Photo courtesy of Emily Lodish

Not paying a bill that I never received appears to be my crime.

I have been on the phone with the convenience card people, trying to tease out the logic of the above statement (and trying rather unsuccessfully not to cry) for hours. We are where we started when I first called, when the sun was low in the sky, and I am no closer to paying my health care bill. I have now hung up the phone so I can exit the coffee shop and attempt to regain the semblance of composure.

For starters, it is called a convenience card. A convenience card. This detail, while seemingly trivial, will be the piece that continually revisits me, causing me the most pain and also providing me with the most humor. It is beautiful, this label. Graceful in its irony, and that is something I can appreciate. If Evelyn Waugh were alive today, he would write a book stemming from this one, stunning fact.

Then there are the words “health insurance.” I get disproportionately upset almost upon hearing these words. Which I realize is not helpful. It’s the opposite of helpful, actually, in so far as it renders me dismissible by whomever it is that I am speaking with. My blood pressure sky-rockets and my eyes well up. I start stammering and saying things like, “Emily. Emily. Definitely, Emily.”

It is a physiological response, and one that relates to my daddy issues, which I will spare you. But the upshot is that my life experience has shown me that these people do not want to help. They want to win. They want to beat me in a game that is played by rules which are detached from reality—a symptom, you will note, that, when possessed and repeatedly exhibited by an individual, will land that person in the loony bin.

One step ahead of you, convenience card. Meet ya there. Here’s the roadmap:

I got health insurance. When I was hired at my place of work last August, I was given health insurance. I was really happy about this. I was ecstatic, mostly because I hadn’t had health insurance in a really long time. I was living in Cambodia for nearly three years, where health care is something to be avoided if you can help it. And before that, when I was living in Brooklyn, I didn’t have a steady job and so wasn’t afforded affordable health care. Getting medical issues addressed meant waiting in never-ending lines at clinics in Kings County, where I was fairly certain that if everyone’s ovaries felt like mine, we would all join hands in prayer.

I was so excited to finally have straight-up health insurance here in Boston that I kind of went all out. Balls to the wall. I had that woman peering into my belly button, no joke. I talked at great length about my bowels. I asked her to feel my kneecap. Bless the lord, I have health insurance. Touch me all over, professional doctor lady.

Then, I got the bill. It was a little shocking, but I had heard about this. How people forget that they have things like convenience cards when they get the bill. And how they feel anxious right away, but really they don’t need to and all they need to do is pay the bill with their special card. So, mind over matter, I calmed my nerves and went to look for my convenience card.

I couldn’t find my card. I don’t know where it went. I felt really bad about this, like I somehow didn’t deserve a convenience card if I couldn’t be trusted to keep an eye on it. I tried not to panic. These things happen. Sometimes people, they must, lose their convenience cards. Deep breath. I called the card company and they agreed to send me a new card. I thanked them. I promised not to lose my card ever again. They said fine.

When my new card arrived, I immediately called up the health care people to pay my bill. This was going to be good, I thought. This was going to be really pretty good. But, instead, I was told this was impossible. The card wouldn’t go through. I called the card company and found out that it was a coding issue. Now, that’s just five words, what I just typed, but it took me three phone calls over three days to discern that that’s what the problem was, that the problem could in fact be fixed and then have it be, in real time, fixed.

And then it was fixed. I had a temporary new code that would allow me to pay my health care bill. Inconvenience aside, I hustled to pay my bill within my new temporary window, and pay I did. Phew. I am sleeping so good now. It’s like I have never slept before.

But don’t get too comfortable. A little over a month ago, I get a mailing from the convenience card people. The mailing tells me that I need to prove the legitimacy of my transaction with receipts. Well, I don’t have my receipts. They are from months and months of transactions. But I call the medical center and they mail me my receipts summary. I am so glad they have one of those, a receipts summary. I tell the lady on the phone that I am so glad about this. She seemed to like that.
I receive the receipts summary in the mail. I hustle to send it in and send it in I did. I feel a bit better after this, but having learned from my previous experience, I try not to feel too good. I sleep, but I don’t sleep too well.

And it’s a good thing I kept my knickers on. Because last week I got a mailing from the card company that said I needed to substantiate my transactions with receipts. I could have sworn I got that mailing before. (This would be a whole chapter in Evelyn Waugh’s book. The chapter would be called, “Happiness is the longing for repetition.”) The last time I got this mailing, I jumped through all the hoops and came out the other side. There must be some mistake.

This brings us up to the present: I call the card company, and I start out real nice.

”Hi Kim, my name is Emily. I got a mailing from you about how I need to substantiate my transactions with receipts, but I already did that and I just want to clear everything up and make sure you have all the necessary information.”

“OK, Emily. What’s your social security number?”

(Time lapse. Intimate information exchange.)

“I see that your receipts were rejected because they were for costs incurred in 2009.”

“Well, they were for many transactions, some of which were at the end of 2009 and some of which were 2010. What’s the problem?”

“You paid in 2010.”

“Yes. That’s when I got the bill. I paid as soon as I got the bill, which was in 2010.”

“You needed to pay in 2009. You can’t pay for costs incurred in 2009 in 2010.”

“Why not?”

“2009 is not 2010.”

Well, Kim. When you put it like that, it makes perfect sense.

ODDS FACT: The odds a person has health insurance are 1 in 1.18 (85%).

See our related article, Behind the Numbers: The Odds of Lacking Health Insurance.

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