i hate health insurance

As nice as it is to know that I have some sort of financial benefit in the case of a health crisis, dealing with my health insurance company is hell. My latest complaint has to do with (drum roll please) a bogus bill. The billing office of our local doctor has been trying to bill the wrong insurance company for the last several months, and although we've provided them with our correct information a half a dozen times, they still can't get it right. Now they've got the nerve to send us a threatening letter stating that they will send our claim into a collection agency if we don't pay.

Here's the real rub. On the bill, it states that insurance company x denied our claim. Big surprise, since that is the company that we don't have insurance from. But it also states on the bottom of the bill that "our records indicate that your primary insurance provider is company Y" which is the correct company. So they've obviously got it correct somwhere...just not on this bill.

Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be worth it to just drop the insurance and finance our own health care - medical, dental, vision, etc. The amount of time that I have spent dealing with these morons has probably cost me much more than I have saved. After all time is money. Short of some catastrophic illness, it seems like insurance is just getting ridiculous. I have NEVER had an insurance company that could get the billing correct. It seems like they're always screwing everything up and then making us jump through hoops to get it fixed, all the while threatening us for not paying.

The other alternative is to just not go to the doctor. This is one that I naturally gravitate towards, because I don't like doctors. I can't stand dentists, either. Sometimes I think that I'd be happier (and better off) just trying to buy my own health products and reading online how I might treat myself. Maybe I'm just overreacting, though.

I left the doctor's billing office a scathing voicemail, so we'll see how they respond this time.