So The Other Day In Work........

Pat listens to me deal with an insurance company on the phone. After the phone call she asks me if they are going to pay the claim. It's no skin off my nose if they don't, because the patient has already paid and they know it's unlikely the insurance company will pony up. But that's just the kind of place we are. We'll try anyway. I tell people all the time to "Let us try to bill this to insurance because you are going to pay enough out of pocket for your (spouse, parent, sibling friend, etc)". Sometimes I am successful, sometimes I am not. Senior citizens fall into two catagories in my experience, "Medicare owes me this, I worked hard all my life." and "I don't want to bother anyone, can I just write a check?" So anyway, I usually manage to get the second group let me take a stab at it. I am not always forthright with insurance companies, because they are not always honest with their subscribers. Lot's of insurance companies tell subscribers, "Don't worry, we'll take care of everything!" When what they really mean is that they will throw deadlines, forms, copays, deductibles and documentation requirements in front of you and if you can scale those hurdles, we'll pay you as slowly as we can. So, back to Pat. She questions me and it is slowly revealed that I was not quite telling everything I knew about the patient to the insurer in an effort to get something covered. She exclaimed "You lied!" I told her I prefer the way a former Secretary of State put it...........

“That's not a lie, it's a terminological inexactitude. Also, a tactical misrepresentation.”
Alexander Haig (1924- ) US general, secretary of state