Thursday Thirteen #52

13 Reasons I Hate Our Local Hospital

1. They just sent me a bill for the full amount of something without even bothering to wait until my insurance paid them.
2. They sent this bill two weeks after they performed the service...but also JUST sent my son's hospital bill from July.
3. When Nicky had the seizure when he was one, we had to wait in the emergency room waiting room for 8 hours.
4. After that emergency room visit they tried to trick me into paying more than I had to by sending a bill for the whole amount and saying that if I just paid it then it would be 20% off.
5. They won't even try VBAC's and my best friend reallly didn't want to have to have another c-section if she could avoid it.
6. When a friend lay dying of a brain infection, they were still having to ship the tests across town which seriously increased the time that it took to get information back. They've got this fixed now, but I'm still bitter about it. Maybe if they'd had their lab in place when they opened the hospital he would have lived.
7. They called me the day after I was discharged with Nicky and told me I had to give them my credit card number immediately to pay for the pre-payment because I was supposed to have done it before I had him. Well excuse me for having pre-eclampsia and having to be induced unexpectedly.
8. When I told her to send me a bill and I'd pay it immediately, but that I wasn't about to give my credit card info to a random stranger who called me, she got snotty with me!
9. Then they didn't bother to send the bill for like 6 months...
10. Although they claim to have a jacuzzi for mother's to labor in, I saw neither hide nor hair of it.
11. When I was in labor with Finn, I just needed to change positions so that I wasn't in such horrible pain and I kept getting fussed at because the monitor wasn't picking up his heartbeat. It wasn't like he was having decels or anything, and it was only a couple of minutes at a time.
12. They gave me pitocin and then didn't give me an epidural.
13. But the WORST!!! I was in the hospital waiting room while my best friend was having her first daughter and she was having some complications so we were all super worried anyway. I was 6 months pregnant or so with Nicky, and this was about 9 months after losing the baby that would have been a couple weeks after my best friend's. Now that the emotional situation is set... I had to go downstairs to get something from my husband who was bringing it to me, and I walked up to the elevator and their were two men standing there in suits and one was holding a baby all swaddled up. My first reaction was awww a Daddy and his baby, how sweet! So I got in the elevator with them. Then I noticed how the baby was COMPLETELY swaddled even its little head was covered and wasn't moving. Nor was either of the men paying any attention to it and it's little hospital bracelt was taped to the blanket it was wrapped in. They got out of the elevator and went to a van where they just laid the baby in the back, and it was at that point that I realized for certain that the baby wasn't alive and I sat down on the ledge at the hospital and started bawling my eyes out and hyperventilating. That poor little angel and his poor, poor family!!! It has since been told to me that it was impossible that the baby wasn't alive, because they have special exits for the funeral home employees to come to, but I know what I saw.

Now let me qualify all this with the fact that the hospital we have is a good one. I'm sure the majority of hospitals have issues. The nurses that I've dealt with were for the most part wonderful and the doctor's are good too. The financial department however seems to have issues...