September I experienced a second lower back injury. Having been through the process several years before, I should have know better that go to a hospital, even thought the pain was severe. The past injury turned out to be just a torn muscle, although extremely painful, it healed on its own after two weeks. However this particular injury felt different in the fact that I could get no relief, and had already missed two weeks of work. Simple fact was that I could not walk, and unfortunately work requires me to do more than wither in pain on the floor. So after much dread. I decided to go to the emergency room, just in case I had actually injured myself this time. I drove myself to the Clear Lake Regional, emergency room. I was initially pleased to find that the waiting room only had a dozen or so folks that appeared to be waiting. I checked in with a female staff member in the admissions window, gave her my insurance card, and I.D. And proceeded to sit in the waiting room. Now I had already psyched myself up for a wait. I no that emergency rooms are not a drive through process and expected to be waiting several hours. I am a relatively patient person, and this day was no exception. I was however in an enormous amount of pain, and even sitting in a chair was excruciating. I went into a state of almost hypnosis where all I could do was close my eyes and filter out the pain. It was exhausting, but I held in there, thinking that at least I was in the right place and that there may be some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. Three hours past and I started to notice that other that had arrived after me, were filtering into the magic doors, and into the triage area. I also noticed that they did not appear to have any apparent serious injuries that would justify a skip to the front of the line. Still my patients endured, until after 4 hours had past, and the pain and fatigue of the pain disallowed me to sit in any longer.
For the first time in 4 hours I limped my way up to the admissions desk again and asked the following in a calm, no accusatory manner. ME Excuse me maam, I have been waiting for 4 hours. I think I may have been overlooked on your list. HER we dont have a list ME well how do you know in what order to take patients back? HER we have our system ME give my ID, and insurance card back, Im going home. HER Well let me go talk to the doctor She disappears for a few minutes and returns HER Well the Dr. Said that if you leave your condition could worsen ME Just give me my ID, so I can go home Her But your next on the list ME Im sure I am HER You dont have to get an attitude with me I dont say a word, I walk out defeated, mentally and physically drained from the ordeal. Oh well right, we live and we learn, I learned that I was never going to go back to Clear Lake regional hospital, but the story does not end. I could have tolerated her rudeness and went about my business. A month later I receive a bill from Clear Lake Regional Hospital. Apparently they went ahead and billed my insurance over $200 for an emergency room visit, but there was a $40 balance still due. What! Of course I call the billing company and inquire. Yes I was billed for that date. I make the official request to contest the bill and receive a conformation number. I find out that the billing entity is not even within the hospital or the states. If it were, it would be a simple matter of walking to the emergency room records, pulling them and finding that I was not attended to on that date or time. I was assured that I would be receiving written correspondence in regards to the issue. Nope, what I have received is three more bills and last week a nice pink letter, threatening to send the balance due to a collections agency, which I have absolutely no doubt they are going to do regardless. I just wanted to pass on this information so that anyone doing a pre emergency room search would benefit from my terrible experience. On a side note I have been trying to contact Blue Cross Blue Shield so that they could attempt to recoup monies spent on nothing. Or was I in fact charged for breathing the air in the emergency room waiting room?
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