Mike went to the Good Post Office to collect mail today, and there was a most delightful (NOT!) surprise! He has been turned over to a collection agency for non-payment of a $300 bill from Mass General. We don’t know if this is part of, or in addition to the $1900 bill he got from them last week. But this is the first one we’ve gotten that has been officially turned to collections.

The fact is, Mike went to Mass General exactly ONCE since we got the new insurance, for an inpatient *second opinion* visit that was ordered by one of his regular doctors. The way the insurance is SUPPOSED to work is that we pay just a $15.00 co-pay for any outpatient visits, even if it is in a hospital. Inpatient treatments are covered 100%, and so far, we’ve not had trouble with bills for when Mike was admitted to The Hospital From Hell. But maybe I shouldn’t say that too loud, as who knows what new bills will come out of the woodwork?

But what pisses us off here is that this is the FIRST we’ve heard of this particular $300 bill. They turned it over to collections without sending an actual bill for this. The only bill we got from Mass General was that $1900 one, which we’re still in the process of fighting with the insurance company over.

Cigna sucks ass. I hate them. But they are the only choice we have at Mike’s work…buying our own outside insurance is something we can’t afford to do. Massachusetts law says that we have to have health insurance, so we’d might as well keep the work-subsidized one, even if it sucks big fat hairy smelly donkey ‘nads.

So tomorrow, he plans to take all of this paperwork to work, and spend COMPANY TIME writing up complaints about all of this shit. He will also be adding the fact that the doctors have been harassing me here at home, on the landline, as well as on my cell. Apparently, Dr. Pinocchio or whatever the fuck his name is did NOT call Mike at work today, which makes it all the more clear that they are out to harass ME about nagging him to get the surgery.

Ain’t gonna happen! And with every bogus bill we get, that make us both all more more be glad we decided that we are officially done with doctors and hospitals forever.

We NEVER had these billing problems when we had Blue Cross/Blue Shield. That is what we had when Mike was in the hospital last summer, and they paid for everything. He even had to have some cardiology tests done at Mass General, on an outpatient basis, back then, and all he had to pay was the $15 co-pay. I know, as I was there. We never got a bill from them for that. We’re just getting bills NOW, after Mike’s company switched over to Cigna. The Cigna plan we have is supposed to have the same benefits as the BC/BS plan we had before, same co-pays, and all…but we’ve had nothing but trouble with them, almost from Day One.