<p>Mini…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.lifehouseagency.org/[/url]”>http://www.lifehouseagency.org/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sonc.org/”>Special Olympics Northern California |;
<p>Bless…</p>
<p>I hope everyone who posts here or views this thread will read the deeply disturbing Time story (Bitter Pill) referred to in the thread title, and recommend it to their friends. Time Magazine and reporter Steven Brill performed a huge and important public service by exposing and explaining something that is terribly, terribly wrong in our health care market. I am reposting the link for those who are coming late to this discussion:
[Bitter</a> Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us | TIME.com](<a href=“http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/]Bitter”>http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/)</p>
<p>I do not agree that someone living in Ohio, needed to go to Texas to recieve treatment.
Good enough care, is good enough.
Would the patient have racked up so many bills if he couldn’t count on his mother in law to just write a check?</p>
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<p>Momofthreeboys, I am wondering did you go to an endocrinologist? How did they determine you were still fertile and why did they think that was a concern?
I still have regular & normal periods at 55, and no one has ever asked about it except to ask what kind of birth control I was using.</p>
<p>333, that is how this whole thread started. There is a question as to whether anyone is entitled to go to a special center costing hundreds of thousands of dollars for health care, unless it is the only place that will give you a chance to beat a terminal condition. I pay extra for my kid to go to center that is not covered under my insurance for my own peace of mind. That is not an entitlement. There is a big question as to what a person is entitled to in terms of health care. Should anyone get to go the Big Famous Hospital that will cost 10X what Local in Network Hospital would charge for the same thing, especially when they handle such cases all of the time?</p>
<p>cpt-I reposted the link to the article in the hope that posters here will actually read it and read more than the first few paragraphs. The main point of the article, which some posters seem to be missing or ignoring, is that for a variety of reasons hospital charges in the United States are exorbitant and that these exorbitant charges most often bear no relation to ACTUAL COSTS.</p>
<p>I think that was the main point too. The fancy hospitals were just as much, if not more, involved in price gouging as the plain vanilla ones. If the care is so much better at fancy hospital in Texas, many more people could afford to go to it if prices had some kind of relationship to actual costs, and the hospital would still make a huge profit.</p>
<p>We need to look at consumers and consumer expectations. People want immediate answers, when sometimes there are none, or none that are apparent at the time. ERs are continually used for non emergent issues, because no one is willing to wait. Doctor can’t see you now? Go to the ER! Kid has a fever at 10pm? Don’t give motrin and call the doctor in the morning, go to the ER!
Examples:
Patient has knee pain. Comes to the ER. How long has your knee hurt? Oh, about 6 months. What? Did you go to your doctor? No, webMd says I need an MRI so I came to the ER. Um, we don’t do MRIs in the ER. So I xray you, splint you and send you to the orthopedist. If the patient had gone to his PMD he could have been referred to ortho without incurring an ER visit cost.
If someone comes to the ER with abdominal pain, we have to do an extensive workup. If the clinical exam is normal, and the labs are normal, the ideal thing to do would be watchful waiting. But we, many times, have to do a CT scan because if we miss an appendicitis, we are sued.
Patient comes into the ER with a facial laceration. We are very qualified to stitch it up. Can we guarantee no scar? Well, no, no one can guarantee that. They want plastics called. Then complain that they have to wait 4 hours until he finishes reattaching someone’s finger. THEN, they complain because they receive a bill from the plastic surgeon. Well guess what, in the ER, our job is to sew you up, not make you look pretty. You want to look pretty it is considered cosmetic and many times is not covered by insurance. But heaven forbid little Jimmy has a small scar above his eyebrow!</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone would disagree that there is some inappropriate use of the ER, but again, one of the main points this article makes is about is hospitals OVERCHARGING, in the ER, in the ICU, and everywhere else. What the writer points out is that patients are charged many many times ACTUAL costs, including by so-called non-profit institutions. As well, it is not unusual for a patient to be billed twice or even three times for the same supply or service, as explained in this excerpt: In fact, Palmer — echoing a constant and convincing refrain I heard from billing advocates across the country — alleged that the hospital triple-billed for some items used in Scott’s care in the intensive-care unit. "First they charge more than $2,000 a day for the ICU, because it’s an ICU and it has all this special equipment and personnel,’ she says. “Then they charge $1,000 for some kit used in the ICU to give someone a transfusion or oxygen … And then they charge $50 or $100 for each tool or bandage or whatever that there is in the kit. That’s triple billing.”</p>
<p>Non profit only means that they put profits back into the business. Like for salaries.</p>
<p>Our oldest was in the NICU for 8 weeks at a local teaching hospital.
So pretty high standard of care 1:3 staffing at most.
When my H was in the orthopedic ward, (which didn’t even look clean)!, of a different hospital, the bill was much higher than our daughters had been.
When I questioned the hospital & the insurance company about it, they couldn’t have been more disinterested.</p>
<p>" That’s triple billing.” </p>
<p>Oh, and more than that. As I’ve previously written, we had a hospital (over)bill Medicare, the insurance company, and my mother for the same service in ambulance transporting (100 yards) and “reviving” my dead stepfather. And I am pretty sure they collected from two of them.</p>
<p>We once had someone steal H’s identity for medical billing only. He got billed for the deductible for an office visit and lab work on a day he wasn’t even in town. Fortunately, it was resolved quickly. But I’ve read that this has become a problem.</p>
<p>I’ve talked about this on CC before but in the course of 2 years I managed to have 4 bills sent to collections- all medical: </p>
<p>2 of them were completely paid off long before going to collections. When I asked for the bill from the collections company, it showed everything paid and someone had whited out the total and HANDWRITTEN in something like $25 on one and $35 on the other. Challenged and dropped. </p>
<p>Another one was apparently from May or June of 2010. I was not even in the country at the time. Challenged and dropped. Ironically, at the same time I was supposedly in an American hospital, I was REALLY in a very rural Costa Rican hospital where I was treated fabulously, quickly, and for around $30. I don’t even want to fathom how much that kidney infection would have cost in the states.</p>
<p>Another one we never got the bill for when we asked for it from collections. Mysteriously disappeared off my credit report and haven’t heard a peep since.</p>
<p>I almost expect to need to challenge the bill when I go to the doctor. Routinely get the same bill multiple times, even though it has long been paid. Even when I had insurance, sometimes I knew the headache would not be worth it.</p>
<p>Rush Limbaugh said he was going to move to Costa Rica if Obamacare was made the law. Makes ya wonder, no?</p>
<p>As I said in my first post on this thread, this has been an ongoing issue for as long as I can remember, that hospitals charge horribly premium prices for inexpensive items.</p>
<p>What I still don’t get, is why the insurance companies let them get away with it.</p>
<p>^^ That announcement came right before I left actually lol. Costa Rica has state-run socialized medicine. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Insurance companies don’t pay that price. They negotiate the prices with both hospitals and doctors. Just because you are billed for it does not mean that is what the insurance company pays the hospital or doctor. </p>
<p>Only people without insurance have to pay what the hospital bill says.</p>
<p>“That announcement came right before I left actually lol. Costa Rica has state-run socialized medicine.” </p>
<p>I know. </p>
<p>Maybe he misspoke and meant Somalia. ;)</p>
<p>The “overcharging” by the hospitals is because of the uninsured and illegals who use the hospital as their doctor’s office. You pay $5 for an aspirin to compensate for the next 4 people who pay nothing because they have no insurance.</p>
<p>This thread reminds me of something that apparently happened at the funeral home who " handled" my mothers remains, a couple years ago.
My BIL was the executor and he took care of it, but the funeral home had to pay her estate many thousands of dollars, which he then distributed.
My sister told me " I didn’t want to know".
So I took her word for it.:(</p>
<p>The Costa Rica reference is hilarious.
My daughter contracted an ear infection when she was there that was so severe, they were thinking about flying her out of the jungle. Luckily she made it to civilization where she was treated.
No charge.
:)</p>