Example of wasteful health care spending. | Arthritis Information

 

Yesterday, I received a check from blue cross blue shield of utah (my husbands insurance provider) for....are you ready?   43Cents. Yep, now do I deposit that and pay more for gas just getting it to the bank? How much did it cost my husbands company to process that check? I'm mad about this and I'm having my husband take it to HR and complain. This is a huge waste of time and money. Well if they kept every small CK I'm thinking sooner or later they may have then a few bucks. Better yours then theirs right? It's acounting no matter how stupid it looks.  Of course they have to mail it to you.  Do you know how many people would complain if they kept that money?  Everyone has to balance their books, if you're entitled to the return, they have to mail it.   I'm with Lorster....that check probably cost at least a couple bucks to produce, mail and process, Why didn't they just credit your account?There should really be some universal accounting rule of thumb- if it's less than x amount of dollars- no reimbursement is made as well as no invoice would be sent out the other way around.I got a bill for .10 from AT&T once.  I asked them if they seriously wanted me to send them a dime.  They said no.I would rather have them send me an email letting me know what happend and give me the option of a credit towards the next claim or send me a check...I have a HRA account they could have put it into. This is a waste during a time when we should all be making better decisions about how our health care money is spent, especially when my husbands company is telling us to be smart with our health care dollars, Then, the company they hire to manage this, does stuff like this. Its a waste. I do understand the accountability part of it, there must be a better way to do this.I'm in the healthcare industry, do you know how many times we get a check for .10 or .23 because the insurance company has taken a little long to handle a claim or claims?  It happens.  It's a pain, It costs more for the paper, the stamp, my time to make the deposit and everything, however, I know that things have to balance to the penny.  I also receive calls from patients asking for that 5 or 10 cents saying that we charged a few cents more than their EOB says.  It's a pain for all, but it is, what it is.I think it's stupid too. It cost them more to mail it than it was even worth. Imagine how much it cost to mail all of those refund checks. No doubt it will be billed back to us in the future when they raise our rates again next year.

How many of those small-denomination checks and/or bills does the average person get in a year?  Honestly, I've never gotten a check like that, and only very rarely (like perhaps twice) have I gotten a bill for a miniscule amount.  I doubt the cost of these occasional small checks/bills is greater than the cost of overhauling the accounting policies, procedures, software system, testing and validation, and retraining of staff.

But then that's not as fun to bitch about.

Funny JasRain[/QUOTE]