The Suckiest Suckfest of All

We had lunch with friends yesterday after church (HEY CANDY, JAMES & LIL' JAMES!). James informed me that I sure did get on my "soapbox" an awful lot on facebook and my blog. Well he may just be right, so hang on.

Craig has a hernia that he went to the doctor about on Friday. They told him he needed surgery. Not an emergency type situation but Craig being the impatient man that he is told them to schedule it for August 6th. (This impatience thing is another rant for another time).

Then the doctor tells him that he's going to need to pay 20% of the estimated bill plus our deductible ($549) up front before they can do the surgery. Then Craig calls the hospital and finds out that we have to pay them $1000 (up front, of course), (their estimated 20% which DOES NOT include anesthesia because that's billed separately) before they can admit him. Then Craig tells me he'll have to be out of work for at least a week (EVEN THOUGH THE SURGERY IS ON A FLIPPIN FRIDAY), the doctor said he still wouldn't be able to work the whole next week. And of course he has no vacation days left because he frittered those away on "fishing" and "sleeping" and other man luxuries.

So to recap, we have to come up with $1549.00, all the while being short a whole paycheck. (And Craig's gainesville college tuition is due, along with books at the end of this week but at this point what's another $1000.00 RIGHT?!)

I asked Craig where he was thinking he was going to come up with large amount of money in less than two weeks when he scheduled this surgery. Now here's the real "kick you in the crotch, spit on your neck FANTASTIC" part of the whole story. He replies with, "well technically the surgery isn't scheduled yet, they won't schedule it until I bring them the $549.00." So you mean to tell me that the fact that you have a job, that your wife has a job and that you have insurance in good standing and they won't IN GOOD FAITH schedule your surgery two weeks from now with the agreement you'll bring the payment by at the beginning of the week?!?! Nope, apparently they don't do that.

So if Craig didn't work and I didn't work and we had NO insurance but showed up at the ER they would BY LAW have to perform this surgery. They couldn't turn us away or demand money up front. They couldn't refuse to schedule anything, they'd just take him back to the O.R. and fix him up. And probably while he was back there a social worker would bring me in her office, offer me refreshments and ask if I needed assistance getting other government aid such as food stamps and WIC and tell me about programs that help pay my utility bills and ask me if I needed day care supplements. NOT TO MENTION, coming up with tuition wouldn't ever cross our minds because if we didn't work we could go to school for free. IN FACT, if we didn't work the Pell Grant would PAY US for taking classes.

And then if we choose to leave the hospital without making any type of payment plan OH WELL. I GUESS THE NEXT SAP WITH INSURANCE CAN HELP COVER THAT BILL.

Yeah, unfortunately I'm the sap. So because we work, because we have insurance, because we buy our own food and pay our own utility bills the doctor's office has the right to refuse to schedule our surgeries until we pay cash up front.

Something, somewhere is terribly, TERRIBLY wrong.