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a 58m ambulance ride that cost more than 10 grand I'm not against paying a medical bill but this is just obscene and unreasonable why a law that's meant to stop outof Network bills in emergencies doesn't apply to ambulance rides you shouldn't have to in that moment Wonder am I going to be able to afford this Care Plus it seemed like it was a scramble and somebody made the the decision to just ticket the residence get them out of the way and figure it out later their cars were ticketed and towed with little notice almost impossible for somebody in that 5 minutes or 10 minutes to notice that there was a a sign placed in the yard and then move their vehicle how Contact 6 got 37 parking citations voided and the City of Milwaukee to admit its error [Music] from the foxic studios this is open record I'm Brian pson and I am joined this week by open records executive producer Sarah Smith hello Sarah hi and we are joined once again by Contact 6 reporter Jenna sax hi welcome back Jenna thank you we are recording this episode on what is today it is Wednesday December 10th is that right no it's the 11 it is Wednesday December 11th and uh we will be releasing this on Thursday December 12th and uh I've lost my here we go today we are talking talking about some unexpected expenses and uh boy there's a lot to talk about with these for one family it was an ambulance bill in the mail a really frustrating Bill and frustrating situation and for some neighbors here near W Milwaukee talk about frustration it was a tow truck loading up cars outside their Windows all of these people wrote to contact s hoping to get their charges waved or at least to raise awareness about what they feel are unjust expenses we're going to tell you who got their bills waved and who is still waiting right after the break and we are back on open record a three-year-old law called the no surprises act brought sweeping consumer safeguards to medical building in the medical billing rather rather in the United States the law protects people in health emergencies from outof Network balance bills but ambulance rides are a notable exception that has prompted some states to take action to protect consumers Jenna this is not your first story on this subject you've been covering this for a while in each of your reports you introduce us to a new family who did you talk to this time and what was their really frustrating experience sure this time I spoke with Ryan and Sarah Nelson in Shaban uh on October 31st of last year their son Simon who was one-year-old at the time was suffering from croo and they took him to an Urgent Care Center at Aurora Medical Center of Shaban and the staff there really recommended that he be monitored overnight and they don't provide that kind of care in Shaban so they said we need to transport him to children Wisconsin we spoke with the doctors over there there're in agreement that he should go there so the Urgent Care Center arranged an ambulance ride for Simon two children's Wisconsin and they needed specific medications on board that ambulance which kind of narrowed down who they could call but eventually they got Superior Ambulance to come and do this inner facility Transit ride halfway through this 58 mile ride Simon started coughing in a way that indicated his Airwaves were getting tighter so they did give him some a phenadrine through like a mask as a nebulizer mist and he got to the hospital just fine spent the night there and was released the next morning 30 to 60 days later the family gets a bill for the ambulance ride in the mail and it's more than $10,000 which they found rather alarming but they thought hey we'll we'll put it through insurance and see what happens and even after insurance they still owed quite a bit of money I like I I mean there's a lot to unpack with this cuz seriously like you know especially at a young age like that is terrifying and so of course you want the best care for your child and yes let's go in that ambulance because that's the way we're going to get there with the treatment necessary now the Nelsons did have insurance and then they even had like a secondary insurance so how did that help did it cover any of that $110,000 it did and to your point in these kinds of emergency situations you're really trusting the doctors and the doctors say we should take this ambulance and go to the hospital so they took that advice they had two insurance ins plans at the time because Ryan actually was transitioning between jobs so he had two Insurance one called sentivo and one called All Savers and between the two of those plans they covered another $3 to $4,000 but even after those two insurance plans provided coverage they still owed nearly $7,000 for this ambulatory ride which they thought was predatory frankly they thought it was too high one of the things I mean right off the top it's super relatable right like your kid is suffering something you don't know it's creepy you don't know what it is you know they're in bad enough shap that you go to urgent care and then they're there and you're just saying please take care of my child what do we need to do to make them well and they say they've got to go to Children's Hospital that's serious right okay right whatever you say let's go um is it always true though I mean this can't be the first child who's been transported to Children's Hospital from Urgent Care is it always a $10,000 ride well it depends on the ambulance provider and what they're charging because every ambulance provider has their own base rate and that is something we looked into in story about what the base rate was for their ambulance provider versus other ambulance providers and their Company Superior Ambulance does charge more money uh for these ambulance rides you also talked to me even after the fact about the tier pricing that a lot of ambulance services have you know based on um patient needs and and obviously if they need more it's a higher tiered plan per se that cost more so Simon received something called Specialty Care transport or SC which is the highest level of care you can provide it basically means that ambulance has all the equipment and medication that you might need in an emergency Simon did not have a hectic ride he was mostly just hanging out in his car seat which was strapped to a bed he was not being worked on there was no CPR or anything like that but they had the ability to provide that kind of care should an emergency happen so that costs more than other types of care that are further down on that tiered scale being being one that's something sometimes with the medicine and the treatments an adult can take a certain medicine or treatment whereas a child sometimes can't right and there was some discussion because when the doctors ordered this ambulance they actually ordered a lower tier of care but when Superior reviewed this request for an ambulance they saw well the specific medication you're requesting is something that's only available on this highest so right I'm going to step back for because that that's that's a key Point here it was Superior that bumped it up the company that's going to get the most money out of this is the one who decided we have to bump you up to a higher level right and Superior would say sometimes doctors don't know what level they're actually requesting when they send it they say they might ask for this lower level of care thinking that's appropriate but when they review it they say actually if you want that specific medication available for a child in a nebulizer it has to be this level of care I guess what stands out to me and again I'm coming at this completely from the outside I haven't studied it and researched it as you have but I think when I hear highest level of care available I'm thinking maybe I watch too many you know police shows or something I'm imagining they rushing someone to the hospital they're hitting them with the paddles they're like you know the person's been in a terrible car Crasher they fell out of the 10th story of a building right this is a one-year-old who went to the Urgent Care because they were sick right and this is the highest is is that is there anyone who backs it up and says yeah in fact that's what they needed was the highest possible that is information coming from Superior Alone um I don't have any information that disputes I have spoken with experts in medical billing in the past and they say there is a cost of Readiness there is a cost of having specific technology and specific medication on board but as to that one medicine that Simon got I did not speak with other ambulance providers about whether it would be that kind of care but I do know that they had a limited number of ambulances that could respond in this case but for the family they aren't given the opportunity to shop around they don't get to know this is going to cost you more if you Superior TR you trust again you trust the doctors that they're going to look out for the best interest of the patient you trust that the doctors when they request the ambulance or other treatment and care that they that you are getting the best of whatever it is because it is your family member it's your friend it's your whatever right and we we've spoken a bit about cost I can break it down for you because when we did our last report on this in 2023 we solicited rates for care from similar ambulance providers who do this kind of inner facility even if you need this highest level of care what will the different providers do it in many cases so I spoke with lifar orange cross Bell Ambulance and mmt and we mentioned this base rate so they all have a base rate between $1,900 and $2,400 Superior Ambulance has a base rate of $6,600 so right away the base rate high yeah or more than Tri and if you look at these ambulance bills it's not just a base rate there are additional charges for medications that are given there's also something on every bill which is a charge per mile of Transit and there's a difference here too because other providers charge between 20 and $30 per mile that's what they reported to us Superior on the bills we reviewed charge $60 per mile Superior explain why there those rates are so much higher have they said is there something about their service that that would justify those costs right well there are challenges in the ambulance industry right now but this is something everybody is facing they're having trouble with high overhead costs with low Medicare reimbursement rates they're having issues recruiting and retaining staff but those aren't issues that Superior alone faces so when we speak with Superior about this they basically tell us you know we can't speak to what other ambulance providers charge we can say that our base rate reflects our overhead costs the cost of Readiness our prompt response times medicine technology training and basically having the staff able to respond quickly um and you know they say the issue here isn't what their charge was they feel it's that the ambulance I'm sorry that the insurance companies wouldn't cover it in our past reporting we've spoken with insurance companies who have said this is obscene you shouldn't be charging three to four times what the Medicare reimbursement rate is for these rides so the past insurance companies have told us they felt that superior's bills were just way above and beyond what was reasonable I think it comes back to your earlier point which is you don't get to shop around I think about if I was going to buy a $110,000 used car I'm going to sit down with a salesperson and we're going to go over this line by line and I'm going to try to get them down we're going to go back into negotiation I would at least be aware of what they're going to charge me before I sign on the line what are you going to say though no I mean okay you're still going but I'm like if walk I take the car right but but the point is I'll know upfront and I'm thinking about this from a an idea of competition the idea that they're $6,000 or 6600 versus somebody else is 2,000 that is a choice that I can make as a consumer maybe you say it's your overhead if someone comes to me and says do you want Superior or do you want this one but if you just go you're getting Superior you don't have a choice so you pay what they they we'll so I I recognize medical situation is different I guess that's my point though is you don't get the opportunity to choose as a consumer at these parents in this case they got Superior and they got the bill right and so one thing that I wanted to talk about was there no surprises act because this is supposed to uh avoid surprise medical bills in a number of situations although ground ambulances aren't included so I'll go back because the no surprises act went into effect January of 2022 and it basically protects against outof Network balance bills in emergency situations and at the same time it protects against outof Network bill at in bills at in network facilities so let's say you're having a baby at an in network facility and then the anesthesiologist as it turns out is out of network you won't get an outof Network bill under the no surprises act air ambulance rides are included in the no surprises act ground ambulances are not it's a notable exception and that's because the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 2third of all emergency ground ambulance rides in Wisconsin result in an outof Network bill so these are costly bills when people are getting them um so why are ground ambulances excluded because there's not necessarily A one-sized fits-all approach to ground ambulance rides there's differences between states when it comes to regulations and even between communities in some places it's publicly funded in some places it's private funding in a rural area it may be totally different staff and Equipment versus in a city so with all these differences between what kind of services ambulance providers are offering they left that out saying we're going to form this committee we're going to have a task force that meets and analyzes this issues and comes up with recommendations so they did that and actually it wrapped up recently this task force studied data spoke with ambulance Providers Insurance Providers heard testimony from patients and they came up with a list of recommendations recently which they sent to lawmakers basically saying we have a broad consensus here that the consumer needs to be taken out of the middle there needs to be a set rate for what ambulance providers must accept from companies and some people say there should be a federal law regulating this applying to everybody and others prefer a state-by-state approach and so far about 18 states not including Wisconsin have some sort of Protections in place when it comes to outof network bills for ground ambulance rides new legislative session I was going to say new legislative coming up session coming up do we know if there's any plans for a bill I have not heard of anything in Wisconsin I know that there's this consumer advocacy group perg that had uh a member on that task force I interviewed her for this story and she said we are speaking to lawmakers in DC right now trying to find sponsors for a bill but there is no bill written yet all right where does the Nelson Bill stand right now so they reached out to us because had continued to extend their bill and extend it extend it and finally they said you have to pay this now we reached out to Superior and they did pause the bill again and Superior said they're reaching out to the insurance companies and they're asking the insurance company to better understand why they charged what they did it doesn't sound like Superior is changing its bill but it's appealing to the insurance companies saying will you pay us more essentially I don't know how that's going to go again the Nelsons feel that Superior has already been paid enough and Superior does stand by their charges saying this is just the cost of running our business they may be stuck with this but they will want to see change is what it sounds like yeah the Nelsons are very informed on this part of the reason they reached out to us is because they did a lot of research on the no surprises act and ambulance bills they found our previous reporting on this topic and reached out saying we wanted to let people know this is still happening and we thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about what other states are doing because Indiana just passed a law that's going into effect in 2025 that protects hooers from outof Network balance bills um saying that you know ambulance providers must accept payment up to 400% the Medicare reimbursement rate um or whatever the network rate is whichever is higher there may be future Capital testimony to come we'll see probably coming up their tickets were or their cars rather were ticketed and towed away in the course of 25 minutes how Contact 6 was able to get their citations voided we'll talk about that after the break and we are back on open record Neighbors in one Milwaukee neighborhood say they needed more time to move their cars before they were ticketed and towed away boy we had a lot of campaign visits this this last fall it happened hours before a presidential campaign event after parking restrictions went into effect Jenna what happened on October 17th so on the afternoon of October 17th vice president kamla Harris was visiting Wu Milwaukee and as we have learned through all of these uh visits we had from presidential candidates when these candidates come to town there are parking restrictions in place there are temporary towway zones that are set up so early the morning before that visit around 7: a.m. parking restri restrictions went in place on Kenwood Boulevard this is just very close to the union just down the street from the union this area usually has 1H hour parking starting at 700 a.m. and neighbors are used to parking their cars and moving them at 8 they have one hour in the morning they move them at 8:00 the I I've done stories in the past by the way that's a heavily ticketed are so the people who live there must know what it we know what our limits are right so the problem was these cones went up in the morning and they felt in the signs saying hey temporary towway Zone has been set up and they say we just did not have enough time before they started ticketing cars and towing them away and relocating them we heard about one mom who lives on the street who was getting her kids ready for school saw the cars being ticketed and loaded onto a tow truck and ran out in her bathrobe and her next door neighbor was a student who had a roommate leave early that morning who called her and said you need to get out here they're going to tow your car and we even spoke with another student who said I came outside at 8:00 and my car was gone what time were they doing all this Towing so I can break this down for you because this is just my favorite part because there's so many times where we do stories where it's like we we are taking one person's word and another person's word and we say here are the two sides of the story just setting the timeline you said the cones went up at 700 yes I have a timeline and we know exactly what it is because there was surveillance video from a landlord on the street who contacted us Aaron Wilson so his tenant called him up saying please look at the cameras because I just got a ticket and I don't know what just happened so at 6:59 a.m. the video shows Mark Milwaukee parking services places a temporary towway Zone sign on their block at 7:09 a.m. which is 10 minutes later parking enforcement is there and they are issuing citations 10 minutes 10 10 minutes blink at 7:21 a.m. so that's what 22 minutes later a tow truck arrives on the Block and 2 minutes after that it drove away with the first vehicle on board so in a span of 24 minutes a car was already ticketed and towed away and I spoke with the owner of that vehicle I I was able Tim is in the room he's my photo actually you weren't with me that day I I was trying to find the vehicle so I walked around the block looking for the vehicle I saw on this tow truck we left a little note on the on the windshield and said call us tell us what happened to your car and the student basically said I came out at 8:00 my car was gone and there was a a number to call on one of the street signs I found out my car had been relocated near Capitol in Holton near the Walmart it was parked on the street how far away is that it didn't go to somewhere else they just relocated it so how far away like walkable no no you'd have to drive there so they they got there and um they they picked up their car there was $150 citation on the windshield I mean they didn't have to pay tollot fees but at the same time they were saying we feel like our rights were violated in this situation because when we parked our car last night it said we had until 8:00 a.m. to move it and they placed signs before then that's not fair the whole setting the sign down and then immediately ticketing I say immediately not quite but almost immediately titing and towing that's pretty immediate it almost feels like something out of like I don't know some sort of a a Candid Camera situation like you know let's see what these people do that doesn't make any sense but I guess maybe poor planning on the city's part what in terms of planning for the presidential candidate what happened right so I I did reach out to DP W the Department of Public Works and I will say they responded very promptly and they took it seriously right away they looked into it and they quickly determined that car owners did not get proper notice before the citations were issued they said the vehicles should have received a warning and been relocated but not fined and they said penalties should only have applied to those who parked after those signs went up at 7:00 a.m. when they the signage said they could no longer park there so because of this error they looked into their records found seven cars on Kenwood uh had their citations voided or refunded and another 30 cars that were over on Downer Avenue also had their citations voided or refunded and they said there may be a few people who were cited after the signs went up who got off basically on this case but we can't differentiate so 37 people got their $150 citation what time was the actual event this I don't remember it was it was early or late sometime in the afternoon so so cuz it made me wonder you know if if there was an urgency to get them off the street by 7:30 for some reason rather than 8 when they would have been ticketed anyway if there was then why wasn't there more advanced notice than 7: a.m. maybe something the night before hey tomorrow morning please make sure your cars are gone you know I asked neighbors if they got anything if they saw any signs they said no there was no notice at all I asked DPW if they're required and they said no but I mean they do have to adhere to the parking restrictions normal what's a normal like if they're do you know or does basically they just have to adhere to current parking restrictions so in this case the sign says 1 hour parking starting at 7: a.m. so they need to put that signage up by 7: a.m. but they have to wait to tow those cars until an hour later and ticket in toe right that's when they start to have violations but if you park the night before and there's no sign up telling you that it's going to be a violation by the normal time right so it doesn't sound like they're required to put up or hand out flyers or let people know that there's going to be a parking restriction but they do have to make it fair to the people who Park under the normal rules so to give DPW credit they they took responsibility they avoided the tickets what kind of reaction did you get from some of the people who had their tickets voided they were really excited um they they were just excited that it worked you know they took this big step of contacting the media some of them were pessimistic that it would make a difference one man I spoke with said I already talked to them and they agreed to reduce it to $60 but they wouldn't you know get rid of the ticket altogether so I think they were pleasantly surprised by how it played out and that the city took accountability and and obviously happy they didn't have to pay those tickets I know that's one part of the city where just parking your car is risk with parking services it's there's a there's not many places to park and there are a lot of cars so tickets are are a regular thing well we are going to uh take a break and when we come back Jenna you helped those neighbors get more than $5,000 in tickets wave but still ahead the total amount Contact 6 has helped consumer safe in 2024 we are going to look back on another exciting year and we'll do that right after the break we are back on open record and we are getting close to the end of 2024 it's been another big year for contact 6 so you've been looking into the numbers you always kind of assess where are we what what have we seen so far in 2024 well I spoke with Annette who are our associate producer this morning she handles all of our off a cases which is the majority of them most of our cases don't end up on air but we're working behind the scenes to resolve cases every day so she says as of today we've saved our viewers about a half a million dollars this year yay snaps um and our total resolution number is 216 cases for the year great which is a good number of cases to be resolved and I always like to get the you know the smallest resolution and the largest resolution we do have a number of cases that don't res you know result in any money saved at all doesn't mean that they're not important cases you know they took away my handicapped parking space and we got it back it's hard to put a value on that but we like that's an example of a case that wouldn't you know result in any dollar amount but our littlest resolution of the year was $30 and it was someone who shipped a package and it was guaranteed to be somewhere by a specific date and it wasn't and he wanted a refund and we got him that refund for the package that did not arrive in one day and then our other largest resolution we actually featured this in one of our resolution reports actually a a woman named Shade she had a fire in her house and she had difficulty getting her insurance company to send her payment for repairs they promised to send her a good amount of money they never sent it and she was just it was being drawn out she was living in temporary housing and we were able to get her $60,000 sent to her $60,000 yeah and you know that was a tough one cuz you're seeing a family that's displaced they're not able to get to school the regular way it's just a big inconvenience living in this temporary housing and they just wanted to get the work underway and they couldn't do it until this was all figured out and the checks arrived I just I I think of the as you're going through that list and the dollar amount of over half a million dollars we just talked today about a family that has this $7,000 Bill and they didn't get their money back but you spend a lot of time it's a really important story it's a really important issue it's one that there may need to be some sort of legislation to address it and yet it doesn't even factor into that total it tells me that there is a lot more work even beyond that half million dollar that that Contact 6 is doing right I mean we respond to every person who submits to our segment if it meets the criteria of what we handle we will take their complaint and we will send it word for word to the business and ask the business to take a look and see whether resolution is appropriate the business will hopefully send us a response and we'll pass that back to the consumer and sometimes that's all it takes um is that Outreach getting someone at the company to pay attention maybe who didn't know about it before or who wasn't giving it the attention it deserved and to say let's let's figure this out for this consumer um so sometimes it just helps to cut through that customer service clutter that people run into when you're talking to people on the phone and you don't know where they're located and you're getting a different person every time and a different answer every time you call so this kind of cuts through all that and goes straight to the top and even even some of those sorry even some of the the the cases that Contact 6 does not take on um Ann that is so great about emailing that person with resources if it's neighborhood if it's uh you know lemon law type stuff like just different resources so people aren't just sending an email into The Ether and crossing their fingers right so if you if you experienced a scam for example she can tell you where to report it um who you should speak to in terms of police who might handle that kind of case and just provide general information that's an example of a case we wouldn't typically handle if we say this is very obviously a common scam that we've heard about before we're sorry but this is the next step you can take cuz we are not going to be able to help you get that money back do you ever feel Sarah like you just wish you could call Contact 6 for something you know yeah you're like I'm so frustrated by fill-in the blank consumer issue I know I'm not allowed to help any of my coworkers but I will tell you I still learn from you and I learn because you talk about the cutting through the Clutter and getting to the people who can make decisions and sometimes uh the people you're helping just don't know how to do that maybe they don't know where to go and you know who to talk to and that makes a big difference it does help that you have the contact six behind your name as well but I had a recent situation I won't go into detail but it was a family situation that dealt with a medical issue and and they weren't getting response uh proper response from their physician and and I thought what else do I do he's the doctor how do you force a doctor to do something and I thought what would Jenna do what would Jenna do and I went you know wjd except that doctor reports to someone and I I was able to identify who that doctor reports to I made a Reach Out ultimately the issue was resolved but it was the idea of knowing where to go is such an important piece knowing how to cut through that clutter and get to the right place it it's not necessarily saying I want to speak to a supervisor it's the idea of who can resolve this right well and I think when you're in in the situation in the issue you sometimes get so clouded with like I'm just so frustrated and you can't like not see straight but you know like you don't know okay what what are other Avenues I just keep calling the same person and they're not helping me taking that step back and going okay what are other places I can I can look to and if I could give consumers one bit of advice it would be to try your best to stay as calm as possible cons customer service isn't going to want to help you as much if you're rude or if you're angry and yelling we understand you're frustrated it's probably totally legitimate but you need to keep it calm kill them with kindness and just document every single interaction the names of the people you spoke with what you were told and that will help you a lot but I know it's so hard to keep your cool I've had moments on the phone too where I've you know snapped or something and said something that I regretted uh but try your best I had someone recently describe uh that that that kind of that anger that frustration was was an there was an unmet expectation and when you are in that powerless situation you expect someone to resolve something that seems to you plain and obvious that can be very frustrating but you said there was one tip it's really two in there cuz I think the maybe just as important if not more important one is to document if you know who you talk to if they'll only give you a first name get the first name if they'll give you both great what was the time what was the day what was the number you called were you transferred to a different number keep it in a notepad and we'll see you've seen people who are really meticulous about that and how helpful that is keep the emails create a folder uh keep everything in one place don't get rid of it just because you think the issue is resolved keep all the receipts receipts help a lot CU we sometimes we require a lot of documentation to help someone for example with auto repairs that's a hard one to prove without documentation especially if you're alleging that the shop did something to harm your vehicle we're probably going to ask you go to a different shop get documentation that supports what you're saying saying this something was done to your vehicle that was wrong and then we can send it along so that's one area in particular I do have our top six complaints by tit this year if you want to hear it so our number six complaint was insurance issues this year so that's difficulty with coverage and claims for homeowners insurance life insurance auto and travel insurance we kind of put that all together in one category and this is based on the number of complaints you receive correct yes so we're just kind of identifying Trends and what consumers are reaching out to us so this might be someone who applied for life insurance and was denied we spoke with one man this year who was denied life insurance because someone had stolen his identity and done some things made him ineligible for life insurance so we were able to reach out say that this is proof that he was a victim of identity theft and he was granted life insurance which was great um the number five on our list is wireless companies we hear a lot of issues with cell phone cable internet the good news is those companies are really good at resolving legitimate issues when we reach out to them so those might be issues with promotions devices billing and um we have a a good success rate working on those cases earlier in the year I had a I remember talking about saying I wish I could call Jenna sax and I can't but it ended up getting resolved it just took a while right right up number four as we mentioned was auto repairs so issues that arise with oil changes tires engines newer used parts auto shops damaging Vehicles again document document in that kind of situation number three um this is kind of rising banking issues so this could have to do with fraud or issues with ATMs or money transfers in money payment apps we get a lot complaints about these money transfer apps there's just not as many consumer protections and cash app and things like that right I don't want to name anyone but I mean those examples those are examples of it yeah cuz sometimes when that money is sent it it's you can't get it back it's it's sent and proving fraud can be hard and customer service sometimes isn't as great with these companies so it can be hard to get their attention is just curious is crypto within that because we're starting to hear about crypto complaints too right crypto scams and things or not fall well that would usually fall under our scams category so we haven't really had complaints about legitimate crypto the complaints we tend to get about scam scam scam use of crypto or telling people to pay in crypto and then the money is is stolen um number two on our list this has been number one in the past but home contractors so this involves projects that are paid for and they're either not finished or not even started or maybe there's poor workmanship involved so we um will send you know letters to contractors asking them to you know return to a site or fix something and often that is pretty effective as well and then our number one um medical billing so the no surprises act did cut down on a number of medical billing issues that we see but we still do see issues with medical and dental bills and health insurance denials or claims that are smaller than people expected and that can happen for a number of different reasons um for example someone may get billed for an appointment a year later and are told you shouldn't have to pay that because it's been so long they forgot to bill you that might be an example of a medical billing issue that we might see it's obviously an area where there's widespread frustration and in some ways that's evidenced by some of the reaction we've seen to the very high-profile case the the the the murder of the United healthare CEO just the the national discussion and conversation that's happening around that um awful situation but also raising questions about how people feel their frustrations with medical billing and you're seeing that in just a number we definitely see that and would remind people that they do have appeal rights they can file appeals even if they're initially denied they can go back to their doctor they can ask if something can be coded differently or they can ask for more documentation to try to support their claim uh but I I can speak to that frustration we are very familiar with all the major insurance providers and they do resolve issues with us that they feel are legitimate there are other cases where they won't uh but they are they know us they know our segment and what we do and they do a good job of responding um one of the the things also that you have been super successful at you in Anette um is our Fox local program ask Contact 6 yeah so just remind people if they haven't seen it yet what is ask contact six yeah this is fun we started this this year and basically it's a segment where we solicit questions from our viewers on a topic that we've chosen a consumer topic and then we bring in a panel of experts to answer their questions directly so we've done what have we done we've done medical billing we've done on auto repairs as a topic we've talked about issues with landlords and tenants issues so it's really been fun for us to sit down with these experts and ask them the questions we never know what we're going to get from people we've talked about banking issues that was interesting actual questions from actual people this isn't just like from the head of Jenna and Anette it's you know it's actually people that are like I have questions I haven't been able to figure out the answer and now you get to be that conduit and ask them ask the it'll be like we this question is from Sandy new berin and S is having an issue with her car she took it in for an oil change and now it doesn't work you know what are her options uh so that's been that's been really fun and it's also just added to our knowledge base I think it's it's been really helpful for us to just learn during that hourlong discussion that we have experts that you've brought in yeah and they experts have been really eager to participate and we've been having a good time with it so those episodes are available on Fox local which is our TV streaming app and we're just getting ready to tape another segment next week where we're talking about small claims court so this could be evictions this could be money claims or injury taking someone to small claims court like that's you know like people don't understand how do I file do I need a lawyer what are the costs going to be what's the likelihood of me getting my money through this process but basically small claims is just a faster way of taking a case through the court system and trying to get your money back than pursuing things criminally you know I many many years ago I was working in Kansas City for Fox 4 and I did a profile of the small claims court there I interviewed the small claims judge and I remember him saying that these may be small dollar amounts less than 10,000 but some of the most intense human drama happens in a small claims courtroom because even though they may be smaller dollar amounts compared to some large civil case to the people involved they're enormous dollar amounts and they're often very personal issues right well something we see from time to time are issues with contractors that end up in small claims court those are long drawn out emotional experiences for people because they're so excited about their project and then it finally they think it's going to start and then it doesn't go as planned and that can be really heartbreaking and um people have a high level of frustration when they feel like they've just been ignored or pushed aside and uh if if someone doesn't show up in court you know who the filing is against you usually are automatically awarded the Judgment how can people submit their questions because you're still accepting questions so if for the ask contact six segment if you go on fox6now.com and you scroll down there is a blue button on the side of the page it's a rectangle it says ask Contact 6 you can click on that or if you have a Consumer complaint that you just want us to try to resolve that's also on the right side of the page it's another blue rectangle Buckle button called submit a you know complaint to contact 6 and we we try to tackle as many cases as we can all right I think we are going to wrap that part of things up and take a break when we come back we're going to go off the Record [Music] it is time to go off the record this is the part of the podcast where we get a little more casual and have a little fun by answering a question which we have not prepared for but it right um I so the Green Bay Packers put this video out on their social media and I thought it was not only are those videos that they do hilarious basically when the players are walking by they question on on a board or however they do it you don't you don't see that part and they were walking into practice and and they answered the question and it's usually hilarious okay so I tailored this one more to us okay which Fox sixer would you put as your emergency contact in your phone who is reliable who would answer if you had an emergency who wouldn't ask very many questions and just no no problem I will help you out I could tell you who has been my one of my literal emergency contacts Amanda St hair was one of my emergency contacts for for a while I mean our kids were at the same daycare facility and I also knew that she's an investigative reporter if my school can't reach me Amanda's going to figure out in about 2 minutes where I am especially since we work together so she was literally one of my emergency contacts for a while look at that okay this is going to seem like I'm I'm I'm just you know buttering you up here but it would be you because no because you're you're you're involved in so many things and you always have to be reachable and you're quick to respond so you're your response is reliable your response is going to be thoughtful you're going to think through all of the possibilities because you have to balance a lot of things I think it would probably be you and probably you're the one I'm most reaching out to anyway and bugging and you'd be like well it's just another call from Brian so that's fair okay well that's very nice of you that's very true I will say Amanda was for my kids emergency contact not for me not for you um I was trying to think my first thought was like who would pick up if they saw my name pop up on their phone and I honestly and the first person cuz I was like man they're so nice is Tim van voren a I don't know like I would he pick up I have no idea but I feel like he'd be very responsive or Brian cramp Brian Kamp responds probably maybe like me it's really quick and I feel like he wouldn't ask a lot of questions if I needed him for an emergency I I don't want any questions just can you do this can you just help me don't don't ask why or how Tim I don't know if how quickly Tim would be able to respond but he would be so nice about it when he did he would just be and I'd probably be apologetic and he's like it's okay it's okay it's no problem he we'll make it happen you know the good thing about this building is I feel like there's a lot of people that we could r on in an emergency I I don't know it's kind of like a high school and that we're all very social and we all know each other and quite a bit about each other's lives as well but it's just social that way and we it's it's we know more about each other I think than a lot of co-workers do um we're really good at the chitchat very type A and over the years I discovered this because for however many years and and you would know the same thing as you go out as a reporter you are in the car with photographers and so I got to know and have gotten to know the photographers really really well over the years because you spend long drives in the car talking about life and how's family how are the kids and I don't get to know the other reporters as well I know them socially in The Newsroom maybe you go out after work once in a while but I don't know the other reporters especially when they cycle through and new ones come in as well and I wonder if it's the same for photographers where sure they know each other as co-workers but man they spend all kinds of time with repor especially if they're you know some of those like General assignment photographers and reporters where they're maybe potentially getting a new reporter not a new one but you know they're they're going they might get five in a in their work week five different reporters to sit and chat but we're also in our isolated corner of the building you and I you know the rest of the building is pretty social all the photographers work together in the same space all the reporters and producers the contact office has no windows n it has a couple of different we don't know when it's raining we don't know when it's so hot back there out of the office and the sun has set and we had no idea no I have had days back there where I I I'm I'm coming out or someone will come back to see me at 4:30 in the afternoon and they're like man that wind and snow was something huh I'm like it's snowed idea hot in the winter and cold in the summer so we have no idea what's happening in the real world it's own world oh you have your own private office we listen to you griping no I mean I'm not complaining I do like that part of it but no the the lack of Windows is and and isolate because we're away from things it's not the place that everyone necessarily comes to talk like Dave macha's edit day that's true Dave you have the most social place in the building that's like down the hallway everyone passes it everyone stops by D I can never get any work done that's right exactly I was I was there the other day talking to Dave I think we talked for about 30 minutes and I was like okay time to go get some worked up we need to learn his mannerisms for when he's done with us like you need to give us a a subtle clue that you want us to go if Dave is in the middle of something then I I can kind of tell CU he's like yeah okay but but a lot of times this is how I know he's not cuz he'll go well while you're here let me show you something and then I'll pull up a video like if he starts bringing up new conversations I'm like all right he's got the time since you're here let's take a look at a thing and then we talk for 15 20 minutes did you bring any backup questions we still got a couple minutes left or a minute or so left no nothing all right how about um because you were talking about the Packers when they walk by and and they they fire out the questions I I gotta say Packers social media I don't know who's job but I'm trying to remember what the question was and I think it had to do with was it I don't know if it was just about might have been Thanksgiving related because it might have been pies or something like that but it was such a good question and the answers what is your Thanksgiving pie like what is your favorite oh uh for me it's pean pecan pan I'm going to go all out and have French silk French silk I requested that this year from my my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and at first she was like oh we actually we already have apple and pumpkin and pecan and I texted back and I was like that's no problem that's fine and then they surprised me with it oh I eat it for breakfast the next day too yeah it was great I know what the question was it was something about do you put Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving and I just I don't remember who the player was I remember him reacting to another player who said yeah I put him up right away and he was like you can go to jail for that or you should go to jail for that whatever it was it was fantastic good anyway we'll go to jail if we don't wrap this up so I'm going to take a break and we'll come back right after this all right that's about all we have time for this week if you have a topic you would like us to discuss on open record or an issue you think we should investigate for foxy news send us an email to Fox6 investigators fox.com as always thank you to the people who make this podcast possible including our executive producer Sarah Smith contact sixes Jenna saxs our editor Dave Machuda and our chief photographer Manning the video switcher well he doesn't he isn't today I said that anyway he sometimes does kale zimney with that I'm Brian pson we'll be back next week actually wait a minute I got to clarify next week we do next week we will oh we'll be back next week never mind I'll talk about that later if you want us to be your contact we'll see you next time