I just told off a hospital debt collectroll, and I feel GREAT!

liberalhistorian

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Sat Jan-24-04 09:09 PM
Original message

I just told off a hospital debt collectroll, and I feel GREAT!

My local hospital system loves to portray itself as the "perfect friendly neighborhood hospital" where "excellent care and service to our friends and neighbors" is their main goal toward which they strive, etc., etc., blahblahblahblah, the usual bullshit.

At the same time, they are planning to move from the center of the downtown of my community to a swankier, more upscale location several miles away from where they are now, and out of the city area, which will make it that much harder than it already is for the elderly and poorer residents to receive the care they desperately need, at the only place where they're really able to get it around here.

This despite the fact that the city has offered some prime sites very near where they are currently located with some major tax rebates and the usual incentive package. They blindsided the city with the announcement of their move, and wouldn't even talk to them about it despite the city management's attempts to do so. This will now cost the city millions in lost property and payroll taxes, not to mention causing a drastic drop in business for the restaurants and other businesses around the hospital that depend on business from the hospital's employees to stay afloat. And the school system and city are already struggling mightily right now. But do they give a damn? HELL NO!

Do they care that they're pulling the rug out from under the elderly and poor residents who depend on it for their care and who would have great trouble getting to the newer location? Do they care about the terrible economic blow it will be to the very area they depend on for patients and profits? HELL NO!

It is also considered really ruthless and aggressive when it comes to collections, especially in regards to the uninsured and those without much money. It doesn't think twice about suing desperate people who don't have the full amount all at once (which may be in the thousands), slapping liens on their houses or what little property they own, if any, seizing bank accounts and garnishing wages, never mind that most of the people can ill afford that to begin with. If they could, would they be uninsured?

I have been on the receiving end of their incredibly ruthless collection agency, which I have had to advise in writing not to contact me either at home or work for EVERY FUCKING ACCOUNT that gets placed with them.

They made the mistake of continuing to call me at work once after I told them not to on a particular account. I'm a paralegal and office manager for a solo attorney, who knows I don't make nearly as much money as I should because he can't afford to pay me that much, who was none too pleased to hear that and proceeded to place a call to the agency's manager and rip him a new one right on the phone, lol!

And I have insurance, so I can only imagine how it must be for those who don't because fortunately when I was out of work and had no money and no insurance I didn't require their services. If I had, I'm sure I'd owe them my life for the next ten fucking years. That's because the uninsured are charged more than ten times what the insured are charged, and the hospitals are the most ruthless with them, thinking nothing of taking whatever little they may have. Anyway, even though I have insurance, whenever I've had to go there, either to the emergency room or when I had my hysterectomy there last year, there's always several hundred dollars insurance didn't pay and they come after me for it like flies to an open wound. They usually want it all at once, and when I didn't have it, which was always, they or their goddamn scrooge collection agency would demand more than half of it in order to make any payment arrangements.

Each time I have to deal with that agency on another account, I give them written notice not to contact me by phone at work or home. So last March I went to the emergency room for what turned out to be pneumonia, for which I was off work for about two weeks. The bill for being there for THREE HOURS was, get this, TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS! Shit, I could have taken a fucking vacation for that amount. So, anyway, insurance paid all but about five hundred of it, and naturally they wanted the entire amount at once, which I didn't have.

So I get this call today from the hospital's collection department. I asked what had happened to their wonderful, friendly neighborhood collection agency. They said, get this (and I'm still laughing) that the agency didn't want to deal with me anymore because I was "too much trouble" and so they were leaving it up to the hospital's collection department, LOL! I LOVE IT! Apparently, the agency was used to dealing with people who didn't know the details of the Fair Debt Collection Act like I did, and who stood up for themselves in actually demanding that the agency follow the letter of the law and who would not permit the agency to contact me by phone.

In my last letter to the agency, I had advised them that I had no intention of paying the five hundred bucks because they'd already been paid enough for a three-hour visit (and they didn't even diagnose it right, it was only the next morning that the hospital called and said that other doctors who'd seen my x-rays and records said it was pneumonia and not pleurisy like the idiot emergency doctor had said it was, which meant I should have been put on antibiotics immediately and not fourteen hours later!), I was tired of their overcharging and greed, and because of their move and the way they were handling it, and their total arrogant dismissal of the horrible economic effects of their selfish actions. I said that if they wanted to put it on my credit, which they always enjoyed threatening to do, they could go right the hell ahead and do so. I'd already managed to get a car loan the previous month from a company that dealt with people with not-so-great credit and who flat out told me they didn't care about medical debt. I wasn't planning on applying for any other credit anytime before the next two years, either.

THAT was when they turned me back over to the hospital and said they wouldn't deal with me anymore, lol! So anyway, the hospital calls me a few hours ago about it, and I tell them the same thing. She starts to yap and snap at me, so I told her off and hung up the fucking phone on her! I'm furious at the hospital for all the above reasons, but then I turn on the TV just now to see the beginning of their advertisement campaign to spin their move and arrogant handling of it to their best advantage, using the hospital's most well-known doctors as spokespeople. Now, I'm fully aware of just how much ads like that cost, and I just saw them in my local newspaper as well, and my blood is boiling.

Here they're about to destroy the economy of the main city in the county, pull the rug out from those who need their care the most, and are ruthlessly going after those who can't afford to pay all at once, hiring one of the most ruthless, aggressive collection agencies, suing people left and right, putting liens on their property, garnishing what little wages they have, seizing what little bank accounts they have, etc., etc., and not giving a shit. And now they have this big-ass ad campaign that has to be costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. So I let the bitch from the hospital collection department have it, and I had a great time doing it, too. They're not getting one more fucking dime out of me! I can't wait to tell this to the next meeting of my state's single-payer group, either! WHOO-HOOO, Can I kick ass or what????????