I have no idea what the doctor charged or wanted to charge for piercing the kid's ears. But I don't blame the doctor for documenting it one bit. In the lawsuit-happy world we live in, if I was a doctor I would document everything I did too.

So maybe the doctor charged a bunch and is a sleaze-ball. Or maybe the doctor just included that in the list of what they did, didn't add anything extra to the bill, but the insurance company decided to parse out that particular "procedure" and push back on what they were paying the doctor based on what they had approved.

There is some sleaziness going on here - but I don't think the article tells us enough to know who.

And yeah, Mom was probably dumb for not asking a few more questions first.

I think there's a lot of misinformation out there - and some comes from the medical providers. For example, I had surgery on my foot. I told the post-op nurse I already had crutches from a previous surgery. She said "their free anyway - the insurance pays for them" and gave me the crutches. I tried to explain I didn't need them, and she just told me it was all part of the package. (Why is medical stuff so expensive? Waste like THIS! If someone doesn't need new crutches, don't push them! Those are the kinds of things that start to add up for all of us!)

Six weeks later I got a bill for "my portion" of what I owed for the crutches. Apparently they are $350 devices and my portion was $160 and some change. Looks like the nurse has a different idea of what "free" is than I do.

With this situation, I'm just curious how much was misunderstanding, and how much was someone trying to take advantage and get paid.