So where were we? Oh yeah, I got discharged on Saturday, August 3rd, at 2 p.m., and by Monday, August 5th, at 1 p.m. I received a denial of obligation from United. How did it get there that fast? Did they hire someone to drive it to me to make sure I knew they were going to screw me? Having a letter telling me that there was a ‘restrictive clause’ on page 50 of a 70-page contract that I had no right to review and negotiate was hilarious! It was better knowing that they recorded my two calls with their support team that clearly told me that my coverage allowed immediate use — remember, they told me the only ‘restriction’ was that the payment needed to be processed! I cannot wait to get those recordings during discovery — not sure if we will get there, but I know I’m not caving in just because someone threatens me with ‘going to collections!’

That’s the funny part, too — you almost die from the care they withhold for several days while the banks sort out the payment, and then, you have to deal with being threatened with collections or bankruptcy within one to two days of being ‘saved’ and discharged. As a patient, as a human, you should be celebrating life and winning the battle against a near-death experience — but it is Corporate Policy to have your life ruined by a $300B conglomerate that couldn’t care less about you as a human. All they care about is quarterly stock prices and bonuses. 

UnitedHealth Group makes an estimated $1.8 billion in profit each month, money that primarily fills the pockets of top executives and shareholders, not patients like you and me who are struggling to survive. They sure as hell need that money more than I need my life or the time to recover and heal emotionally, and after my kids started preparing for my death. My kids spent five agonizing days talking about ‘what if,’ and then when I got home my teenagers asked me ‘how can we pay a $160,000 bill?’ How is this humane? How did this become normalized?

A family member of mine had the same experience, she went into the hospital, and almost died. BCBS removed her from her husband’s policy due to a ‘paperwork issue,’ then billed her $300k+ the week she got home. It took her 3 years to get BCBS to admit that they proactively dropped her to avoid the claims, but she was chased by all of the providers for three years and threatened with collections, credit destruction, and bankruptcy. How does she get all of that back? The aggravation, the hundreds of hours of talking with her husband about their options, the relentless attack of voicemails and letters and emails from ‘ambulance-chasing’ lawyers and collections people with no soul?

Patients First isn’t here only to discuss treatment options and the science behind them (though we will) — we need to talk about the process, about the patient touchpoints, about the lack of empathy, and about the loss of our humanity during a time when all parties should be focused on providing nothing but humane interactions to help patients fight their battles. Unfortunately, humanity has been removed from healthcare, and it is time we bring it back.

The worst part of the story isn’t even United — it is how I got into that hospital to start. We’ll tackle that in the next post. As always, thanks for your time and for choosing to spend a few minutes with me here today. 

Until next time … Steve