I recently got a bill from a medical lab that said “insurance denied” please pay $290. The lab was used by my dermatologist so I figured that was a good place to start to figure out what was going on. The billing associate was nice but unhelpful. She said that I needed to contact the lab. So here we go, I am no longer dealing with my service provider but with one of their contractors. Really?   So I called the lab, went through a zillion prompts, waited on hold for 5 minutes and finally got to an agent.   Of course, all she could tell me was that the insurance claim was denied and maybe I should call the insurance company.   It’s a good thing that I asked her to double check the claim  information (policy number and group number). Looks like they had an extra number ‘3’ in the policy number. She updated the number and said she would refile the claim.   Gee – thanks a bunch.

So what about this experience was so “un-wow”? First, my initial service provider had a “not my problem” attitude and told me to go to their sub-provider for information.  Second, the sub-provider didn’t try to figure out why the claim was rejected, they were just going to resubmit without checking the accuracy of the information.  And third, no one bothered to say “I’m sorry, we messed up the account number when we filed”.   Can it get much worse than that?   Sure, I get to pay thousands of dollars in insurance premiums for the privilege of having poor service.