Medical Bills: A Pox on my House
My wife and I agreed on a budget that would allow me to support my dream, never imagining that a few dramatic medical events would nearly evaporate our nest egg.
When I left my last company to found Remedy, my incredibly supportive wife and I carefully budgeted our finances, knowing that we’d need to tighten our belts a bit while I struck the entrepreneurial spark. It would be uncomfortable, but easily survivable. Of course it would be okay. We were two “successful” executives living in an exciting center of worldwide innovation, with our beautiful 18 month old son, Santiago, and rambunctious golden retriever, Baxter. And so, with the support of my family, Remedy was born.
A cold night, a 104 fever, and a shaking, unresponsive toddler. A desperate 911 call, fear, and dread. Sirens …
… A calm paramedic’s reassurance that everything would be okay. A nervous stay in the ER and a profound sense of gratitude for the caring heroes of the San Francisco Fire Department and the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. An emotional drive home.
Bills
Never, during that terrifying night, did we for a second consider the financial implications of the care we sought for our son. But when the $800 hospital bill and $3,000 ambulance bill showed up, we froze. This wasn’t in our budget. Weren’t we insured? Why were we left with such high bills?
A positive pregnancy test. Joy, thrills, anxiety. Ultrasounds, a pinto bean with a heartbeat, and more joy. Blood tests, more ultrasounds, black and white images of a beautiful, growing human.
Bills
Once again, we were caught off guard. As happy as we were, seeing a $600 doctor bill here, a $400 lab bill there, and many more arriving on a seemingly daily basis was frightening. The $1,500 bill from my dermatologist and $1,200 bill from my neurologist were the icing on this bitter, disgusting cake. How could we rack up five figures of medical debt in the space of a few weeks? Our tenuous budget didn’t allow for this kind of expense. Looking into the face of financial ruin, we couldn’t fathom how we got here.
Without Remedy, we wouldn’t have known what are options were — who we could turn to. Thankfully, our amazing medical billing specialists got to work and quickly got to the bottom of these bills. In short order, we were learning of the absurd problems that led to these bills. Claims were sometimes filed with the wrong insurance company. Sometimes they were filed using the wrong last name. In a few cases, the claims were coded incorrectly. I was angered and floored by how many problems slipped through the cracks. Without so much as a second thought, our providers send us ridiculous, baseless bills — not because they were intentionally screwing me over, but because this country’s medical billing is too complicated for most people to understand.
I’d started Remedy because I knew people across this country were feeling the crushing weight of medical debt. Now I was living the same pain, and it was paralyzing. My personal experience galvanized my belief that the platform and technology we’re building will protect the average family from thousands of needlessly billed dollars. Errors and overcharges hurt us all, and we won’t stand for it any more.
Dear broken medical billing system,
Love,
Everyone
