My insurance & doctor story is finally coming to a close. After further investigation and a couple calls to the office and my insurance provider, it looks like my only real option is to pay the bill and move on.
The gist is that the visit was billed as a 99204 / 278.00, which is a medical office visit (in this case for new patient establishment) with a diagnosis of obese, which is excluded by my insurance contract. Future visits would be billed as physicals and would be covered, though I’m not sure what I want do at this point. It’s a bit of a rock and hard place, as if I want to move to another provider, I’ve got to go through another new establishment visit and possibly another diagnosis of obese and a rejected claim, so…
The office did give me a 25% discount on the bill, which helps a bit, but this whole thing just upsets me. This is the latest in a long line of headaches with health insurance since Jack was born, it’s no wonder to me that everything has gotten so expensive. The amount of red tape and confusion I’ve had to break through just to get to the bottom of a couple hundred dollar claim is mind-boggling.
