'Muricuh: Land of the Free… and the Unpayable Medical Bill

So, I got a bill in the mail today.

Not just any bill—a bill for an eye exam I had a *year ago. * It originally arrived mislabeled, misbilled, and mismanaged to the tune of $1,800 because someone at the eye doctor's office decided to charge the wrong insurance company.

I want to believe this was an "innocent" mistake, but a part of me wants to think this was done intentionally, hoping I would not notice nor take a year's worth of my time to fight it tooth and nail.

After an absurd amount of back-and-forth, I got it corrected, and, of course, as expected, no one took responsibility, but I do have a union rep to thank for being my advocate on the ground dealing with this BS.

A mere 365 days later, the "real" bill finally showed up—just a modest reminder that our healthcare system is powered by chaos and delayed incompetence. 

Whatever.

Let me pay the damn thing.

The invoice tells me to call a billing company. So, I do. The person on the other end of the line informs me, with an impressive lack of irony, that they "don't handle billing."

Apparently, they exist to leave me addled and dumbstruck by telling me I need to call a different company.

Me: "Why is your company's number on the bill where it says 'For billing questions or to pay your bill call...'"?

Them: "I don't know". 

Me: "Aren't you the billing company?"

Them: "Yes, but we don't do the billing for your eye doctor."

Me: "Then why, again, are you the billing contact on the bill from my eye doctor?"

Them: "Maybe you got misbilled. Please call the doctor's office."

Me: "But I know my doctor's office outsources their billing, presumably to you, since your company is on the bill from the eye doctor's office."

I call the eye doctor.

They told me to call the billing company listed on the bill that billed me, which was, after 365 days, properly coded and marked down from $1800 to a standard $30 co-pay.

HULK SMASH!

(Unfortunately, Banner's health insurance has a high deductible.)

I am now trapped in a bureaucratic purgatory where I want to pay my bill, but no one will accept my money.

I have apparently discovered a new law of physics where debts can exist in a "Schrodinger's cat"-themed suspended state of non-resolution, floating eternally in the ether of medical bureaucracy, never to be acknowledged, processed, or paid. 

So, as I ponder the "what if" of eternity and the human condition, here I sit amongst billions upon billions of stars floating on a rock in infinite nothingness, holding a bill that no one will let me pay.

And somehow, this is still my problem.

In conclusion, the meaning of life may be unknowable, but the incompetence of medical billing departments is eternal.

"The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth."

– Albert Camus