Dealing with goddammed insurance companies and the hellish underworld they create for you to enter when THEY make a simple billing error and decide that you need a referral from your doctor for the lab work done during an urgent care visit. The actual visit to urgent care is covered but someone somewhere decided that you should have gotten a referral beforehand for the lab work that was done in a semi-emergency manner during your visit. It doesnt matter that the lab work was done at the same urgent care clinic that you are visiting in your semi-emergency state and it doesn’t matter that the attending physician has referred you to the lab directly down the hall from where you are being examined. What is important is that you leave urgent care in mid-exam, drive to your primary physicians office and get a referral for the lab work you should have completed 2 hours before.
Of course in trying to fix this problem it moves from ‘Fuckin’-A’ status to ‘Cluster-Fuck’ status. I get to call the billing department 400,000 time, the records office 32,352 times and the insurance company 876 times. Not included in this count is the number of times I am transfered to someone who is fully incapable of helping me either due to their own incompetence, surly attitude or proximity to the Pod People Home Base.
Eventually, someone said “well this is stupid…. there I fixed it. Sorry about that”.
Sweet joy dampened my face and I began to think perhaps there is a higher power that truly does care about this seething ball of humanity. Perhaps I am drunk.