Frivolous Medical Paperwork

[Watertender]

I received an envelope full of paperwork from my health insurance prescription program. This wonderful 14 page epistle of joy in 17 different languages was created to inform me that they paid $0.46 on my behalf for a prescription.

The amount of time and effort to generate this meaningless paperwork is a great example of waste. The postage alone cost more than the $0.46 that was paid by them for my medication.

Next month I will probably get the same exact thing in the mail because this prescription is filled monthly instead of the 90 days that my other medications are prescribed.

I wonder how many other people are getting similar paperwork every month?

 

[mykeal]

I get a monthly report that lists expenditures on my part, the insurance companies' part and the drug companies' part, always in the hundreds and sometimes in the thousands. The information is useful to me. It could be done digitally (paperless) but everyone's afraid it would be hacked, so I get lots of paper. So somewhere between me and you is a point where that paperwork makes some sense. Or ceases to. Where is that point?

 

[Watertender]

^^^^ Every 3 months I have to go for tests and twice a year for scans. I can see sending paperwork on those procedures. My initial post was questioning the folly of that amount of effort for $0.46. In your case I can see where it makes sense

 

[Taterman]

I get the same amount of paperwork for small prescription amounts too. Anthem BCBS.

 

[WAYNO]

I also get huge packets of mail, multiple times monthly for every pill I take and every service I receive. And these packets all contain the explanations, via multiple pages, of the explanations in many languages I've not even heard of, and pages of my rights, and pages of the appeals process. And starting sometime in summer, I will start receiving countless offers from countless companies to jump the proverbial medicare supplement ship and join one of the competition.

Then, I also receive all kinds of crap enticing me to visit my doctor so I can get more free stuff from the grocery store or more over the counter pharmacy items. Even a phone-consult adds another 50-bucks to this OTC account.

But there's more! How bout all the reminders to get my shingles or flu shots? I've had 'em. How many reminders do I need for vaccinations I've already had? But remember, if I get a vaccination, my grocery store pharmacy gives me a 10% off coupon.

You are oh so right. Every month. It doesn't stop.


.

 

[blume357]

My recently departed sister in law who my wife was in charge of all her accounts and such would get 10- 12 different statements every month from Blue Cross and Blue Shield which was her medicare supplement provider. Seems they could not condense each charge and payment but have to mail each one separately and of course each one had several pages of legalese information that no one reads or even if they did could not understand.

 

[Mobuck]

I get that EVERY refill.

 

[Lt92]

I also get huge packets of mail, multiple times monthly for every pill I take and every service I receive. And these packets all contain the explanations, via multiple pages, of the explanations in many languages I've not even heard of, and pages of my rights, and pages of the appeals process. And starting sometime in summer, I will start receiving countless offers from countless companies to jump the proverbial medicare supplement ship and join one of the competition.

Then, I also receive all kinds of crap enticing me to visit my doctor so I can get more free stuff from the grocery store or more over the counter pharmacy items. Even a phone-consult adds another 50-bucks to this OTC account.

But there's more! How bout all the reminders to get my shingles or flu shots? I've had 'em. How many reminders do I need for vaccinations I've already had? But remember, if I get a vaccination, my grocery store pharmacy gives me a 10% off coupon.

You are oh so right. Every month. It doesn't stop.


.

Hey...lawyers gotta eat too ya know

 

[gjgalligan]

I use to consider that type mail as junk. When I had a heart attack in January of 22 I started getting it almost every day.
I was tempted to throw it away unopened.
Then I opened one, addressed to me by name, that read: Our condolences to the estate of (my name) of his death.
Somebody at the hospital listed me a deceased instead of released.
I still can't seem to convince the IRS that I am alive as I am still waiting for my 2023 tax refund. It took over a year to get my 2022 refund back, they paid me interest but they also sent me notice, a couple of weeks ago, of the interest paid so I could claim it as income on my 2024 return.

 

[Watertender]

Hey...lawyers gotta eat too ya know

Yes, but I have something else for them to eat. ..

 

[Yaworski]

I get this same stuff and it has gotten worse since I turned 65 and Medicare is involved. I don't care about any of it. All I care about is how much I have to pay. The fact that my doctor billed $200 makes no nevermind to me.

Years ago, I used to pore over "explanations of benefits" and took to heart the admonition to "let us know if you see charges that shouldn't be there." Har!

My son needed a tooth extracted so the family dentist wrote an order to see an oral surgeon. Went to the surgeon, no wait, bada bing, we're headed home a half an hour later. Get the 'explanation of benefits" and there are charges for "consultation" and "exam". Huh?

I called the insurance carrier and said, "There was no consultation or exam. He just read the order and pulled the tooth." I'm told "That's normal. We know that there's no exam. They do that to make extra money." WTF?

 

[Yaworski]

they paid me interest but they also sent me notice, a couple of weeks ago, of the interest paid so I could claim it as income on my 2024 return.

Insult to injury. "Here's a pittance because we screwed up. Now give it back!"

Similarly, the government says "lend us some money, we'll call it a 'savings bond', and we'll pay you interest." Then after you cash that bond, they say "You know that interest that we paid you on the money that we borrowed from you? Give us 25% of that! Bwa-ha-ha!"

 

[XUSNORDIE]

This wonderful 14 page epistle of joy

That's an entire squadron of paper airplanes......in a couple months you could have each carrier air wing represented!

 

[vito]

Looking at the paperwork from your insurance company or from Medicare can be enlightening. You get to see how much the health care provider charged for his or her services and how much was actually paid to them. That alone can feel like a visit to some fantasy land. But these statements can also alert you to fraud that has been perpetuated in your name. A few years back I received the paperwork supposedly for a visit to an eye specialist and several thousand dollars worth of charges. I had never seen nor heard of this specialist at all. I alerted the Medicare fraud people and was told that a fraud investigation was initiated.

 

[Johnnu2]

I give all that crap to my wife......... !!! I pay whatever she tells me too.
Of course, she's driving around in a fancy car now.... have no idea where she got the money to pay for it.

J.

 

[Watertender]

I give all that crap to my wife......... !!! I pay whatever she tells me too.
Of course, she's driving around in a fancy car now.... have no idea where she got the money to pay for it.

J.

I had an employee who got $106K in out of network cash sent to him because his wife was under care in a facility that didn't accept the insurance that we had. He bought a new pickup truck and a boat with the money. He then hired a lawyer to get the facility to accept $4K as full payment. He thought it was funny that he scammed the money out of the insurance company.

 

[Yaworski]

You get to see how much the health care provider charged for his or her services and how much was actually paid to them.

The really fun thing is that different insurance companies pay different amounts.

 

[redhawker]

I get all kinds of stuff like you've described every month. Like you said, something like 10 pages and a buck and a half postage. This is why they are always trying to get me to go "paperless", but that's not going to happen. I want a hard copy of any stuff like this because once I have it, they can't go back and magically change it like they could in a computer. Just my little quirk. Trusting insurance isn't an easy thing.

 

[rotor]

If you are on medicare with a D plan prescription the notices tell you what stage you are in as to what you pay and what they pay. For some VERY expensive meds you want to be in a stage that they pay and not you. Whether you get these notices by mail or download them is your choice. I would rather know where I am even if a drug only costs 46 cents. I scan all of these and I scan and keep all of my EOB's and I suggest that you keep them too. Or download them and keep the PDF files. I found a mistake once that my family doctor billed my wife for a first time complete exam when she had seen him multiple times. The doctors office billed us close to $600. I reviewed the EOB and found that the coder made a mistake which was why medicare denied the claim and they refiled and corrected. You may have to google the CPT codes to find errors. Never had a mistake on pharmacy claims though. FYI.

 

[ArizonaTea123]

Years ago (decades ago actually), there was this guy that lived in a miserable cold climate, like Montana, that purposely subscribed to all known mailing lists for junk mail.
He would receive enormous amounts of junk mail for free, which he rolled up and used to heat his home in the winter.
Free fuel for his stove and fireplace LOL.