I know I'm not really in political mode today so...

I promise that later I'm sure I'll be in political junkie mode and as most of you have noticed I have cut back prior to today taking the maximum payperpost ops here on this blog. My goal is to try to make needed extra income but not destroy the essence of Liberal Common Sense while I'm doing it. Today was an exception since both of the opportunities required the higher page ranking that this blog has versus my other non-political blog I've been doing more PayPerPost opportunities on.

That and as you can see by the Dish TV post, I had a lot to write about Dish - lol.

The topic of money though brings me to what I'm going to write about next. Those of you who know me know more details than I've posted on the blog, at a minimum everyone else who are regular readers know that I have a loved one who recently had an experience where they took an OTC substance that was deemed as an attempted suicide.

I don't dispute the original services provided at the ER, I don't dispute holding this person over night for observation or even the additional requirement that came later for a psychiatrist to talk to this person prior to their release. Even though we were lied to about various steps of that process. I understand a suicide attempt no matter the drugs involved must be taken seriously. I do dispute the next batch of lies and misinformation that came next on the demand that this person needed to be transfered to a psychiatric unit, especially when it was discovered that the same psychiatrist that made the recommendation was the same psychiatrist at the other hospital. I won't go into again all of the continuing lack of information and changing of information and the hell we went thru to finally get this person released who never demonstrated any action or statement that could have given any reasonable person the idea that they were a risk to themselves or others after the attempt was first made and the issues/solutions discussed.

However, the bills just came in for this episode...The psychiatrist who saw this patient a total of maybe an hour (and that is being generous) during the days we spent trying to gain my loved one's release was $870.00. That is still being disputed as we speak. The total hospital bill that was billed to our insurance company was over $15,000.00. Close to $9,000.00 of that was from the psychiatric unit of the local hospital where I guess group therapy, finger painting, pictionary and planting seedlings in a cup over the course of four days must be pretty pricey.

Thankfully since I was in contact with our insurance company since the very beginning of this, the majority of the claim to the hospital was denied with the statment that our insurance company did not feel it was a necessary hospitalization. Which this hospital did not contest. However, the income that this loved one lost during this epsiode, the additional stress and pressure on them and the hell I went thru in just trying to get information as well as consistent answers still bothers me. What also bothers me is it is very apparent this is being done to make a profit from people. A person who was in the same facility who had more apparent issues than my loved one was released a day earlier not because this person was more "ready" to be discharged, but because their insurance only paid for a three day stay. That is the exact reason that person was given for their discharge. I'm very happy that I prevented this hospital from making a profit on a situation that should have never happened in the first place but I'm not done yet...I have filed complaints against both hospitals and the psychiatrist and for one of the very few times in my life we are considering filing a law suit...