Con #5 – Dentist Bills (I Hate Teeth…all of them)
In August I finally got up the courage to take my newly found health insurance coverage (almost a year old at that point) and go to the Dentist. As a college student, the dentist is something I never had the luxury of attending as those things tend to cost money and by definition, as a college student I had no such money.
So, he cleaned my teeth, tried to talk me into some weird procedures that my insurance doesn’t cover and had me back for three fillings. I assumed the fillings were covered, but alas, upon closer inspection they were not. For whatever reason, these are considered non-priorities by the insurance company and I was left with almost half the bill (which is a lot). I don’t know much about teeth or insurance companies but that seems to suck.
Anyways, I got a bill a couple months later and assumed it was bogus, that the insurance hadn’t paid yet, so I ignored it. Another bill arrived and I decided to call them. But, I forgot. Then another bill and now I’m forced to deal with it. By this time I’m already sans full time job and can’t really afford the $500 regardless of who’s to blame.
But, low and behold I’m about 5 weeks away from going to collection over the whole thing, mainly because I wasn’t smart enough to look at my coverage and see that I would get royally screwed for my three tiny fillings. Fast forward 4 and a half weeks and I’m out $500 and about two weeks behind on my savings to make sure I can eat for a little while longer.
The moral of the story? Teeth suck and I hate them. Dentists suck a little more, and insurance companies are the Antichrist.
