The Tangled Web

I hate trying to straighten out medical billing problems.  OK, even if "we" (meaning one person in the household) brought them on ourselves.  Our primary insurance was, through a misstatement at a single medical appointment (by that one person in the household), wrongly re-designated as being the secondary payer, with our secondary insurance named now as primary.  We all know that was an unfortunate mixup, and one that needs to be set straight.  So I set off on the mission to inform all the claimants so the billing can be done correctly.  I called 7 medical providers so far; I'm sure there will be at least several more.  I don't know if it's in the interest of the billing office to deliberately not know what I'm trying to say, or if they just can't comprehend the problem, though it's hard to believe, being in the billing industry, that this is a unique situation.  Of course, there are the usual responses of "no one here to take your call so please leave a message."  But even contact with a live person leaves me with that feeling that, while they are hearing my words, that is the only action they plan to take.  One call resulted in the billing clerk, or whatever is the title, saying, "I will refund the payment wrongly received from who should be the secondary payer, bill your primary payer, and then re-submit your claim to the secondary payer."  It seems so simple when she said it.  I tried to repeat this plan of action to the other billing offices, but they either didn't or want to understand.  If I could hand out bonuses to employees, I would take great pleasure in doing so.