Brave new...something

I got a phone call from a collections agency today; they were demanding (because collections agencies are not huge on the nice) that I pay them right-now-exclamation-mark for a medical bill I'd either already paid about half a year ago, or was new enough that the hospital hadn't even billed me yet (both transactions had similar balances, and figuring out which it was was part of the problem).

That's not very interesting. What's interesting, at least to me, is how much of my life is online.

Because this phone call was a complete out-of-the-blue surprise, I didn't have any documentation of dates of service or previous bills or any other paperwork with me. But I was able to gather all these things by just looking at a few places online.

I was able to get dates and amounts already paid from Mint, and further details on specific transactions through my banks' online sites. I got dates of doctor's appointments from Google Calendar, and further details on the timing of my MRI from Twitter. I was able to narrow down the end of my Orencia treatments and rheumatologist visits from this blog.

What's ironic, though, is that the hospital's online billing site, the insurance carrier's site, and the collection agency's payment site were all completely useless. They are annoying to use, their data is outdated, and they have no useful searching to speak of. They frequently error or time out, and the interfaces look dated; you're generally better off calling these companies, even considering how terrible most over-the-phone customer service (both in terms of competency, and, you know, service) is. These companies would do well to learn a thing or two from these flexible (and free) services.

In the end, we figured out where exactly the bill was coming from, and everything ended well. But that's not very interesting, either.