Gloria Y. Nichols/me vs Arlington Rehab/Carter Korey

When mom was in the ICU, hardly breathing because of pneumonia, and we knew it was only a matter of time, there was a moment of lucidity and she said to me, "be prepared".
When she passed, we were unable to give her the funeral service she deserved, with a grand Ruby plan from Funeraria Paz, but too far away to let it matter, we had a private cremation and a memorial service 40 days later.

But the "be prepared" did not mean her passing. It was what happened next. Arlington Rehab sent me a bill which I belieeived to be wrong. When we brought mom to the rehab center, Tricare was paying only the first 60 days and Patty and I said we would have to take her out if her Medicaid was not approved. Thankfully, it was and the way it works is, medicaid pays the rehab any amount after mom's pension is deducted. Which means that regardless of the rehab cost, the payment would only be her pension check minus any amounts paid for her insurance and personal needs.
The amount in the bill was too much. I told the accounts person that there was a mistake and to please check. With arrogance she said everything was correct.
From this came a series of calls and counter calls and then a sub poena as instead of calling me in to settle and check it out, they hired the services of a seeming ambulance chaser, a lawyer who also did not want to check my request. After two years of wrangling and threats from the lawyer, and my pleas for checking with medicaid, I had many sleepless nights and payments to my lawyer whose forte is not this kind of ridiculousness where he could not get the other lawyer to give me the billing. Instead there was a series of statements from the rehab and each time I questioned the bill, another came with a change of the bill when I pointed out there were errors in that they did not acknowledge the payments I had made. It became a series of changed statements and each one still reflected the wrong amounts.
The lawyer did not want to check why I was asking for the Medicaid statements. Sleepless nights and threats and requests to now look into patty's income status and her entire life aside from mine made me do what I should ahve done from the beginning, go to Medicaid.
Surprise, the woman said no one ever checked with them for the past 2 years....and that there was an error and it was corrected. And that why were we being charged for the month of GYN's death when Medicaid paid it in full knowing that her pension check would not be paid for that month.And then another round of statements again changed each time I pointed out the error. i still lost the case but for the correct amount. That was so exhausting and scary as the ambulance chasing lawyer continued to bully me and instead of writing me for payment plans went on to shut down my personal account and then file an arrest through the cook county sheriff. Finally, with the grace of God and as we celebrate GYN's 94th birthday, it is over.
Now I wonder if justice can really be served. They wanted to bill me the wrong amount and did not want to check. And billing me for when they were paid in full, stinks of fraud. And that if they checked my request from the beginning, I did not need to pay court fees nor lawyers fees. Smart lawyer, each time he re sets this, he got paid. I would have had to pay his fees if I did not show that the bill was wrong.
Sigh.
Anyway, after two years of stress, thank goodness its over. And we are celebrating GYN's 94th at a Polish Buffet, having decided to choose a cuisine from a place she has visited. She enjoyed her trip to Poland, just when Pope John Paul II was named Pope and Poland was still a communist country.