Solve It 7: Ambulance Bill

“I’ve never seen a child as sick as he was,” Melissa Taylor said.

It was a moment the Salisbury mother will never forget.

“When you have a head doctor of an ER and every nurse run into your room and tell you that your son’s dying.”

The next thing Melissa knew, she and her one and half year old son, Kayden, were in an ambulance being transferred from Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport to Children’s Hospital in Boston.

“I was following their lead,” Melissa said.

Doctors at Children’s Hospital diagnosed Kayden and treated him for Kawasaki’s disease, a rare condition that affects the blood vessels.

“Once they came in and said ‘We know what it is and we know what to do,’ it was like a sense of calm. Everything was OK,” Melissa said.

Kayden recovered and life was back to normal when Melissa received something in the mail from the ambulance company.

“Six months later, we get the bill from Cataldo and it says that we owe them $3,600,” Melissa said. “I was in shock. I was in awe.”

Melissa started making phone calls to figure out what was going on. She says the ambulance company told her that since Kayden’s insurance only covered emergency ambulance rides, which are typically linked to 911 calls, she would have to pay the entire bill.

“Who has that type of money? Not us. It didn’t seem fair, and nobody was giving me any answers. Nobody was pointing me in any type of direction. I had nowhere else to go,” Melissa said.

But she did have somewhere else to go. She reached out to Solve it 7.

“I saw a Solve it 7 segment on the news and so I figured, well shoot, I’ll try it,” Melissa said.

We reached out to Cataldo Ambulance and the representative we talked to said they tried calling Melissa a few times to work with her on the bill, but they never heard back.

“I was completely confused,” Melissa responded.

Melissa told us she never received any calls on her cell phone, the only number she says she gives out. She then remembered a landline that her family added in the fall as part of a new cable bundle.

“I did check the voicemails and I saw that I had four of them from Cataldo. They were able to bring my bill down to $350,” Melissa said.

The vice president of Cataldo gave us this statement: “In this case, like many others, we made a very concerted effort to work with the family and extended a substantial discount so they could resolve the outstanding balance in a manner they could afford.”

Melissa is grateful her son is safe and the bill problem has been resolved.

“Kayden is healthy, he’s doing great. We are all good. You guys really did a lot for us, so big thank you.” Melissa said.

Is there a problem you need help with? Give us a call at 617-367-7777 or send an email to Solveit7@whdh.com.

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