dme, disorganized billing?

I've had my machine, mask etc for 4 months, and the dme has yet to submit a bill to my insurance company. Is this unusual? I assume they are just disorganized. Even with a rental situation, I can't imagine why they wouldn't be collecting their deductible and monthly rental fees.

Odder still, the sleep center (at a hospital) never billed for the 2 overnight stays last fall (confirmed by my insurance company). I expected my treatment to fall into a black hole (and having to push for responsive care in the system), but I didn't expect the bills to do so.

Now if only the mortgagor and utility companies would follow suit, I could buy autos and auras for everyone.

The bad part is that if they don't pay, sometime in the near future they will be looking to you for payment. Doesn't matter that it was their own ineptness that caused it... Nothing really new in the medical profession, has been happening for YEARS...

It doesn't surprise me at all, working at a DME. When the paperwork leaves our store, it goes to our central billing location, in another state, and by the time a patient actually receives a bill after going through the proper insurance (worse if you happen to have Medicare!), it's probably a several month-long process. I think it's just the nature of the beast. I'm still paying a year-old hospital bill that I thought I had paid off once or twice already. It's frustrating, isn't it? You would think with computerized everything that it would be much easier than this!