Medical insurance/ hospital rant!

[Tiffann4k]

After spending over an hour on the phone with our medical insurance I am fuming mad! A little background....the day before we were leaving for Disney World, Disney cruise & basically being in Florida for over 2 weeks one of my teeth started hurting...didnt think it was much since I had a root canal and a crown put in 3 years ago and there isnt much left there....the morning we were to leave it was hurting REALLY bad...not a big deal I figured I would pop some asprin and it would go away....after driving 2 days to get to Florida I was in huge pain ( for those of you who have ever had an infected tooth you know what I am talking about) I was miserable but I hate going to the doctor if I dont have to especially dentists so I was happy with taking asprin the whole time, well I knew my husband was miserable because I was being a pain. We called a few of those medical walk in clinics..they dont do dental. So the night before we are to get on the Wonder we are calling around trying to find a Emergency dental clinic open...a lot of them advertise they are open 24/7 well they are not...so we decide to make a visit to the Celebration ER. After waiting nearly 3 hours they write me a RX for antibiotics and tylenol 3 and I leave. It started working immediatly....I am happy...until today when I get the bills in the mail

* My whole 5 minutes of seeing the ER doctor ..... $269.00
* Unspecified procedure.....$25.00 ( not sure what that is, they didnt even do anything!!
* Just being at the hospital .....$143.00
GRAND TOTAL: $437.00
Just for them to spend 5 minutes ( IF THAT) to write me a RX! Oh and did I mention that my insurance will not cover any of this!! It was billed under Medical when it should of been dental, speak to dental, dental says they dont cover ER visits, medical needs to handle that...medical tells me they dont cover anything dental thats up to dental...and around and around and around.....so needless to say I am soo ticked! Whats the point of having insurance and spending $$$ for it when they try to find every loop hole they can to NOT cover something

The worst part is, add on another $50 and I could of had a baby and everything covered ( thats what it cost us to have our son out of our pocket ) and all they did was write me a RX.....

Okay rant over

 

[floridafam]

I had to go to the ER last year for dental pain. It was the worst pain I have ever experienced-even after Tylenol 3 and antibiotics. They ended up giving me a shot of Demoral (sp?) and we went right to the Dentist as soon as he opened.

Our medical insurance covered the ER bill. I honestly don't see how the insurance company can deny your claim.

My time in the ER cost about the same as what you mentioned. I wasn't shocked. They are expensive.

I'm sorry. There really is no place to go when you have dental pain in the middle of the night or when you are in a strange town.

 

[Disney Doll]

Most insurances have what they call a "Grievance Policy". Call and find out how to do that, and then do it.

 

[bananiem]

The insurance companies charge an arm and a leg to go to the ER so that people won't use them as their primary care. Unfortunately everybody gets screwed in the process. I'm sorry that the dental/medical part was screwed up.

 

[Tiffann4k]

Our ER visits are generally covered 100% hence the main reason why I gave in and finally went to the ER thinking it would be covered.....so I guess I dont really get why they wont cover it either but I didnt get anywhere since medical said it was dentals problem, dental said it was medicals problem but since the claim was filed as a dental ER visit they wont cover it. Oh well guess I learned my lesson with that one....

 

[welovedisneyx4]

Have you asked the hospital/ER if they can change the code from dental to some type of medical? I used to work w/ health insurance and just from my own experience, what codes they use can really make a difference. I have called our doctors before and ask them to code things different so the insurance will cover it. There might be a medical code for "mouth pain" instead of using a dental code. (I can't remember the specifics)