I get calls from medical billers all the time. Most don’t bother me - they don’t understand our process at first. We’re not like private citizens and can’t pay any bill immediately upon receipt because of laws and policies set in place by people way above my pay grade.

By law we never pay full price for most medical services provided to our prisoners - we only pay Medicaid rates. So we have a contractor who handles adjusting all of our medical billing to the proper rates and resubmits the invoices to us for payment. From the time we receive the initial invoice from a medical provider to the date I receive the adjusted invoices ready to pay at least one full month has passed. Then depending on my schedule, it may take me up to two weeks to actually disburse the payment. That makes it about a 6 week process from start to finish.

Usually once I explain that to a medical biller the frequent calls stop. They know not to call me until a bill is at least 2-3 months late in payment. However, there is one lady who calls me weekly to check on the status of invoices and every time I have to reexplain the process to her. She just called me about two invoices that I had talked to her about a couple of weeks ago - we never got the original invoice so she faxed over new ones on that day. So I just had to remind her that it could be at least another whole month before I’m able to send payment. She then went on to explain her reports come out weekly, yadda yadda yadda.

Lady, you need to take better notes so that you know not to call me every time your reports are run. Because I’m sick and tired of being hounded by you needlessly because you don’t pay attention to what I’m telling you. Stop. Calling. Me.

For a while she was calling my boss, Amazing One, and me - none of us were returning her nagging phone calls because we had all already talked to her. I finally told her to call only me because if she continued to call all three of us, no one would answer the phone when she called. She didn’t like hearing that.

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