A Few Interesting Resources

A Good Overview of Joint Density

"Pin-back" Spam

Just a few minutes after I published a new post to my blog, I received an email notifying me that a user has already made a comment. Excited that a stranger liked my blog, I eagerly opened my blog to check it out. It says:

Excerpt:
[...] [...] came across this post – Double Checking Bills – and thought it was worth sharing. I hope you find it interesting too and take the time to read [...] [...]

followed by a link to the full post on his own blog.

I clicked on the link, only to find that the full post is not so different from the excerpt, except that there are some Google ads at the top. I finally realized that this is a scheme to make profit on other people’s blogs. He probably has a robot that watches various new blog notification services. Once the robot sees a new post, it will automatically generate an entry on his own blog and then make a comment to the original blog with a link to his web site. Unsuspecting people will click on the link to his web site and allow him to make money on the Google ad impressions.

Double Checking Bills

Experience tells me that it is very important to check every bill. I have personally encountered plentiful mistakes. When large, faceless corporations are concerned, mistakes are typically the result of careless clerks and can go both ways. When dealing with what are said to be more amicable and personable small firms or individual professionals, the mistakes are without exception to my disadvantage.

A few weeks ago I went to see my chiropractor X for my backache. I used to be his patron and am very familiar with him. But as my back had been fine until recently, I hadn’t seen him in years.  The visitation is just like before. This is one of the places that insist I pay the bill to them first and the insurance reimburse me. I have little to object. Nothing says they can’t do this. But since I switched insurance, I asked for a detailed bill. A few days later, the insurance statement came and I started to compare the two bills. I found I paid more than the insurance bill said I should pay. After calling the insurance, I found that my chiropractor is supposed to write off the amount above the maximum allowed amount stipulated in their contract, but instead, they charged me. I immediately told them what the insurance told me, and the lady explained that because she had no way to find out the exact amount to write off, she had to charge me first and credit me back after the insurance got back to her. I do not buy this. The deductible is another number they need to figure out to correctly bill their clients.  They seem quite capable of getting that right. Why is it the case that only numbers that are not to their advantage difficult to get right?

Such an experience is far from unique, and doctors are not the only people. I survived health club double billing, lawyers charging exorbitant fees, accountants basing their fees on the amount of refunds, construction contractor doing less than agreed on, etc, etc. This is really an endless list. Every time there is some elaborate excuse. It is just that I have never had a case where the mistake to my advantage.

My overall attitude towards professionals is increasingly cynical. After all it is not their own interest they are trying to represent or look after, not to mention that usually there is a conflict of interest between their solving my problem and their future business — once the problem is solved, I won’t need them, and they know that.  They are good at showing progress to prove their usefulness, but tend not to solve the real problem. The only thing that refrains them from doing this is their professionalism. As people who play tricks to over-bill are not professional,  they cannot be trusted with solving my problem.

But will I continue to use my chiropractor ? Yes, of course. His location is convenient, his schedule is flexible, he takes the right insurance, his chiropractic skills are all right, and I know exactly what I want from him. Most important, I doubt the next chiropractor is any better, and so the point of looking for a new one is moot. Will I trust my chiropractor? Absolutely not! Count on it that I will watch him like a hawk.

Update:

It is easier to say than do to watch or track medical bills. It usually takes weeks or even months to go through insurance, before when you are hit by other medical bills. It takes quite some thought to put in place a system to keep an eye on both the insurance and the doctors. Right now I make do with a giant spread sheet.

Update 2:

Another pretty common practice is for the doctor or hospital to have the insurance pay to them, even if I have paid up-front. Then instead of crediting the fund back to me, doctors like to apply the balance to the next bill. Not only will they make money on the ‘free float,’ but also after a while this balance becomes impossible to track for both parties and is likely to get lost. If it is due to lack of expertise and resources for patients to track their little ‘account receivable,’ it is due to lack of motivation for doctors to have a more transparent and accurate billing system. They get in the door as much cash as possible, and then let human negligence run the cause to keep the cash there. Even if the patient succeeds in tracking his little ‘account receivable’ with his doctor, the doctor is likely to apply the balance to the next visit. The last thing he wants is to see (other people’s) cash leaving his office.

My chiropractor just pulled this on me. I am going to see to it that he puts proper notes on the insurance claims so that cash will be reimbursed to me!