The $486 Office Visit
September 8, 2009
There are times when it is important to adhere to a policy or procedure. There are also times when it makes good business sense to challenge these same policies when they are costing you money.
There are times when it’s important to understand the scope of your authority so you don’t overstep your bounds when you don’t agree with a policy or procedure. However, there are times when a situation is so out of whack that some action really should be taken.
When my son was away at camp this summer, he injured his foot and had to be taken to an urgent care office. The x-rays showed that he had broken three bones in his foot. The doctor gave him a special shoe to wear to support the foot and told him he would need to be seen by an orthopedist.
A week later, we took him to the specialist’s office. In a matter of five minutes, the doctor looked at the x-rays, examined his foot, and advised us that he should avoid any running or jumping for four weeks. Since that meant no basketball, my son was disappointed, but he was happy that he wouldn’t be wearing a cast. We paid our $20 co-pay amount and left.
Several weeks later, as we were going through the mail, we opened the statement from the insurance company and got quite a surprise. No, we didn’t owe any more money, but the amount billed by the doctor’s office was $486. And it included a charge for surgery!
We were in the office for only five minutes, so I can assure you that no surgery was performed. Clearly, the insurance company was getting ripped off, and I thought they might like to know about it. But I was in for another shock.
The representative at the insurance company informed me that if there was a problem with the bill from the doctor, I would have to call the doctor’s office and have them correct it. Then the doctor’s office could resubmit the bill to the insurance company.
This seemed reasonable, but it would take a good deal of my time and effort to do so. Many health plans have a program where they will pay you a percentage of any overcharges that you bring to their attention. I asked if they had such a program. They didn’t.
So the bottom line was that if I did nothing and let the insurance company pay about $400 too much, my co-pay amount would be $20. If I took the hour it was almost certainly going to take to straighten out the bill with the doctor’s office, my co-pay would still be $20.
The insurance company’s policies prevented them from challenging the bill themselves; they offered no incentive for me to do it, and so if I did nothing, they would be cheated out of $400. I multiplied this by the number of times a day this must happen, and I began to understand why my health insurance premiums increase so much each year.
There are times when it is important to adhere to a policy or procedure. But there are also times when it makes good business sense to challenge these same policies when they are costing you money. Look at your own processes and see if there are some areas that are so out of whack that you really need to take some action. It could save you a lot in the long run.
Do You Like Them TODAY?
September 3, 2009
The more specific you are with your vendors and suppliers, the greater the likelihood that you’ll get the service you expect.
Ambiguity can be a problem when dealing with vendors and suppliers. If you’re not clear in communicating your expectations, you may not get the results you want, as you will see below.
One week each summer, we visit my wife’s family in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. During the vacation, we go to the Great Escape theme park with some of the family.
On the way to the park this year, we stopped at a sub shop to pick up some sandwiches for lunch. We ordered our subs and walked over to the display with the bags of potato chips. There were several varieties including plain, barbecue, salt and vinegar, and sour cream & onion.
My niece, who was trying to finalize her order for her daughter and teenage sister, quickly scanned the chips and snatched a bag off the shelf. She asked her sister, “Do you like sour cream and onion potato chips?” The sister paused, thought a moment, and replied, “Sometimes.” As the clerk was waiting to ring up the order, my niece impatiently asked, “WELL, do you like them TODAY?”
After a series of dirty looks back and forth between my two nieces, they settled on the sour cream and onion chips.
Even though most businesses make decisions far more important than selecting potato chips, you can see that ambiguous responses, like this example, can leave far too much room for interpretation and miscommunication.
Look closely at the details of your vendor contracts and your in-house service-level agreements. Make sure that all of the essential details are clearly specified. The more specific you are with your vendors and suppliers, the greater the likelihood that you’ll get the service you expect.
The Police Report
September 1, 2009
A disgruntled woman refuses to pay a bill and hits a waitress because of the bad service she received at a restaurant.
Most people believe that the overall level of customer service has dropped significantly in the last few years. In fact, in some cases, it has reached the point where people are beginning to overreact.
The “Police Beat” section of our local paper recently carried this story:
Police arrested a patron Saturday night at T.G.I. Friday’s after she refused to pay for her meal. According to a manager, a woman, whose name was not released, tried to leave the restaurant around 9:30 p.m. without paying. She allegedly hit a waitress in the head with her purse and was then blocked by other guests at her car. When asked by the police officer what her problem was, she told him she had received bad service.
Certainly, it’s not an acceptable practice to simply walk out of a restaurant without paying because you received poor service. But there are times when the level of service can sink from mediocre to poor or from absurd to outright maddening! At times, it can actually cross over into the realm of comical.
The good news is that there are techniques that you can use to get tangible cash compensation when businesses fail to deliver an appropriate level of service.
Remember if you’re not happy with your meal at a restaurant, don’t take matters into your own hands. Ask for the manager and tell her in a polite, matter-of-fact tone your concerns with the meal. A good manager will want to know if you’re dissatisfied and may even compensate you by offering a free dessert or reducing your bill. It does pay to speak your concerns!
