Meridian Health Systems

My husband was admitted to Meridian Health in Neptune following a horrible accident. Quality of care was good. But should every hospital administer quality care to their patients? Quality of care goes beyond a sterile environment, it also includes quality customer service. Customer service allows patients the opportunity to properly adjust to their situation and go on with life in a positive manor when they are released. Billing should be at the top of the list when it comes to assisting patients. How can a person properly recover when they are worried about a bill? Or better yet, mislead?
If you’ve spent the night in the hospital and didn’t have health insurance you know that before you leave someone will visit you and ask how you are going to pay your bill. Like clock work, still upset from the trauma of almost loosing my husband, a hospital official came and spoke to us regarding our payment options. We were told that we would qualify for charity care and it should cover everything, including any outpatient services he needed. Even while my husband was in outpatient we were assured time and again that we would be covered.
Several months later and 30 thousand plus dollars in medical bills, we were told we did NOT qualify for charity care. In fact, we weren’t even close to qualifying! In the mean time, the hospital did not tell us that we hadn’t received the charity care and the billing department sent our case to collections. The best part is when we called to speak with the case worker, she told my husband that she didn’t see any point in calling to tell us. When she got on the phone with me, she said she was waiting to send the letter out to see if she could reverse it. Then we found out we weren’t even close to qualifying.
So you didn’t call us and you were waiting to send us the letter, how were we supposed to reconcile the issue and determine how we were going to pay this bill?
Customer Service within hospitals is like any other organization, it goes above and beyond the initial service offering.