Is Medicare slow or is it the doctor?
Hi all, have a question about Medicare. Are they really slow to process claims? For the last 2 months we’ve been receiving Medicare statements for my MIL, for doctor's appointments, oxygen and other services dating back to August 2017! Up until today, the statements said Medicare paid their portion and that she would not be billed anything. Today we got one, it’s for a test that was done in February 2018 at Stanford when she went for a lung transplant consultation and Medicare did not pay all of it and they said she could expect to be billed $3. So I am just wondering, why did they just now pay the claim 7 months later? Are they really that slow or is it the doctors offices that are slow to bill them or what? If Stanford sends a bill for $3 I am tempted to tell them “sorry you are 3+ Months too late seeing as how she died in June!”. She was on hospice from March 1-June 1 and they’ve already billed Medicare and been paid. Yet we are still getting Medicare statements for other things that occurred as far back as August 2017! Is it Medicare or the doctors who are so slow? Now I’m wondering what else is out there that Medicare hasn’t paid or been billed for yet and what they expect a dead woman to pay!
I'm sorry for the loss of your Mom.
Medicare is no different than any other huge government agency-slow.
Just to be persnickety, I'd let the $3. go to collections. 😜
I was billed by AAA once for my son using the card in November and the bill came in March. I asked why such a long time? And didn't they see that I removed my son from my card in January?
She couldn't come up with an answer for the length of time between the service and the bill and she saw that I had removed my son from my account, so she dropped the charges. 👍🏼
The longest charge time I've ever seen was 2 years! I bought a new car in 1984 in a different county (the next one over) where the tax rates were lower. I got a better tax break in the other county. I got a bill from MY county 2 YEARS later for the difference in tax. I called, citing the statute of limitations. They said if I didn't pay it, they would send me to collections! So much for getting a good deal. ☹️ 🚗
Wow Sue! I wonder how your county found out about the car purchase? I have not purchased a car myself since 2005 and I don’t recall anything involving the county? Everything is through the California DMV. I don’t recall any local sales tax, I thought it was all state tax?
First, Medicare does not pay it all. Only what they consider reasonable and then 80% of that. If u have a supplimental, then they may pick up the difference. If there is a supplimental, then thats the statement you should be looking at. It will show you Medicare's share, then what the supplimental paid. If there is a balance, thats what is owed to the doctor, etc. So, you need to match the Medicares statement with the supplimental. Make sure you are looking at statements. Medicare also sends out a summary every quarter. It confused me at first.
Deductibles need to be met on both Medicare and supplimentals before they pay. They start at the beginning of the year. My SIL is a medical biller. She said that drs tend to wait to bill waiting for patients deductable to be met. Why, because patients don't pay the deductable amount.