The other day I got a letter in the mail. It appeared to be from my health insurance company, but in fact, upon closer inspection, was from a third party. On the top it says “On behalf of Anthem Blue Cross”. The words on behalf of was my first clue.

Below the fold the letter states:

Dear Member. We need your help. On behalf of our client listed above, you are being asked to complete this questionnaire. Meridian Resource Company is reviewing your claims to determine if the services you received were a result of an accident in which another party may be responsible for payment. Examples include, but are not limited to…

So its a money hustle. Turns out, I’m not the only one to get such a letter. JohnMac from the Daily Kos got one as well. His response is much more polite than mine.

It turns out that there’s a name for this kind of thing. Its called Subrogation. Apparently, when I signed up for my health insurance, I signed up for subrogation as well. I guess I missed that clause in the sea of lawyerese. Still this kind of crap irks me.

Last summer my right shoulder started bothering me more than the normal amount. Way back in college I injured it playing flag-football, and ever since then its needed to be warmed up well to function. Add a few decades, a kid, a pool, and a busy father with no time to think about warming up first, and eventually you get a problem. In my case, Frozen Shoulder.

At the time I didn’t know what it was, I only knew I couldn’t move my shoulder, and whenever I did it hurt enough to knock my knees out from underneath me. Even worse, it got to the point where the pain was keeping me from sleeping. No sleepy, no worky. In the course of seeing my doctor about this I got asked a bunch of times if this injury was the result of a car accident of work related injury. I always answered no, because it wasn’t.

Apparently that NO was sufficient. Now a company I have no direct relationship with is asking me for information so they can fleece down somebody else and raise corporate profits. And to think I have friends who call taxes theft.

Does this kind of sleazy money hustle piss off anyone else like it does me?