The medical insurance plan at work has it where if you have your lab work done by a company called LabOne it costs you nothing out of pocket. There is a local lab (Mullins) that acts as a drop off point, they forward the samples off to who knows where for LabOne processing.
A couple of month’s ago I went in to my primary physician (and again, it costs nothing to see him) to have an ugly little mole-like thing on my forehead looked at. He removed it and said he would send it off to the lab for analysis. Unfortunately he didn’t label the sample as LabOne and the local lab ran the sample.
In case you care it was nothing, but that is not why I writing this.
Mullins Lab is not in our circle of friends, so when Mullins billed my insurance, my insurance said no money for you. I have a $200 yearly deductible normally, but for out of service work it is $400, so it denied the claim. Now I owe Mullins Lab $160 for the work. Well I figured the doctor messed up he should pay.
Last week I mailed him a letter outlining what had happened and since it was his error he should pay me the $160. Got a certified letter from the doctor today for the $160. The contents of the letter told me that I was no longer welcome as a patient any more. He would treat emergencies for the next 10 days, but after that, too bad. Just tell him where to send my records.
Did he object to the word error? Oh, well, got to start hunting a new primary doc tomorrow.