She hung up the phone and made some notes on the sticky note. Then she called Atlanta General and maneuvered her way through the automated phone system until she received a human being in accounting.
“Hi, I’m calling about a past due balance owed by Natalie Osborne.”
“Is this Natalie Osborne?”
“No. I’m calling on her behalf.”
She argued with the woman who answered the phone and finally managed to work her way up to a supervisor, her goal all along. As he answered the phone, she took a deep calming breath then explained the situation.
“I cannot discuss patient records with you.”
“I’m not asking for the records. I’m explaining to you that you charged a young mother for the circumcision of her daughter. That debt needs to be removed from the account, and if they paid any portion of it, it needs to be refunded to them.”
She heard the clicking and clacking of a computer keyboard, then the man’s gruff voice returned. “This bill was turned over to collections more than two years ago. You’ll need to settle the debt with the collection agency.”
Struggling not to sound impatient, Daisy said, “I’m aware. I am explaining that Atlanta General turned an incorrect charge that was billed in error over to collections. I’m calling you so you can correct the error and remove the debt.”
“I’m afraid that I cannot discuss this with you. Please have Natalie Osborne contact us.” The line went dead.
Daisy stared at the receiver of the phone, unable to believe that he had hung up on her. She turned to her computer and typed out an angry letter with all the legalese that she could muster. She copied the hospital accounting department, the hospital director, the head of the maternity ward of the hospital, and the member from her Board of Directors who also sat on the hospital board. She had plenty of experience with hospital bills holding up her families from getting their land financed.
Once she hit send on the email, she printed the letter, signed it, and set it aside for Beverly to mail out to all the parties.
She imagined she would start getting replies to her email by tomorrow morning, no later than nine. She rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of going through this over something that common sense should have taken care of the first time the family contacted the hospital. The helplessness of people without resources facing bureaucratic red-tape made her so angry.
“It shouldn’t take this. It just shouldn’t,” she muttered.
She thought she might need to get up and go walk off some steam, but the phone rang. With Bev still running to the bank, she went ahead and answered it. “Gálatas Seis. How may I help you?”
“My name is Sasha. My cousin told me you helped him one time. My kids and I are about to get evicted from our apartment. Can you help me?”
Her anger toward the hospital accounting department dissipated immediately, and she pulled open the appropriate file on her computer. “Hi, Sasha, my name is Daisy. Let me get some information from you.”
An hour later, she got off the phone with the apartment manager. She checked her bank account and decided to get Sasha and her children some groceries. On a whim, she called Ken. “Are you free? I have some extra money, and I was going to go pick up some groceries for a family in need. Do you want to go shopping with me?”
When she pulled into the grocery store parking lot, she found Ken waiting for her. Out of the norm, he wore a pair of gray slacks and a white shirt and red tie. She smiled at him as she got out of the car. She hadn’t seen him since their fishing excursion on Sunday. “Wow, you’re sure dressing up for construction work these days. Where were you?”
He gestured with his thumb over his shoulder. “‘Bout a mile that way. New project breaking ground. Had a big hoopla with the press and City councilmen. It’s Brad’s job to smile pretty, but he had a conflict. Jon said he would cover it, but he had to go to New York for some reason, so he asked me to fill in.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Fill in as in pretend to be Jon pretending to be Brad?”
He frowned. “No. We don’t do that anymore.”
“I never could figure out how you got away with it anyway. You’re very different from Brad or Jon.” Ken gave her a one-sided grin but otherwise remained still. She gestured at the grocery store. “Ready?”
“Definitely. Thanks for the invite. I like stuff like this.”
She paused inside the grocery store and looked at the produce section. “I’m shopping for a single mom with three kids. I have no idea what their storage space is like, or even if they have electricity. Since Gálatas Seis just paid three months’ rent to keep them from being evicted, I almost want to say there’s likely no electricity. I think we need to be careful with what we buy.”
“What’s the address?” Ken pulled his phone out of his pocket. Daisy handed him the note pad that she had written the address on. She listened to him call the power company while she loaded the cart with apples, oranges, and bananas. He handed the pad back to her as he hung up his phone.
“What did they say?” Daisy asked.
He nodded. “You were right. No power. I paid the arrears and padded a few months and got it turned back on.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t have to do that. I would’ve gone through the proper process once I evaluated the entire situation.”
“No doubt. Just saving time is all.” He put a watermelon into the bottom of the cart. “Since the power was cut, we should probably assume they have no perishables at all.”
