The Miracle of Obedience

A little over a week ago, I received a gum graft on some of my bottom teeth. It is fairly expensive, but we thought it would be worth it to do now while we have dental insurance. As soon as the surgery was done, I went to the front counter to pay our 20%, and the secretary told me that she would be submitting the claim with double the price on two teeth instead of the quoted price on four teeth. The periodontist had done the work on four teeth, and the total amount would be the same, but she said this was how they did it so the insurance wouldn't refuse to pay because four teeth in a row had been worked on. This was the first time I had been told about this, and my mouth felt like a giant cave of stitches and blood, so I mumbled an okay. But a little red flag went up in my mind.

I spent the next few days telling myself that this must be standard procedure. But that didn't explain why she felt the need to tell me about it. It didn't feel right. I told myself that the doctor is running a business, so he has the right to change the price for a service and how the service is charged. That still didn't feel right. After a week of this uncomfortable feeling about what the secretary had told me, I told Bethany what was going on. We decided that if it is dishonest, then we need to do something about it. But maybe I was being too careful. We don't know anything about insurance claims, but the secretary does. I called the insurance company, and their customer service was so fantastic that they were no help at all.

Still wondering why I felt like I was cheating somehow, I spent a little time on the internet searching about insurance claims and I found some things that indicated that what the secretary had told me was not just dishonest but also called insurance fraud. The periodontist is engaging in the most common type of insurance fraud, which is to describe a different service than the one that was performed to one that is sure to be covered. This is not a perfect description of what had happened, but it helped me understand why I might be feeling so bad about letting it happen. I decided to tell the secretary to resubmit the claim with true information.

This morning at 8:30 am I had the follow up appointment. The periodontist said everything was fine, so I was done quickly. I then spoke with the secretary. It was not a comfortable experience. There was not any contention, but she was not happy with my request. We obviously talked about the possible consequences of this, and we will have to continue our conversation after we see how the insurance company responds. But she agreed to resubmit the claim, and she understood why I was asking for this. I was out the door by 9 am.

For the entire school year, I have been desperately searching for a job for this summer. Without one, Bethany will have to work full time while I do nothing between my MBA and the start of law school. The only success I have had in my job search was an informal interview from a company that gave me an informal offer and has not contacted me or responded to my emails since.

When I got home from the periodontist's office, I synced my email and there was a message from a place I had applied to asking me for an interview this week. The message was sent at 8:55 am, which must have been the very minute I finished my conversation with the secretary about the dishonest insurance claim. I don't know how this issue with the insurance will turn out, and I don't know if I will get this job, but sometimes the Lord's timing is really amazing. It reminds me that He must sometimes be waiting to bless us.