Recently I was charged a great amount of money for a routine medical procedure. I was surprised by this big bill, and made some inquiries. My health insurance provider said that the bill was erroneous and I should not pay it, but I should follow up with the medical provider about the error in the bill. About four months later including a large number of phone calls, paperwork, and time, the bill was finally dismissed. I learned a valuable lesson which is that consumers need to do the research prior to any medical procedure--consumers have to find out what's covered and what's not, then make good choices about their health care and health dollars. As consumers, we also have to keep track of our medical records online and via paper files so we can easily look back at what occurred and make our case when there's errors in billing.
Similarly recent field trip issues tool countless hours to unravel a large number of glitches which compromised payment balances--most of the glitches were issues we had not considered while planning the trips including tripships not requested, children traveling, changing class numbers, differences between quotes and actual fees, and online payment glitches. There were also the usual elements of human error and the need to remind people to pay. All in all, we realized that better record keeping would have reduced the amount of time it took to figure out the problem--from now on we'll keep a copy of all records related to field trips in one place so we can go back and review that paperwork should there be an issue.
Good record keeping matters in this complex society we live in. Good record keeping can reduce your taxes, errors in billing, and the time it takes to order supplies, pay bills, make appointments and more.
In the week ahead at school and at home, I'll make some time for this filing issue by making a good space in the classroom and at home for these important files. Over the summer I'll give this some good thought too. This will save time, struggle, and money too.
