Healthcare
Two months ago she had seemed very nice over the phone when explaining to me about how I could pay off the doctor's bills over time. But now sitting in her office I am trying to keep from soundy bitchy and she is, today anyway, not that happy to begin with. Maybe her kid got kicked out of military school. And the fact that I can pay these bills (I have given the same speech now several times over the several visits, that I want to be paid up in full when I leave the office), that I am concerned about the elaborately complex billing and how inexplicable charges keep showing up after I've been assured I'm all paid up, that I'm not putting her in the position of seeming to help me by setting up a lifetime payment plan and instead am asking her to explain something she clearly has no clue about, is just making the matter worse.
I had been summoned to her office after watching the minute hand move well past my appointment time. Johnson, Margoli, Sevenski, Washington, Tavelles had all gone in front of me. Tavelles went back with his wife and a clear gallon sized ziplock bag containing all his medications. There were messages on my cell phone from a robot confirming my appointment and telling me to bring all my medications with me (I have none, after the pain was gone I just ate the remaining pills for the sheer fun of it) and that there was no smoking anywhere inside or out of the Duke Hospital premises (don't, would never) and that there was a billing system which might come from two different sources (this it was explained was so that we patients could be better served and was the first clue that I should just K up and enjoy the miserable ride and probably should have never entered the Castle in the first place.) Damn Tavelles, I'm thinking, you are taking way too many pills. There were at least thirty plastic amber bottles with white child-proof tops in that baggie. If there really is a war on drugs and we can assume a training facility for its soldiers, this guy would be the face on a pop up target.
When I arrived the receptionist had tried to get me to pay for the past and the future and I was about to but then she said unless you'd rather wait to add today's charges and pay on the way out and I said that sounded fine as it would save me valuable time and obfuscate the idea of double billing. But I suspected something was up when all those people went in front of me, each of them with the swagger, albeit a waddling swagger in some cases, of the well insured. And then the perky nurse came up and said I would need to go see Millicent, the billing manager. I have talked with Millicent on previous visits and that first time on the phone weeks ago and also her counterpart down the hall and they are both fine people and nice to be around and maybe it is too much to expect that they should understand everything there is to know about the fiscal complexities of the behemoth hospital. I could see that asking her to explain the details of my past charges was beyond what she was either willing or capable of doing so I slid the card over and watched as she slid it through the card reader. I hate the feeling, the burden of it, knowing something that will make things work better but also knowing the mentioning of it will be a mistake. So I didn't say anything while she repeatedly swiped and failed. What would I really gain, what would either of us really gain by the information that the magnetic strip on the back of the card was each time clearly visible to me as being outside the confines of the reader? Millie disappeared with my card and the perky nurse came in and said oh whenever you're ready and I said I would be with her shortly.
I was sitting back in the waiting room when she came for me, asking was everything all right (meaning did Millie overcome that dreaded malfunctioning card reader and was I no longer considered a deadbeat) and I said everything was fine and meant it. And saying it made me wonder what the hell am I doing here in this hell of contagion, risking with my every touch some god-awful sickness I did not come in with?
I suppose that be it with leeches or card readers the ways of medicine must remain mysterious.
My blood pressure is dead on average and has been for every testing of it in my life. The doctor came in smiling but said sorry, you're average, and I said I could have told you that, what do I owe you. He said the testing of my kidney stone showed it to be the most common kind and I guess that's good. He said my testicles were fine and I said thank you. I told him that sometime in the next year I would probably still want to have that benign mass in the left one removed and he said he could set that up. I said I didn't really want to set it up yet but would like to know what it cost. He gave me the names of two doctors in NY in case I wanted to have it done there and the PCT billing code for the procedure (if I wanted to have it done at Duke) which I then took back to Millicent. She was trying to hide behind the monitor of her computer. I hated to bother her. But I did. I handed her the billing code. She said it would take two days and that she would call me. I left the building, trying not to touch anything on the way out.
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