so we’ve reached the point where i’m getting all the hospital bills for the surgery and emergency care and such. i finally got an actual bill — as opposed to a not-a-bill — from the hospitals. the thing is, they screwed up my insurance info, so i have no idea if it’s money i actually have to pay, or if i have to give them the right insurance info to bill, or if i have to yell at the HMO to pay the money.

long time readers of this blog will remember, way back in those halcyon days of august, 2003, when i had that weird vision thing and my primary physicial sent me in for an MRI of my head (…BRAAAAAAINS!) to make sure i didn’t have a tumor or anything. back then, i was using the university’s PPO for health insurance. after i got the bill for my portion of that, i decided that i’d better switch to the HMO in case anything ever happened to me, as 20% of medical bills can be sort of a scary prospect. so i switched to the U of C HMO — which basically means i have to use the university for all of my health care, which i was going to do anyway because it’s right here, so it didn’t matter.

so when i went in to the ER for my wrist after i got back from atlanta, they took my insurance info, but apparently didn’t check it against the system, and just started billing the insurance company i had on record. so i started getting, in addition to my not-a-bills from the hospital, these notices from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois that they were refusing to pay my bills because i wasn’t covered on the date of service. (duh.) then not-a-bills started showing up that were, correctly, being billed to the UCHMO. so yesterday i called and got that straightened out for the one not-a-bill i received which reflected BCBSIL instead of UCHMO, but i’ve gotten several notices from BCBSIL so i know i’ll have more yet to straighten out.

then yesterday i got this actual bill, for my surgery on 24th november, which is for the thirteen grand of the surgery — correctly billed to UCHMO, and paid for — plus an extra $4700, which i’m now liable for. and i have no idea if i’m actually liable for that — in which case, I AM UTTERLY FUCKED — or if it’s the stuff they mistakenly tried to bill to BCBSIL and were denied so i just have to correct that, or if UCHMO is just not paying that portion for some reason and i have to yell at them.

this is altogether too much fun.