AVALON — UPMC customer Josh Clifford had no idea a neat little surprise awaited him when he got home from work today.
When he kindly informed them last Thursday of a significant in-network overcharge on his latest visit to the dermatologist, he figured it would be weeks at best before he heard back.
Yet there it was, sitting carefully in his mailbox.
“I saw a piece of mail with their logo on it right away,” said Clifford, cell phone blasting classical music from the speaker while his wait on hold entered a second hour. “‘Kill ’em with kindess,’ I had thought to myself after resisting the urge to scream at the first person I could reach and was surprised to have seen it work. Then I realized those bastards sent me a goddamn second notice.”
“They even personalized the ending of the attached letter to say, ‘You’re Welcome.'”
Clifford didn’t know at the time the other minor flourishes he would find within.
“They not only didn’t adjust the bill; it was actually higher,” he noted, screaming “Main menu!” at the automated phone service. “When I asked for itemization of my charges, I didn’t mean for the additional money it took to send me another bill. At this point, I’m just trying to figure out what a Grievance Denial Fee is.”
When reached for comment, company spokesperson Bruce Hagerty wanted to lay the exchange out in the open.
“We want to make overtly clear,” he said. “We appreciate you Mr. Clifford and your extremely polite request that we adjust the charges of your specialist visit earlier this month, so it’s with the warmth and personal touch you can only get here that we renew our demand for $450 by the end of next week or we swear to fucking Christ we’ll see your cheapskate ass buried in a pauper’s grave, you hear us?”
“Oh,” he added quickly, “and thank you for choosing UPMC.”
