~
We have a Flexible Spending Account (for non-American readers that’s where an employee can have money deducted from their pay, pre-tax, which can then be used to reimburse all those uncovered medical expenses like deductibles, co-payments, dental and eye care – and until January 1st it used to cover over-the-counter medications!).
So…. we have one of those and every couple of months I fax in a claim for reimbursement and dutifully send all the appropriate receipts.
In the mail we received the following denial letter which gave me a really good laugh as the cost of generating the letter plus the postage far outweighed the penny denied!
I’m really tempted to appeal it…. just for the fun of it.
What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever had denied?
Aussie Emjay's Blog 
Oh my gosh, how ridiculous! They should have just paid it and saved themselves some money. LOL.
Yes it seemed very petty! 🙂
Ha! That’s kind of amusing.
I recently had to call the bank over a penny. I closed our one savings account and transferred the money to another one – at a branch. The teller must have put the wrong debit amount for the old account because it was overdrawn by a penny. I got emails and a letter in the mail saying I was bad because my account was overdrawn and I’d have to pay all of these fees. Thankfully one painless call to the branch got the account closed and things taken care of. And I got to keep that extra penny that was put into the new savings account. Maybe I should send it to you. 😉
LOL Amanda – it’s amazing how troublesome a penny can be!
Amazing. Will they bill you for the postage, now?
A penny denied is a penny, erm, spent?
LOL – wouldn’t I be annoyed to find that charge in my next statement!
Since the reason for denial was an unclear copy/fax, you should totally fight it!
Mine constantly rejected stuff from “Memorial Prompt Care” and any “Hospital”, like I was making up the bills or that they weren’t medical issues. But about 1/2 way through the year, they stopped that nonsense – I guess someone finally got enough of a workload not to worry about the small stuff.
I have a friend with a chronic illness and every month he has to appeal all the rejections that were appealed and then paid the month before! I guess the company hopes that he gets tired of appealing every month and just gives up claiming!.
At least you know that they are counting each and every cent.
LOL – that’s true – every penny counts! 🙂
We got reimbursed for something in the U.S. for around $1.30. We have no idea why this cheque was sent to us (some work benefit thing). Anyway, it was posted to us in the U.K., but we had already moved to Australia. Royal Mail in the UK forwarded it to us. At that point I would have had to post it to our bank in the US to deposit it. How much do you think it cost to ship that cheque nearly around the world? I threw it out.
LOL – that’s a good story! That cheque’s the sort of thing I keep – and then I’ll be looking at in 10 years time wondering why I’d kept a cheque for $1.30! LOL – and I wonder why I have so much clutter!
Did it take you long to change from “check” to “cheque” ? 🙂
It did when we were in the UK. It is nearly out of my vocabulary now except that odd time we need to write one. Or when my insurance company doesn’t listen to me and sends a cheque instead of depositing into US account. And I have too much clutter as it is…don’t need any help there!
OMG you should totally appeal it. It’s the ultimate payback, LOL
One hoity toity “internet cafe” in our region opened up and when I went to pay for coffee, they told us they did not accept cash. Boneheads.
Not accept cash??? OMG – that’s ridiculous – how elitist. I wouldn’t go back.
Lol.
Imagine if you did appeal and they sent you a piece of paper saying LOL
LOL – that would make a good skit!
The letters are typically generated by a computer program which kicks in to notify you when a claim has been denied and for how much. It would take more money for them to pay someone to circumvent the programing to NOT generate the letter than it would for them to pay the postage.
Because of the tax implications Flexible Spending Accounts are highly regulated. I wonder if the regulations prevent them from setting a default which informs the system to NOT generate the letter if the amount being denied is under the amount it would cost them to print and mail the letter.
Those silly computer programs. I worked at a place that did healthcare transactions. I kept trying to explain to the accountant that the programing she’d requested would automatically forgive debts up to a certain amount (don’t remember, but I think it was around 200.00) after the debter hadn’t made a payment for three months. Can you imagine??? She wouldn’t listen. In that case it was the silly human that was making the horrid business decision, which was no doubt later blamed on IT.
You would think though that the data processing person looking at my cover sheet and my receipts would have some latitude when it came to just one penny. ….
LOL – I ‘d like to have accounts with a company that forgave debts and effectively just wrote them off after 3 months! I’ve never found one though. 🙂
Maybe the data processing person fat fingered the calculation or denied the penny just to pull your chain. Heehee!!
That’s wonderful. We’re so efficient! Customer service and common sense – two things that rarely coexist.
LOL – I thought you’d written common cents … 🙂
This is why I loathe health insurance companies. Shortly after I came home from the hospital after giving birth to my younger daughter, we got a letter from our HMO, saying they wouldn’t pay for my “stomach x-ray.” I called them (while the baby was sleeping!) and said, “What stomach x-ray?” “The stomach x-ray you received while you were hospitalized.” I laughed and said, “I never received any x-ray. I just had my baby.” The “customer representative” then began arguing with me that I MUST have gotten an x-ray because it said so in their records, so I finally asked them to show me the x-rays when they got them. I never heard from the HMO after that, but I wondered how much it cost them to process their false claim.
LOL @ that stomach x-ray! When I fell over and broke my shoulder last year I got carted off to hospital in an ambulance. Our health insurance company paid for everything except the ambulance. It was $500 to go a mile! The manservant was on the phone very quickly and they said it was denied because it “wasn’t an emergency” !! He maintained that of course it was an emergency because they took me away and deposited me at a hospital emergency room the costs of which they’d already covered. We had to complete many forms and file an official appeal and then continue to follow it up for 3 months! – I’m pretty sure they hope people won’t bother with all the hoops. In the end they covered all but $50.
Brilliant.
The silliest think I’ve been denied is a cup of peppermint tea on a train because I wasn’t a first class passenger. First class passengers get free drinks, standard have to pay but they wouldn’t let me pay for a peppermint tea because they only serve peppermint tea to first class and it would mess up their stock take. Standard class could have English Breakfast tea, Earl Grey or Camomile.
In the end I demanded to see the train manager and he agreed it was a stupid system and gave me a peppermint tea for free.
LOL re the peppermint tea – that’s a terrific story! Some rules border on ludicrous.
I was in shopping for Christmas and was going to use the charge card for a big purchase. So, I had them call to raise my limit, just to see. they agreed and I used just a little bit of my credit line, not the whole thing. I then get two letters in the mail, one from the store telling me how they appreciate the purchase and that they were glad to have been able to extend my credit limit. Another letter from the credit company telling me I was denied. I get online and find that the credit line was extended. What?
LOL – I had a similar experience in a store. Open an account on the spot and get 10% off – a couple of days later I got a letter saying the account was declined (no credit rating at the time, hadn’t been in the country long) and demanding immediate payment for the stuff they’d let me purchase. One less card to get me into debt! 🙂
JC on a bike! Yep…of course. Eejits!
LOL @ JC on a bike! Haven’t heard that expression in a long time! 🙂
We used to get a monthly notice that we had a 3cent credit with a phone company. They wouldn’t pay it out as the credit couldn’t be refunded, yet every month they sent us a notice.
LOL – what a waste of paper! Might’ve been different if it was 5 cents…
I got a check for .17 once. No, I didn’t cash it. I did, however, just get a medical reimbursement check (for over-paying) $13.03. I sure as hell cashed it cos there are some weeks when that would’ve meant I actually was able to be in the black!
As a 2nd generation American, I still didn’t know what a flexible whatever it was … was 🙂 Maybe it goes by state or if you work for a good company.
I think the smallest cheque I’ve ever got was for a dollar-something – I banked it . I’m not sure of the regulations and what a company has to do to set up an FSA for employees but it benefits them in that Payroll taxes are reduced for them as well as being a pre-tax benefit to the employee.
that’s too funny! maybe they did it for a laugh. perhaps some one was bored at work one day? lol!
LOL – I love the idea of someone being bored!
Here you find the famous butterfly effect with this ridiculous penny : the square of an error on a data, is the sum of the bias and variance square :
E2 = B2 + σ2
Here the reason of the letter you received, less expansive than creating an error on just one penny ! …
LOL – Apolline you are too clever for me! 🙂
Don’t compromise your principles Emjay. Go get it. 🙂
It seems so petty to fight over a penny ….. I did find one on the footpath yesterday though – it was an exciting moment.
This is AWESOME!!!
Isn’t it! 🙂