Hospitals' Billing Offices Put us in 'Purgatory'

To the Editor:

In the latter half of March this year, Paul had a medical condition requiring urgent care. For reasons obvious to many, we chose to drive from Altoona to Conemaugh/Nason to receive prompt treatment. In early April, he also received treatment in Pittsburgh at UPMC.

Those events became the less unpleasant parts of a continuing saga in which we ceased to believe that professionals were participating with us to ensure a positive experience.

The adventure with both Nason’s and UPMC’s billing offices proves to be empirical evidence of a particularly nasty region of Purgatory.

Both off...