Etiquette 101 – Email

I write an email to you, requesting your help with something. I quickly receive a reply informing me that you have received my email. I know that anyone who sends automated replies will not send me a real reply anytime soon, so I hunker down and wait.

You reply to my email. Your reply is helpful and succinct and I am grateful.

Shortly after, I receive another automated inquiry asking to evaluate the qualify of your service. Your company is unable to evaluate its own employees and has outsourced this job to me. Since I already have a job and responsibilities of my own, I don’t reply.

Your company and your management points to these two emails as evidence of superior customer service.

(I’m writing about you here, HP!)

Scripps Encinitas ER – “Have they learned?”

In 2008 Scripps Health hospital system lost a $73 million dollar class action lawsuit.  The Court found that Scripps billed emergency room patients without insurance, i.e. the poor and unemployed, at arbitrarily higher rates than they billed those with insurance. Court testimony showed that Scripps Health aggressively collected on these bills.  The Court refunded 35% of the ER bills for uninsured people, e.g. an emergency room bill of $2000 was reduced to $1300 to reflect the amount Scripps should have billed.

Recently, my son visited the emergency room at Scripps Encinitas. Probably a gall bladder attack. He was in excruciating pain, which passed, presumably when a gall stone passed. They didn’t do much in the ER, mainly observed him. We received the bill which I scanned and am showing here:

Scripps Emergency Room Bill

You’ll note the total amount: $2339, and the insurance amount, $319.45. Doesn’t seem like they are doing much for the uninsured does it? I called Scripps to find out.

I called the billing department and the clerk confirmed that, yes, the insurance company only paid them $319.45 for my son’s visit. Since I had a $15 copay the total cost was $345.45. Quite a discount from $2,339.

I wasn’t through at this point though. I told the lady that this sounded like a pretty good argument for having insurance, since I would have hated to pay $2339 for  a visit where my son wasn’t even treated. She told me that they automatically gave everyone a 40% discount. I asked if somebody just paid the bill without calling them, would the refund the discount? She didn’t know the answer to this.

So, Scripps still gives all the love to the insurance company and not the patients. The insurance company gets an 85% discount from the charge on the bill. If you pick up the phone and call them, you get your 40% discount. In that case the insurance company discount is only 75%. And I still don’t know about that 40% discount. Is it a seasonal special? The 40% is the same percentage the Court said they were overcharging poor people. Maybe this is their idea of giving back?