I went to our local community hospital for some routine blood work today. The new wing is open! From the plain former reception desk, you're directed down a long space age-y corridor to the new reception office, a warren of glass cubicles that looks like a customs and immigration area in a shiny new airport. After presenting your insurance card and i.d., you're asked to wait until you're called into one of these cubicles for a one-on-one encounter in which you're compelled to sign your life away.
That is, you are presented with four (4) disclosures and contracts of adhesion to sign (contracts, that is, in which the terms are dictated entirely by one party). You sign under the gaze of the hospital employee across the desk, and you do not sign the paper. The contracts are encased in plexiglass, perhaps because I'm not the only smart-ass on the planet who sometimes alters them. You sign on an electronic pad like those that take your credit card in retail stores. The hard case enclosing the paper contracts makes them literally bulletproof.
And what you agree to, most notably, is to let any of the multitude of "independent contractors" who may breeze by your bed (if you're an inpatient) bill as much as they friggin' please, and send the bill to you. Here's the deal you can't refuse:
That is, you are presented with four (4) disclosures and contracts of adhesion to sign (contracts, that is, in which the terms are dictated entirely by one party). You sign under the gaze of the hospital employee across the desk, and you do not sign the paper. The contracts are encased in plexiglass, perhaps because I'm not the only smart-ass on the planet who sometimes alters them. You sign on an electronic pad like those that take your credit card in retail stores. The hard case enclosing the paper contracts makes them literally bulletproof.
And what you agree to, most notably, is to let any of the multitude of "independent contractors" who may breeze by your bed (if you're an inpatient) bill as much as they friggin' please, and send the bill to you. Here's the deal you can't refuse:
