Silly Hospitals!

The hospital where Layla was born was mostly good to us, but had a little trouble with the bill. First, they called me in the birthing suite to ask what insurance we had for Layla. Who is coherent enough to know anything about insurance at that point? Not me. Then, instead of asking again at a later time when I might actually know, they just billed the wrong insurance and charged us when insurance didn't pay. I was quite surprised that the part we owed for Layla was only about $50. The rest of the bill, for the birth and the recovery and all, was something like three million dollars. They charged $15,000 alone just to stay in the room I was in. What an expensive room! Note that I was only there for 36 hours total, and had no problems at all. Thank goodness I have good insurance! And thank goodness I have good backup insurance (my husband's insurance)! I am very lucky and didn't have to pay anything at all, except that $50 for Layla. Since I am a busy new mom, when I got the bill for $50 I thought it would be sufficient to write in the correct insurance info on the bill and send it back to the hospital. It turns out, that takes a few weeks to process, and meanwhile they started freaking out about their $50. Considering they just hawked three million dollars off my insurance company, I thought maybe they would let the $50 go for a little while until I got Layla's insurance information straightened out. But, no. So, after they called us and made some evil threats, I finally wrote them a check for $50. Then today, I came home to find... surprise! a reimbursement check from the hospital for $50. Yay!

Oh my goodness. I'm glad I don't have to deal with hospitals very often.