Voicemail

My cellphone rang today while I was in a meeting so I sent it to voicemail. A few hours later I retrieved the message: "Hello. This is UW Physicians. Please give us a call back at 1-800-<some number>. Thank you."

Since I had a few moments, I called them back. And after a few rounds of the world's worst hold music, a person came online: 

UW: Thank you for calling UW Physicians. How may I help you?
Me: I got a voice message telling me to call. 
UW: What number did we call?
Me: 206-<my phone number>.
UW: And who am I speaking to?
Me: <my name>
UW: And to verify, could you please give me your address and date of birth?
Me: <address>, <birth date>
UW: Thank you. We called you because we see you have a balance on your account. Would you like to pay that now?
Me: ?????????...  Uh, sure. I guess. 
UW: Great. I can take your credit card number as soon as you're ready...

When I got home I looked at my stack of bills. The only thing I had from UW Physicians came in early April. So we're talking less than forty-five days and they're already treating it as a collection? Really?

In my case it was no big deal, but what about the person for whom it is a big deal? Someone like, say, my Mum, who was incredibly sick, dying, increasingly frail, and stressed about the entire experience. How can calling that person forty-five days after you issue a bill to ask, "Do you want to pay your bill now?" be consistent with the health care mission of an organization called UW Physicians?

I'm not saying people shouldn't pay their bills, nor am I denying that I probably should've paid UW Physicians sooner.* But it just seems wrong for a health care organization that's dealing with some very sick people to take such an aggressive approach to collecting payment. 

If nothing else, I can tell you next time I won't be so quick to return their call. 


* Sib4 was helping me to sort out what was going on, so I stopped paying my medical bills while she was looking at the bills and EOBs.