Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Murphy knocked on our door again

J and I have been working really hard to pay down our debt...our plan is only to have the mortgages and 2 credit cards left by September. Well, don't you know that right as we were about to pay off one of the small credit cards we heard from our tenant in MA that the hot water heater went. So last Friday we sent the money to a plumber instead of the credit card company.

We were really proud of ourselves that we took the hit from the hot water heater without it hurting too much and figured after the next paycheck we'd be right back on track with starting to pay off small credit cards.

The the phone rang...

Today I got a phone call regarding the charges for the Maternit21 blood test that I had done last week. The woman who called asked if the doctor's office discussed how much it might cost. I said no, no one mentioned cost to us. (I am kicking myself now for not asking about it.) She then went on to tell me that they are considered out of network and with our insurance it will cost $1800 or we can go the self-pay route and it will "only" cost $995. After I agreed to the self-pay I did a little searching online regarding the price (again kicking myself for not doing this before agreeing to the self-pay) and found people were charged $235 or $475. Has anyone out there had the Maternit21 blood test? I am debating on what I should do now. I am going to do some more goo.gling to see what I can find out about the charges. If I could get it to where we are only paying $475 or $235 I'd be a lot happier.

8 comments:

  1. I've had the test done, but it's covered by my provincial health care, so I'm not sure what it should normally cost. However, if you're seeing standard fees of 235-475 elsewhere, I'd call your doctor's office back and ask why they're charging so much more. That just doesn't seem right.

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    1. Just took your advice and wow am I ever glad I did!! The doctor's office said the most I should pay is $235 out of pocket...so I called the lab back and she said they will honor that price. She was not happy as she told me the doctor's office was not correct in telling me that there is an agreement in place. I am feeling better now!

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  2. Hidden cost are such a pain in the butt. Glad you were able to work it out though.

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    1. Me too! Next time I will remember to ask before just saying "Sure" to additional testing.

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  3. Contact the company. Customer Support for Sequenom: 1-877-821-7266. For awhile, they had a deal where they were covering most of the expense if insurance wasn't covering it. Regardless, $995 is too much.

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    1. Just saw your response to Jenny. So the lady at the lab is giving you crap when this is a test that they send out to another company?!?! Yeah, bad move. Alert your doctor about what's going on. Someone needs to be talked to about this and it needs to be corrected.

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    2. Thank you!! Thankfully after calling the doctor's office and calling the rep back I got the price reduced. :)

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    3. The ironic part was that the rep told me she'd honor the price, but they would need to re-educate the doctor's offices as there are no agreements. So glad I got this worked out!

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