Any of us who are living life with a rare disease — in my case, indolent systemic mastocytosis — knows we can rack up medical bills. And it’s not just one bill. You go to the emergency room and you end up with a hospital bill, a laboratory bill, and if there are any tests run like an X-ray, then you’ll get a bill from the radiologist who read it.
This happens at most doctors’ visits, routine testing you are referred to and hospital stays. At almost any medical visit and for any reason, you could potentially receive more than just that one bill. Medical debt can be high until you are able to reach your out-of-pocket expense. I always dread the new year for this reason and find a sense of relief when it’s finally met. Usually, it does not take me long either to meet that number.
The bills come in and I either pay them or, if they are high, work out a payment plan. After so many years I hardly look at them anymore, I just pay them and move on. Paying medical bills is just a part of my life.
But the other day I received a bill from a hospital that I knew I had never been to before. The hospital is out of state, and my first appointment there isn’t until next month. I thought, “How could this be?,” so I studied the bill.
First off, it said self-pay. I have insurance. Second, it said I had a laboratory charge and a pathology charge which came to a whopping $846.59. How could I have done that when I had not even been to my first appointment?
So, I called. I stayed on hold waiting on someone for about 15 minutes and then told them my story. They transferred me to someone else, and I stayed on hold for about 20 more minutes. Finally I told my story again, and the woman on the other end let me know that there were three people with my same name on file in the hospital system.
I asked to be transferred to the clinic I will be visiting next month. Again, I waited on hold for about 10 minutes. Once they answered I went over the same story and was told, “Please stay on the line and I will have someone investigate this.” I waited on hold for 30 minutes before giving up.
I decided I will just take the bill with me when I go. By the way, no one ever returned my phone call knowing that I had a bill that was not mine.
Here is the problem. I knew I had never been to that hospital or any of the clinics within the hospital. So that was a red flag. But what if this bill had come in after my first visit? Would I have noticed it was not mine? I can’t answer that. I may have noticed it said self-pay and would have called. But my brain fog comes and goes, and my memory is not as good as it used to be.
But I do know that from now on, after every visit to this out-of-state hospital where three patients share my name, I am going to have to make sure I don’t end up with any of their hospital bills. I don’t even have this one settled yet, but it will be before anything else is done there.
This makes me wonder, has this ever happened before? After one of my many visits to all the specialists I see, have I paid someone else’s bill without knowing? Were there other patients there with my same name and I just paid for it?
So, this is a warning to all of us living with rare diseases and seeing different specialists or hospitals. Make sure that you read each bill and the procedures they have listed to check you did have those done. We all have enough medical debt without accidentally paying for someone else’s, too.
Everybody makes mistakes. Human error is just a natural occurrence. But sometimes getting something fixed is hard depending on the person you end up having to deal with and the kind of day they are having.
Wish me luck for when I get there — hopefully it won’t be too difficult for them to understand the bill is not mine and place the charge on the correct person, before they send it to collections under my name. This has never happened to me that I know of, and I don’t want it to happen to any of you.
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