... the hospital financial dept tried gaslighting me --- went so far as to accuse me of requesting them to do 'fraudulent billing' when I asked them to correct the mistake.
In frustration, I submitted a very brief summary of the situation to ChatGPT (and I admit I have a love/hate relationship with AI at this point, but I had already put days into this and was at a loss). In 30 seconds I had a plan of action, who to contact and in what order, what to expect from their response, templates for formal letters of dispute and scripts for phone calls, a summary of the laws regarding my situation, how to escalate up the chain if I was denied, etc.
When I called back to the billing dept to initiate the claim it was immediately routed to one of the customer relations supervisors who called back immediately, complimented me on my knowledge of the system, told me to relay all this info to any friends who were on Medicare, etc. The matter was resolved in my favor in one day, without even having to submit a formal letter of dispute. Everyone (except the original collection agent, who only wanted to know when I was going to pay) was very nice and helpful, and I ended up learning a lot about how coding and billing works at a huge hospital. I also have the private number of the person who helped me resolve this, in case I have another problem.
I think AI is one of the main problems Google searches, as well as trying to get info from other search engines, are becoming more and more worthless. It helps to use search operators - like site: - but still, it sometimes takes hours to cut through the slop. I find it ironic that AI can actually help cut through that slop if you specify targeted searches, ask for links to primary sources, ask for professionally or academically verified results, etc.
I am getting more comfortable using AI like I use my computer; to help me organize, do a task, etc. That doesn't make it any less annoying, though.
Edited to add that I realize I could have paid a professional consultant hundreds of dollars for the expertise that AI 'stole'.
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