For those of you who don't know much about me, last June my mother, who was living independently and happily in her retirement, started a new medication to try to deal with her horrible arthritis pain since nothing else was working. The short (and I mean really short) version is the medication triggered something in her brain and she basically went crazy. In July I admitted her to the hospital to get mental help and she spiraled downward into a mental and physical black hole that nobody could get her out of, for 50 days. She almost died twice and it was in the ICU at the hospital where they gave her a combo of meds that sort of jump-started her brain and she came back from her episode - sort of - with a level of permanent cognitive impairment.
It was last July that I had to take over her life and affairs, something I thought would be temporary while she was in the hospital but ended up being permanent. I am unable to care for her mental and physical needs at my home and she can't live independently so she is in an assisted living facility and on all kinds of meds that me and her medical team continually tweak to try to give her the best quality of life possible for however long she has left to live. And that is the SUPER DUPER short version (there's a longer version - I've written a memoir about it and am looking for a publisher).
Anyway, part of what I do every day is manage bills for her, including healthcare bills. I am continuously applying for financial assistance for her from the big three local hospitals where she has and continues to receive care. So every day involves things like opening and understanding her bills, explanation of benefits statements from insurance, decision letters, communications from providers and Medicare, etc.
I just got an EOB and I always review these, as I suggest in my medical bills post, and I definitely needed to open this as it was from an insurance company she doesn't have anymore. The good news on an EOB paper is when the EOB says "Your share" and that amount is zero, but it's always important to look further than that to make sure you weren't billed incorrectly for something or for services or medications which you didn't use. So I'm looking at the EOB, which was just processed a few days ago, and it's for a visit in March. Which is a long time ago, even for medical providers to process a bill. I don't remember an appointment for her in March so I go back on my calendar and there's no appointment there. Hm, I think. What the heck was this for.
Then I look again at the details of the EOB. It's a statement for a telehealth visit from March OF 2022. Before she was even crazy! I of course didn't handle the details of her affairs or healthcare before all this crap happened to her, but I'm just sitting here thinking, how fucking broken is our stupid healthcare system that they are JUST NOW PROCESSING A BILL THAT'S A YEAR AND A HALF OLD?
Ya'll I am so tired.