Free Write - April 8

My wife had to go to the hospital about 7 months ago. She had a cough that wouldn't go away, and chest pains. They ran all sorts of tests, only to find out it was pleurisy, which has a very simple cure: take some antibiotics and wait. Of course, the bill was tremendous, because they did an X-ray, did blood test, etc., etc. I'm not arguing this. What I don't understand is how such a high-tech place like a hospital can not have its act together when it comes to billing. Over the course of the three months following her visit, we had bills come from over 5 different sources. One from our insurance, one from the radiology department, one from the council of physicians, one from the hospital itself, blah, blah, blah. We had no idea who needed to be paid what or why, because all these bills came at the same time. Couldn't there be an easier way? Couldn't they just make up a bill and send it to us? Granted, it would have been a very large, one-sum bill, but it would have saved us a lot of grief. I mean, come on. Such a frequently-used and modern institution should SURELY be able to rake all the payments into one bill for the consumer, and then distribute it among those that need to be paid. But no. I mean, with all the money pouring into those places, they couldn't hire a couple of people to consolidate bills and mail sent out? O, well. Such is America, I suppose. If they consolidate bills, then the next logical step would be complete and total socialism, no? And goodness knows how many hippies would be up in arms about that . . .