IiLikeBlue

ABSURDLY RUSHED DESIGNS DRAWINGof apple and cherish ehehshehehehTHEYE SROO CUTE AND THEY LOOK SO VIBRANT TOGETHER EHEHESHEHEHH

The apple of my eye, click for better quality

The doctor scraped out a bit of earwax to have a better look inside.

I was sent a bill for $200 PER EAR for this 5 second procedure which I did not give permission for them to do.

That was key- they did not ASK me if they could do this "procedure". And, as I OWN a medical practice (it's me. The medical practice is me, sitting in my house on video calls) I knew to call them when this bill came in to be like "You did not obtain informed consent for this procedure, and it was not en emergency procedure. You had full ability to gain my consent and didn't. I'm not paying."

And the massive hospital who owned the bill said "yuh-huh you do have to pay."

And I said "I own a practice. I know these laws. I do not owe you money for this."

And they conducted an "internal review" and SURPRISE! Decided I totally owed them money and they had never done anything wrong ever.

And so I called my state's Attorney General office, and explained the situation because, as I mentioned, I know the law. The AG got in touch within a couple days to say they were taking the case and would send the massive hospital conglomerate a knock it off, guys letter.

Lo and Behold, today I have a letter where said hospital graciously has agreed to forfeit the payment.

"How not to get screwed over by companies" should be part of civics class.

Know your rights and know who to call when they're infringed on. This whole process cost me $0 and honestly less effort than I would have expected.

Civics class wouldn't help most people in this case because the AG will not take on all these cases and most people cannot afford an attorney in this instance or more importantly, the hit to their credit.

Were they going to get into a lawsuit over my $400 bill? No obviously not. But they printed up a letter on fancy letterhead to say to stop and it worked. They followed up with me the next day to be sure, and so ask how much money they had saved me.

They use dinky cases like mine to track habitual misbehavior of large scale companies to build cases they could actually go to court over.

And because people are shocked- I never spoke to the AG of my state directly. He operates mainly by overseeing a whole crew of people. And this is what those people do.

This didn’t happen because I’m special because of my tiny therapy practice.

This happened because this is what the AG office is for.

“The problem is systemic” doesn’t mean “and there’s nothing you can do”.

Then you've been trained well by "The System".

Yes, that System you say can't be fought? Where did you get that idea, huh? Who taught you that "small" acts of illegality don't matter? Who made you think that there's no point in fighting back because it will all come to nothing?

Might it be the same entities that benefit if you believe all that?

Gonna pause and let you ponder.

Never. Ever. EVER.

EVER.

Let companies or corporations or hospitals or organizations or any business big or small get away with screwing you over without a fight. Maybe you personally don't win every fight, but you lose 100% of the time you don't try. You'll win more often than you think you will. I know cuz I've done it.

So have others. Attorneys General offices bring lawsuits against businesses all the time. They do so because citizens contacted them to say "someone is doing a crime" and the crime doers did not stop when told and got into way more trouble than if they'd just stopped. FAFO. The Find Out can't happen if you don't even bother to report the Fucking Around.

On that note, as OP said, please know your rights! And, in a situation where you don't but suspect something is hinky, ask! The people of the internet can help! So can librarians! So can many others. Find out what is and is not okay for them to do. If it's not okay, report them! See something, say something.

Don't let the System win by default.

If you believe The System™️ is only for Them™️ and not you, it will only ever be so.

I was in a car accident in September of 2023. The other driver's fault. I was taken to the ER by ambulance and treated for a broken bone in my foot. (Which took over a year to recover from, but that's another story.)

So obviously I had a lot of medical bills which were mostly covered up front by my health insurance and then the other driver's car insurance agreed to cover them (up to their limit.)

So I'm still, almost two years later dealing with this. It's taken this long for the medical providers to get all the information to the car insurance and agree to terms.

The ER bill was originally $18,000. The adjuster looked at it and said...yeah most of this is because they're charging you for level 1 trauma care and I don't think you needed that and also they didn't do any of the documentation.

So this adjuster fought them, asking for the proper paperwork to justify this level of care.

And then I heard their final number was $8000. $10K less than what was billed. (Basically they try to bill for "readyness" of trauma staff without them actually doing anything and they can only do that if the injuries are expected to be bad enough to need them. I was coming in with what we thought was a sprained ankle so no, it wasn't justified.)

Now, if it was up to me, would I have known to question this? No.

But this is why you demand an itemized bill. So you have a chance of seeing what you're being charged for and being able to fight it.