Holiday Correspondence! Ho! Ho! Ho!

So yesterday evening when I got home from work, I was going through my mail in the kitchen as my sister recounted her day and the latest escapades of this insane person who works with her. Having to deal with my own work insanity, you can imagine how I wanted to stick kitchen utensils in my ears. I almost did, but then Bonita came up to me all purry and sweet and I decided to save mashing kitchen utensils in my ears for another day.

But that’s not even what I want to write about this morning! While I was going through my mail, I found a letter from my son’s dental office. Thinking that it’s the holidays, and that they would be thankful to me for giving them lots and lots of money earlier in the year to help pay their mortgages, I’m thinking it’s some kind of wish for a great Christmas and New Year! Yay! I open the envelope to find within it actual stationary. Wow! The doctor has written me a personalized note! Double Yay!

So the letter starts off…

“Insomuch as you have disregarded your payment contract with Dr. Keri, and have blah blah blah blah…blah blah blah…our ATTORNEY blah blah blah…”

So my first reaction to this letter? I couldn’t understand a word it was saying up until I got to the bottom of the letter and saw ATTORNEY in caps since I was so distracted by her use of the word “Insomuch.”

Well, the letter referred a bill they believe is outstanding and they want paid. Since I had paid this stupid $61.00 bill over three months ago, I wrote my nice dentist a letter and included a copy of the paid check, showing their stupid office as having deposited it into their stupid account over three months ago.

Dear Dr. Keri.

Insomuch that I know you are very busy with your dentaling duties, I just want to thank you for taking the time to actually write me! First off, please find enclosed a copy of the cashed check made payable to your office in the sum of $61.00. As you can see from the date stamped on the back of the check, the check was cashed by your office over three months ago. Also, in the spirit of Christmas, I’ve taken the liberty of photoshopping a smiley face on the back of the cashed check for effect. I hope you enjoy it!

Additionally, insomuch as I was quite impressed by your use of the word “insomuch”, I just have to say that when I got to the bottom of your letter and saw the word “ATTORNEY” mentioned, I was quite alarmed! I had to go back and re-read your entire letter since nothing much after your use of the word “insomuch” got through to me up until that point since I was wondering if “insomuch” is actually a word.

You’ll be happy to know that “insomuch” is an actual word. At least I think it is, as it’s not come up as a misspelled word on my word processor.

Go you!

Anyways, back to the ATTORNEY part of your letter. I think it’s a bit over-reactive on your part to threaten taking this issue of my account to your attorney when as you can see by the enclosed cashed-check copy, there is no outstanding balance owed on my account. But since you have pressed an issue of non-payment, of which there is no non-payment issue, and I’m sure this whole thing has arisen in great part due to the fact your book-keeping staff sucks, please allow me to give you some feed back on your operation.

Basic book-keeping-

Who the heck do you hire to do actual book-keeping for you? My six year-old is most likely able to balance books better than the incompetent clown you have in your office. The math on my account is very simple. $61.00 not paid by insurance company. Subtract check for $61.00 I sent you and you cashed to the balance. Viola! $0.00. Very simple math! You don’t even have to carry a 1 or borrow a 1 from the 6, or try to figure out how many apples and oranges and wild llamas affect the end result! In fact, it’s nice that the sum in question is exactly $61.00, as my son did have this very same subtraction problem in his math homework last week, and guess what? He got it right without any help from me!

Go him!

Which brings another thought to mind. As my six year-old has proven by way of being able to do his math homework correctly and most likely be able to balance your accounts with no problem, his taste in toys are becoming a bit expensive and the allowance I give him on a weekly basis just never seems to be enough right now. I’m sure he’d gladly take over the book work from your incompetent book keeper for a measly $25.00 per hour. Just let me know what you think and I’m sure we can come to some suitable working arrangement between his schooling, play time and karate practice.

Issue of run-around on refund of money owed to me-

Back in January I paid, upfront, a substantial amount of money for work on my son’s teeth. I was told by your office a bill would be submitted to my dental insurance and your office would send me a reimbursement for the difference my insurance company did not cover. After receiving a statement from my insurance notifying me of the amount of benefit they covered and what I can expect in a refund from your office, I called your office to make sure you received payment from my insurance company. I was told that your office did receive the payment. I was then told that my refund check would be mailed to me and I should receive it in a week.

After waiting a month and no refund check had arrived, I called your office again to inquire about the refund check. I asked that someone call me back to let me know what to expect. I never received a call back. I then visited your office on four different occasions asking to speak with the office manager so I could get my refund. On three of those occasions the office manager was not available to speak to me. On the fourth I was able to catch her as she was trying to make her way out the door to go to lunch after I had been waiting to see her over 15 minutes. It was then and only then that I was able to get my refund.

Between the time I received my statement from my insurance company, and the run-around from your office staff in refunding me my money, a good 3 months had elapsed.

In my opinion, you must have received a nice amount of interest off my refund as it sat in your bank account. Very smart of you and what a way to run a business!

Idiots masquerading as your front staff workers-

I find it interesting that every time I call your office I am referred to someone else, since the person answering the phone never knows the answer to anything. Then of course the person I am referred to is never available, so the person who doesn’t know anything has to take a message. I have a suggestion. Give the person who does know the answer to everything a damn phone! This would save the idiot person you have answering the phone from having to write down messages for the person who does have the answers, but who never returns phone calls to begin with.

Insomuch as I have not had a pleasant experience with your office in general, I hope you can understand why I would be livid over your letter referencing an ATTORNEY. Especially since the issue of non-payment is not the issue in my eyes. The real issue is the incompetence in your staff and you having hired them, well I hate to say this but it makes you look incompetent as well.

Please be informed that I will be forwarding this copy of my letter to you, along with your letter referencing an ATTORNEY, and my hand written notes on dealing with your practice to my ATTORNEY for safe keeping.

Additionally, unfortunately for you I have a bit of clout in my work place in terms of referrals to pediatric dentists. I’m the VP for Benefits in HR for God’s sake so by golly I actually have clout! I bet you didn’t know that. Or maybe you did since it is on my account profile, but you don’t care because you are more concerned with trying to get another $61.00 out of me because you might think I’m Ms. Money Bags or something. Well despite my title, I’m a single mom and so for a single person with my title and with no kids, she would be Ms. Money Bags and have a plethera of extra $61.00’s to throw around at the drop of the word ATTORNEY should she choose, but I do not.

So back to referral part? You can be assured that I will no longer be referring my employees to a dental office that has pushed the envelope in proving incompetence. I mean pushing the envelope can be a good thing if you want to show great customer service and such, but I believe your staff has consistently pushed the envelope in the wrong direction, and that your letter is the saliva that sealed the incorrectly pushed envelope.

Hopefully, based on the above, you will understand my disappointment in my experience with your office. Therefore I request that you send me my son’s dental records as soon as possible so I can make arrangements to pay another dental office my hard earned cash and help them pay their mortgages on those big homes you dentists are so fond of owning and paying for new black bottom pools.

And lastly, from the bottom of my heart, happy holidays to you and your family!!! :)