Ali was going through common patient billing practice when he first found the discrepancy. It was the kind of work usually handled by Robert Milken and his assistants: look at the clinic's billing structure, audit random patient charges to compare against the structure, repeat ad nauseam. Ali felt the need to familiarize himself with the hospital's pricing, though, so here he was. It was deadly dull, boring work—he might never have noticed if he hadn't been wired on Maranya's coffee.
But he was awake, and looking through the billing, and there it was: inpatient in-residence MD consultation, one hour, 235.01. He checked it against the structure book spread out on his computer's desktop. Specialized medicine, inpatient in-residence MD consultation...235.00/hr. He looked back and forth between the paper printout and the computer screen. Had the consultation had run over by some precisely defined fraction of a second"
No, said the structure when he queried it, though it took several minutes of digging. Anything up to sixty minutes of in-resident consultation was charged as a solid hour, at 235.00. However, there was a separate structure for patient indigency that muddied the waters, and it was difficult to tell whether any particular patient was noted as indigent or not, just by looking at the bill.
On a whim, he trolled through the remainder of the stack of bills, all fifty of them. Every single one was off in some charge, by a single copper. The extra penny was always in some less well-defined region of the bill—a prorated surcharge for cleaning the room after the patient was gone, or consultation time, or something called "research/filing fees."
Every single one. One copper penny. He could feel a headache starting behind his left eye. He rubbed at it, rubbed at his forehead, called Lorelei in.
Two minutes later she appeared, somehow managing to bounce in four-inch heels. "You rang, Boss?" she sang...then took in his expression, half-angry and half-bewildered. "What's up?" she asked him, with less cheer.
"I need...I don't even know what I need. Let's try—can you get me some paper copies of the deposit records of the hospital for the last..." he checked the billing records scattered all over his desk, "...six months?"
"Well, normally the accountants work with just the electronic files for everything, but I can probably get them from the bank. Anything else?" Lorelei asked him, lips pursed in thought, her elven ears twitching with it.
"Yes. If anyone asks you why I need it, here or over at the bank, tell them...tell them I'm checking the bank's efficiency in cycling our deposits. Make it sound like I'm angry with the bank for not processing them fast enough. And tell me who asks, if they do." Ali picked up a bill, saw the penny overcharge, and flipped it away across the desk. It sailed off the edge and onto the floor. His growl was enough to startle the elf.
"Okay, um, Boss...is everything all right?" Lorelei managed to make retrieving and replacing the bill look like performance art, but that was what elves did, even cheeky administrative assistant elves.
"I don't know yet. We'll see."
But he was awake, and looking through the billing, and there it was: inpatient in-residence MD consultation, one hour, 235.01. He checked it against the structure book spread out on his computer's desktop. Specialized medicine, inpatient in-residence MD consultation...235.00/hr. He looked back and forth between the paper printout and the computer screen. Had the consultation had run over by some precisely defined fraction of a second"
No, said the structure when he queried it, though it took several minutes of digging. Anything up to sixty minutes of in-resident consultation was charged as a solid hour, at 235.00. However, there was a separate structure for patient indigency that muddied the waters, and it was difficult to tell whether any particular patient was noted as indigent or not, just by looking at the bill.
On a whim, he trolled through the remainder of the stack of bills, all fifty of them. Every single one was off in some charge, by a single copper. The extra penny was always in some less well-defined region of the bill—a prorated surcharge for cleaning the room after the patient was gone, or consultation time, or something called "research/filing fees."
Every single one. One copper penny. He could feel a headache starting behind his left eye. He rubbed at it, rubbed at his forehead, called Lorelei in.
Two minutes later she appeared, somehow managing to bounce in four-inch heels. "You rang, Boss?" she sang...then took in his expression, half-angry and half-bewildered. "What's up?" she asked him, with less cheer.
"I need...I don't even know what I need. Let's try—can you get me some paper copies of the deposit records of the hospital for the last..." he checked the billing records scattered all over his desk, "...six months?"
"Well, normally the accountants work with just the electronic files for everything, but I can probably get them from the bank. Anything else?" Lorelei asked him, lips pursed in thought, her elven ears twitching with it.
"Yes. If anyone asks you why I need it, here or over at the bank, tell them...tell them I'm checking the bank's efficiency in cycling our deposits. Make it sound like I'm angry with the bank for not processing them fast enough. And tell me who asks, if they do." Ali picked up a bill, saw the penny overcharge, and flipped it away across the desk. It sailed off the edge and onto the floor. His growl was enough to startle the elf.
"Okay, um, Boss...is everything all right?" Lorelei managed to make retrieving and replacing the bill look like performance art, but that was what elves did, even cheeky administrative assistant elves.
"I don't know yet. We'll see."