somehow got a pinched nerve in my neck. The pain that I had from that was substantial, but after a few months of therapy, it lessened to the point that I only barely felt it anymore ... so why not use the same orthopedist?

Like chain fast food restaurants, there are chains of orthopedists, and this office happens to be part of that chain. It is right in my neighborhood, so I went to them, was diagnosed with sciatica and spinal stenosis, among other things, and I was given a regimen of physical therapy sessions to attend.

I did, and after a while, the considerable pain and discomfort I had from these things was lessened to the point that I could actually move around with a minimum of distress.

I attended about a dozen sessions, and when that was over, I was pretty much given a clean bill of health by the doctor there, and told that it was up to me to keep my exercises going, at home, which I have done since then.

That was at the beginning of this year. In January, who knew what was awaiting us as February and the succeeding months came upon us?

I had received one bill from the orthopedist. It was a large bill, but I did not blink in paying it, even with me using unemployment money, which was less than half of what I was making when I was working.

But OK, bills have to be paid even when one is out of work, so I managed to pay it.

Then a few weeks later, I received a bill that I found so incapable of me understanding that it truly was "the bill of all bills."

Evidently, unbeknownst to me, I was being charged piecemeal for every service that was rendered during physical therapy. In other words, if I went on the bike, it cost me $5 if I had heat therapy, it cost me $9, etc.

It doesn't sound like a lot, but if you understand that every piece of the therapy was being charged to me piecemeal, and I had probably at least a dozen pieces to my therapy each time, well, you can see that each session of physical therapy was costing me big bucks.

(And no, this was not the way my physical therapy was handled when I went there several years ago for my pinched nerve, further lulling me into thinking that I would be treated the same way this time.)

And the bill was for big bucks, probably the largest bill that I had ever personally encountered that I was being told to be out of pocket. The bill was actually itemized, so I could see that each and every procedure I had done was costing me money.

I was enraged. In fact, I was even more enraged, because not only wasn't this explained to me, but when my initial six sessions were over, they pushed me to have six more. The pain I had had pretty much ceased to be a problem, but they pushed me to take six more sessions, "as my insurance allowed for it."

I called my insurance, which said it had to do with the particular physical therapist and how they charge for their services--which my insurance very minimally covered or did not cover at all--and then I called the orthopedist, which led to a cat and mouse game of tag that probably lasted at least another month.

I continued to call and demanded a proper resolution to this situation, but in the meantime, I went into my savings and simply paid the bill. On top of a few other medical bills that I had at the time--including one from my skin doctor that was also a bit absurd--I nearly cleaned out my entire savings, but I felt that these bills had to be paid, and the arguments would come later.

Anyway, having paid the bill, I persisted with the orthopedist, who I felt had led me down the wrong path, and actually bolstered their own pockets, lining it with my money by not being upfront with me about their services.

For that exercise in futility, I was told that another bill was coming ... and that information made me fight even more about these bills and how I had been charged for services, some of which I did not need.

Yes, they told me I could set up a payment plan to pay off everything, but why do so? Let me fight from strength--let me pay the bill and then argue about how wrong they were.

And that is what I did.

I ended up speaking to several people there, all of whom handled the case in what I thought was a professional way, but the thing was dragging, and I ended up filing with an organization that handles bad business practices, because although the people were nice--and yes, they eventually used the coming of the coronavirus as an "excuse" for their tardiness--nothing was getting done on my behalf.

I eventually spoke to some higher ups who said the matter was being looked over corporately, and I called at two-week intervals when I heard nothing back from them.

I persevered, made my calls to check up on things, and when the third bill never came, I kind of knew that things were definitely looking up for me.

But there was still no action being taken, and this thing had pushed through January, February, March, April, and eventually May.

And then we came to yesterday, May 11, and still no action had been taken.

I was planning to call again this Thursday--a one-week interval this time--to find out what was going on--I have been very patient, but my patience was wearing thin--and as the workweek began, I simply went about my business on Monday.

Well, late Monday afternoon, I received the call I had been waiting for.

I was told that I would be receiving a nice check in the mail to re-compensate me for the money I had spent, and that I would be receiving the payment in about two weeks time.

Sure, I do not have the payment in hand, so I can't fully rejoice yet, but David does beat Goliath at times, and I certainly did just that here.

In the meantime, every week for the past several, I have gone to the bank, and put in some money into my savings, trying to boost it up to where it was before I got hit with these monstrous medical bills.

Now, I can just put the check I will receive into the account, and everything will be hunky dory.

Yes, sometimes it does pay to open up your mouth. Maybe I missed my calling, maybe I should have been a lawyer, but whatever the case, I knew I was in the right here, and I learned a great lesson: have whoever you are doing business with explain how a bill is being handled before you agree to it. I wasn't told anything, and that is where the problem was. I would never have agreed to such an arrangement if I was told about it, and I certainly would not have agreed to more sessions if I knew I would be charged piecemeal for every thing done there.

So, to sum it up, I proved my case, and I won my case.

Hooray for me!