“Remember when we said you were paid in full the first time? And the second time? Well, we want more money NOW!!”

There’s an old joke about a person who laments that his father’s funeral costs $75,000 so far. When asked why he said “so far,” he replied that his father was buried in a rented tuxedo.

That’s funny … but what I have to say next is NOT funny.

Recap.

A few weeks ago, the company that distributes and rents out the wound vac I needed to help repair my recent foot injury and surgery – KCI – contacted me and demanded an additional $240 payment on top of the over $1,000 I paid them as my portion of the wound vac rental (my insurance company paid the other half).

KCI blamed the discrepancy on the insurance company taking back a portion of what they paid. A call to my health insurance company revealed that they had NOT taken anything back; KCI incorrectly billed for the usage, sent a revised bill to the insurance company, and then demanded I pay the difference before the insurance company could settle anything.

In fact, I blogged about the situation. Because of course I did.

“Thank you for paying your bill in full three months ago. Now pay us $240 more RIGHT NOW.”

And in that blog post, I made what I thought was a very caustic prediction. “I was already extorted for $240. Who knows if three months from now, KCI contacts me again and says, ‘Well, you know what, Mr. Miller? You owe us another, oh, let’s say $3,000, pay us in 20 minutes or we’ll send someone over to break your fingers.'”

I should tell you that my pensive prediction proved prescient.

Because KCI sent me a bill for an additional $400, and demanded immediate payment.

I called KCI the instant I received the bill. And again, I received a message of, “Oh, that money was taken back by your insurance company with no explanation. You really need to discuss that with them. In the meantime, you owe us another $400 for your wound vac rental.”

I am not bullshitting you. They’re pulling something here. They’re charging me AGAIN after they told me FOUR WEEKS AGO that my account was paid in full.

I also looked at the date of the invoice. It was sent May 10th. I paid what I thought was the final payment on May 8th. So there’s no way this company could just skip over THAT payment and continue to charge me, hoping I would just pay the bill and not realize I’d been double-billed for this service.

Another call to my insurance company. And luckily, I spoke with Cynthia, the person who oversaw the previous situation. She and I took another three-way call with KCI, who now claimed that the bill had been sent to their higher-ups for review, and that no decision could be made at this time – however, that did NOT mean that the mysterious $400 debt was stayed, meaning if I didn’t pay soon, it would get put into collection.

Cynthia requested to speak with the supervisor of billing. We were transferred. A few rings … and then a “I can’t take your call now, please leave a message” response.

We got message-dumped.

Oh, this KCI company is checking ALL the asshole boxes. They’ve already rocketed past Allstate and Spectrum / Time Warner Cable and Verizon and Rocky Mountain Film Lab for shitty customer treatment.

So at this point … I’m in a holding pattern. I

And who knows what might happen three weeks from now … or three months from now … or three minutes after I post this blog?

I called KCI a few days later, and landed back in their fortified automated phone system. “If you wish to pay a bill, press [1],” said the recording.

Screw it. I pressed [1]. Suddenly I was on the line with a representative from KCI. Oh, when they want money, the connection comes up lightning-fast, but any other time I could clock the wait time with a sundial.

I was informed that the amount owed is under internal review and may be resolved within 30 business days. Oh, great. Just in time for them to claim that, yeah, Chuck didn’t pay, and we’re going to claim he’s delinquent and put a bad mark on his credit report.

And then yesterday … KCI called me again.

Oh, I can’t wait for this little message.

Well, the representative who called me told me, in no uncertain terms, that after internal discussions and review – and after speaking with my insurance company again – the $400 bill was sent in error, that I do NOT owe any bill to KCI, and they consider the matter closed.

I asked what brought them to this decision. They said that they could NOT discuss internal decisions within the company, but that as far as they were concerned, the matter was closed and that I should ignore that $400 invoice.

Yeah, right. I was born on a Sunday, but I wasn’t born LAST Sunday. What this smells like is KCI sending me a bill and hoping I would get so frustrated with my insurance company (“Oh, you pulled back more money and now I’m responsible?”), that I would pay an additional $400 on top of the last batch of overages I paid. Because, yeah, blame the big bad health insurance company, our little durable medical equipment rental company is innocent as the first winter snow.

Uh-huh. You know someone at my insurance company probably tore them a big enough wound for seven simultaneous wound vacs.

It’s like I said before. If I had known KCI was going to pull shit like this on me after surgery …

I would have told the doctor to cut my foot off at the THIGH.