Tuesday, March 10, 2009

DR headaches for DH

Today DH took off from work for two appointments.

His first appointment was to the dentist. This was the first time he used this dentist. He came home with an Estimate of stuff wrong with his mouth that could cost us close to $2,000. (that's our co-pay! our insurance gets to pay close to $5,000!) But DH thinks the guy is trying to rip him off because he only mentioned one cavity in the exam room but when the estimate came up there were two listed. The dentist also feels that DH should get his one tooth that has a rather large filling replaced with a crown (or whatever you call the procedure)...not because there is anything wrong with the tooth...but just because the tooth "could" break. DH isn't inclinded to do this because he has had this particular filling in the tooth for over 20 years and never had a problem with it. So since he feels the dentist might just be looking to pay for a new car he is getting a second opinion. I don't know if DH will follow my advice or not but I hope he does.

Then DH went to see the eye doctor. That went okay except the office overcharged him for the visit. He should have only paid $40, but they charged him $85. DH decides to call up the insurance company to straighten it out. They tell him to call the doctor's office. The doctor's office tells him that they couldn't bill the visit to his insurance because it was just a regular exam. DH calls the insurance because we are supposed to get an eye exam. The insurance tells him that YES we get an eye exam... call back to the Doctor's office... she can't figure this out...call back to the insurance...oh yeah, we switched vision coverage providers you need to tell them that it's now Sprectra...call to DR's office...now we need the member ID number...none of the numbers on our insurance card seem to work...call to insurance...that's because the number is this number minus the last two digits...call back to the DR office... FINALLY! it works, but because the credit card charge already went through they have to issue a check!

What a pain!

But Darly needs to see the eye doctor and probably the dentist too. We aren't going to that dentist, but will go to that eye doctor because we've seen her before. However, I know to NOT get charged the wrong price.

5 comments:

  1. Well good grief. He needed to take off just to mess with his eye doctor stuff. What a pain. I hate missing with doctors/insurance. They really make life harder.

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  2. What a ridiculous pain in the butt. It's not like trips to the dentist or eye doctor are exactly "fun" to begin with! Yeesh!

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  3. Tim Whatley: "No, dentists. You know, we have the highest suicide rate of any profession."

    Jerry: "Is that why it's so hard to get an appointment?"

    :)

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  4. Yikes insurance stuff is so irritating

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  5. I really like my dentist. Well, except for the actual dentistry stuff, but he can't help that. If you want to switch I'll give you his info...

    I hate it when insurance gets messed up, it can take years to fix. Literally!

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