But Wait! If You Act Now There's More!

Thought we were done with the Ghanaian hospital system? Well, there was one more thing we had to do once our Participant was released and I had an inkling it might be a reprise of our prior frustrations. 

 I had stopped our story because we were just so glad to have her out of the hospital. But checking out was not a simple process. You had to get a person from the Ward to go get your bill. Then you had to pay your bill. But no, we put a deposit down and the bill was for less than the deposit. The folks at Bill Pay said they had no record of the deposit. Go back to the Ward and get the deposit receipts. Done. Go back to Bill Pay. Nope. Go to Billing itself. They run a bunch of statements. Stamp them all and say we don't get copies. Plus we can't get the refund on Saturday. We have to come on Monday when the full staff is in and they can process it. But they do give us something and tell us to go back to the Ward so we can finally get our Participant out.

Monday comes and my driver, Frimpong, and I are back at the hospital. I had this feeling (cue the ominous music) that we were not just going to waltz in and get the refund. I mean how complicated could it be. They give us the statement that shows we paid in more than we owed, we go to the Bill Pay and we get our money back. 

Not quite.

The first part went as thought. BUT, then we were told we had to bring the papers to the Ward to have it verified. Done? No. You have to go to a different office and have all the papers copied (just a window in the wall to the office with a crowd of people around it all needing copies). Then you go back to the Ward. Each time you go to the Ward, I should mention, you have to find this one particular person, who I might say doesn't particularly like to be found (honestly, I think he has a crap load of stuff he is in charge of). But having Frimpong made it easier. 

Now having gotten our Ward certified set of papers, we go to the Bill Pay office and get our money.

Right?

Wrong.

We have to find some hospital-wide finance office way, way in the back of the facility. This requires wandering around, asking numerous people and finally finding the office. Frimpong by now has determined that I am pretty much a worthless Obroni (White Guy). He plops me down in a chair and waits until it is his turn. Shows all the papers. Papers are in order.

We get our money.

No.

We are told that the money won't be ready until 2 hours from now. I have to get to my business meetings. Frimpong says he will come back. When he picks me up in the evening, he tells me he had to wait another THREE HOURS before they finally made the pay out. 

In fairness I know plenty of horror stories of people dealing with our own American medical and medical insurance system. I am not sure this is so much worse. It is just very different.