The material presented
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i know i made a post last night, my first, but this is a pure ranting one. i just need to get this out before i explode!
i got a bill in the mail today from the hospital, it was for the abulance that i had to call for my husband. we thought he was having a heart attack, he couldnt move because the pain in his chest was so intense.
well, of course we are like many americans these days and we are struggling to find work. even though finances wont allow us to pay for medical bills at the moment, it doesnt stop the body from getting sick.
at the bottom of the invoice they wrote: 'When the emergency came, we did our best for you, we now expect the same, financially from you!' exclamation point and everything.
well...you can try to get blood from a turnip but it still doesnt make it any less of a turnip. i guess i just feel insulted with this attempt at a guilt trip. like we 'decided' not to pay them because we just didnt feel like it. i know they arent stupid, they have the same problems i do i bet, with wages going down and lay offs occuring so why would they even say that? wouldnt they get a better response if they said: 'we understand times are hard, let us help you make payments!'
as it is right now, i dont want to pay them based on principle alone, although i know thats just me trying to take control of the situation. i also know that other patients are getting the same words sent to them for not being able to pay for their emergency care. i just dont understand how in this country, being healthy and getting life saving treatment is a PRIVALEGE, not a RIGHT.
ok....im done. thanks for listening, i guess everything is just building up and this tiny little thing set me off. bleh.
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sticking feathers up your butt doesnt make you a chicken.
Boy do I understand how you feel. Those nasty little notes on a bill do nothing to get a payment out of me any faster either. I might be tempted to take a copy of what you just wrote here and send it in with a $25 payment. But it probably wouldn't change how they do things. I do contact a manager if I get to feeling too harrassed, though. Many times it seems that those notes are not the managements idea.
The most productive thing you can do, though, is to get a meeting, post here, and work the program. I try to use my program to distract and detach from this kind of stuff. It works, too, eventuallly. Good job, though, thinking to come and vent here. That's part of the process.
In recovery,
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~Jen~
"When you come to the edge of all you know you must believe in one of two things... there will be earth on which to stand or you will be given wings." ~Unknown
Boy do I understand how you feel. Those nasty little notes on a bill do nothing to get a payment out of me any faster either. I might be tempted to take a copy of what you just wrote here and send it in with a $25 payment. But it probably wouldn't change how they do things. I do contact a manager if I get to feeling too harrassed, though. Many times it seems that those notes are not the managements idea.
The most productive thing you can do, though, is to get a meeting, post here, and work the program. I try to use my program to distract and detach from this kind of stuff. It works, too, eventuallly. Good job, though, thinking to come and vent here. That's part of the process.
In recovery,
well..lol i did send an Email to the PR rep for the hospital explaining how i felt. even if it does nothing, i can at least feel like i didnt sit around and let them talk to me like that. at least my mind can be comforted in the fact that i did do something about it, whether it changes anything or not, its comfort none the less.
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sticking feathers up your butt doesnt make you a chicken.
Aloha Dawn...Boy am I just loving my bestest ever slogan right now after reading your post. "Don't React!!" was a gift from a prior sponsor and I am positive it has saved me ulcers, brain tissue, from jail and from keeping that 500 foot tall wall I had built around me so that others in my life would not get their needs considered from me when I first got into Al-Anon. I also was soooo tapped out from trying to save my then current alcoholic and had nothing left for anyone else whether they deserved it or not. Then I took a couple hundred feet of that wall down with the sledge hammer of justice and empathy and honesty. It was tough going because I found that the wall was built using fear and fear is the best wall barrier there is and if the barrier is breached than weapons are the best tools available to me.
I used walls and weapons until I got here and was given humility and honesty and compassion. I learned to ask...please help me. Al-Anon has never denied that request and taught me to practice it myself.
I've learned to respond "Thank you for your help." "How can I work this out with you?" The opposite of fear is faith and anger; acceptance. I'm sure they know what the economic situation is because you and your husband surely cannot be the only people they have come across who are getting hurt from it.
