Quest Diagnostics
May. 22nd, 2006 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yesthattomI feel like such an idiot. For years I’ve been dealing with Quest Diagnostics incorrectly.
Every time I got to my doctor it seems a week later I get a bill from Quest Diagnostics to pay for any tests they performed. I attach it to my health insurance paperwork, mail it in, and track it to make sure it doesn’t get lost. Sometimes it does. This takes a lot of my time and often my heathcare provider weasels out of paying it, or worse yet I figure it isn’t worth the hassle and I pay the whole thing.
Today I noticed that the fine print says that I can call with my heath insurance info and Quest will contact them for payment. I called and in 5 minutes and my profile was updated and this claim was taken care of. Future claims should be processed without my intervention.
I wonder if Quest gives a bulk discount to my healthcare provider and thus hopes that I follow one of the many paths that results in me paying full price.
If I ran healthcare in this county, there would be a standardized form that everyone would be required to use and every doctor, service provider, and heath insurance company would have a deadline by which they have to “go paperless” for all these transactions.
Every time I got to my doctor it seems a week later I get a bill from Quest Diagnostics to pay for any tests they performed. I attach it to my health insurance paperwork, mail it in, and track it to make sure it doesn’t get lost. Sometimes it does. This takes a lot of my time and often my heathcare provider weasels out of paying it, or worse yet I figure it isn’t worth the hassle and I pay the whole thing.
Today I noticed that the fine print says that I can call with my heath insurance info and Quest will contact them for payment. I called and in 5 minutes and my profile was updated and this claim was taken care of. Future claims should be processed without my intervention.
I wonder if Quest gives a bulk discount to my healthcare provider and thus hopes that I follow one of the many paths that results in me paying full price.
If I ran healthcare in this county, there would be a standardized form that everyone would be required to use and every doctor, service provider, and heath insurance company would have a deadline by which they have to “go paperless” for all these transactions.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 10:36 pm (UTC)When you have new insurance, you present them with your ID card. They take down all this freaking info into your account to begin with. Why they don't just Do The Right Thingtm is beyond me.
Glad you got it figured out, though!
Someday is Today
Date: 2006-05-22 10:50 pm (UTC)The HCFA 1500 has been the standard insurance claim form since God was a pup. Think of it as the power of Medicare.:)
Your health insurance plan _definitely_ gets a discount from Quest, and those discounts are pretty damn sizeable if the plan has an exclusive agreement for all lab work to go thru Quest. And they'll have it all set up for paperless communication from the lab to the insurer to submit their bills in bulk.
Now if I could just get that damn flying car.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 10:54 pm (UTC)I was in a conversation about implementing this sort of thing here in Massachusetts, but one person actually argued that such laws would be politically impossible because they would cause too many job losses in the insurance industry. She claimed 35,000 people would lose their jobs! Even if that's an exaggeration (which I suspect and hope it is), it shows the degree of inefficiency that we're dealing with.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 11:28 pm (UTC)They bill your health insurance company. They bill YOU. They then sit back and collect from both of you, if you aren't aware enough to see that they are double dipping. It's illegal and they do it all the time anyway. Most people just pay the bill, especially since they usually say something about you not having insurance or your company turning down the claim.
I had them try this on me multiple times. They'd send me a bill stating that my insurance company didn't pay, or that they have no insurance on record for me. I'd call my insurance and get proof that they paid. Then I'd call Quest, as if I didn't know what was going on, and tell them, "But I have insurance and here's my number". They'd respond with something along the lines of "you are responsible to pay since your insurance company didn't" and I'd bring out the big guns. POW!
I also told them that if they did it again, I knew just the lawyer to report their "double dipping" to. You should hear them backpedal! It was kinda fun. In a twisted, warped sort of way.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-23 02:26 am (UTC)Yup. Part of the business plan is fucking over the customer and hoping they either don't notice or are too busy with other things to ever follow up. It's unconscionable and one of the many reasons we need single payer health coverage in this country.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-23 09:12 pm (UTC)I have a Blue Cross PPO, and the first time I go to a new doctor or lab (and I use Quest Diagnostics out here in CA) I give them my Blue Cross card, which they make a copy of, and after that everything happens automagically in the background. The provider bills Blue Cross, Blue Cross processes the claim (including disallowing the amount in excess of their negotiated discount), pays the provider, and sends me an Explanation of Benefits (EOB), which shows the total billed, the discount, the amount they paid the provider, and my share (the co-pay). By that time, the provider's bill has arrived with the same info, I pay my co-pay to the provider, and everybody's (reasonably) happy. I never have to save receipts or fill out claim forms.
If your insurer does not work like that, you might want to consider a new one, ceteris paribus, next open enrollment.