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The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

nytimes.com

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Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#391

Post by drewbuschhorn »

chrishynes wrote: post #371
kobeya wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made significant use of my healthcare pre-ACA ($30k-$50k charges before insurance). All of it was in-network, covered, and a small annual premium. The very year ACA took effect my health plan was canceled, my doctor went off-network, my new plan had 3x the annual premium and has grown 30% year over year, as have deductibles, and I fight tooth and nail every single charge to make sure it is in network and covered. Y…

"The very year ACA took effect my health plan was canceled, my doctor went off-network, my new plan had 3x the annual premium and has grown 30% year over year, and I fight tooth and nail every single charge to make sure it is in network and covered." Same here, and I hear the same exact story from most people I talk to. Plans dropped, premiums skyrocketing. Here in Phoenix we've got a single insurer left, and we'll s…

Post ACA I'm able to get my wife insured (congenital heart issue fixed forever at 14, still used to deny her coverage at 27), and my premiums dropped. We're rather firmly middle class, pretty sure I didn't qualify for any health subsidies, I think student loan deduction and mortgage were it.

So there's a face for you, 32 year old, healthy, middle class, white woman who likes cats, rides horses, and has a pet bearded dragon who she talks to in a baby voice can get regular cancer screenings because of ACA.

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#392

Post by Frondo »

chrishynes wrote: post #371
kobeya wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made significant use of my healthcare pre-ACA ($30k-$50k charges before insurance). All of it was in-network, covered, and a small annual premium. The very year ACA took effect my health plan was canceled, my doctor went off-network, my new plan had 3x the annual premium and has grown 30% year over year, as have deductibles, and I fight tooth and nail every single charge to make sure it is in network and covered. Y…

"The very year ACA took effect my health plan was canceled, my doctor went off-network, my new plan had 3x the annual premium and has grown 30% year over year, and I fight tooth and nail every single charge to make sure it is in network and covered." Same here, and I hear the same exact story from most people I talk to. Plans dropped, premiums skyrocketing. Here in Phoenix we've got a single insurer left, and we'll s…

Average joe here: pre-ACA, I was uninsurable. My pre-existing condition was having had an organ removed in my 20s. No one would insure me when I went to buy it.

Post-ACA, I could once again buy health insurance.

I consider no longer being locked out of the US medical system a substantial help.

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#393

Post by unclebucknasty »

moheeb wrote: post #132
eatbitseveryday wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Luckily I have friends in the industry and it turns out if they fail to inform you within 48 hours that you're not in network you don't have to pay the out of network cost. Curious, can you perhaps provide evidence of this? Seems like a good thing to know. > Call an attorney. This is itself a cost, and maybe only makes sense if you owe ≥ $10k but for procedures billed as $1k when they should be $400 I don't think w…

I agree with dungle6, whose comment is now dead. I say screw them and don't pay. Ignore collections for a few years and don't be a wuss about your credit score. Problem solved.

>don't be a wuss about your credit score.

I don't get this statement. Not protecting your credit score can cost you real money. Yeah, the whole thing is a racket, and I frickin' hate it, but, pretending like you can ignore your credit score without impact seems counterproductive.

I would really rather see this whole racket of a medical billing system held to account versus advocating that we allow them to punish us in any way for not playing their fraudulent game.

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#394

Post by FireBeyond »

mahyarm wrote: post #271
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing is that dental care in the US is the exact opposite. If you ask $RANDOM_DENTAI_CLINIC what the cost for $RANDOM_PROCEDURE will be, they can quote you a price that will generally be pretty accurate. I'm told this came about because historically more people had to pay for dental services out of pocket, so dental offices were used to having standard fees that they could just look up.

Also most dental insurance will only pay up to $10-5k total per year, so its not some unlimited spout of money you can abuse like medical insurance in the USA. Some dentists offer a direct subscription plan that costs around the same amount of costs as a dental plan directly as a result.

> so its not some unlimited spout of money you can abuse like medical insurance

Apropos of outliers, this type of attitude is problematic and emblematic of issues in the US.

"Needing healthcare" is not "abusing medical insurance".

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#395

Post by sanderjd »

Spooky23 wrote: post #376
tptacek wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're going to get anywhere productive with analyses that connect all commercial health care spending with top-to-bottom regulatory capture by the health care industry. Essentially what you'd be saying is that any system short of federally-run single-payer was a sign of corruption. Also: this idea that the "Democrats are the party of the people" and the "Republicans are the party of corporations" is pr…

Democrats are a big tent party and idealology doesn't rule as a result. When they get ideological they pay dearly, as gay marriage demonstrated. (Lots of older white and black voters stayed home or voted GOP) Republicans can't win the numbers game so they hammer home on right wing populism. Unfortunately, the last 30-40 years hasn't been kind to the "Main Street" centrist republicans of the past.

My impression is that the tent-restricting social issue that has held the Democrats back in recent years is abortion, not gay rights. I'd be interested to hear if you have studies or polls showing otherwise.

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#396

Post by chasing »

hkmurakami wrote: post #382
chasing wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it feeds my conspiracy thinking that the Democrats are actually largely indistinguishable from Republicans Have you been watching anything that's been happening with the healthcare debate over the past, oh, 25 years? The Democrats have been trying with varying degrees of success to inch this country in the direction of a more sensible healthcare system and the Republicans have pitched a generation-long hissy fit ab…

From my observations, neither side has done much to reign in the cost of the cost of hospital services and doctor/nurse compensation, which are out of line with our developed world peers. On the coverage side, the two parties have contrasting stances. Healthcare and Health Insurance are related but distinct topics.

Obamacare does include a bunch of tools to help keep overall healthcare spending down. As far as I'm aware, they have helped. But there's a long way to go.

I'm actually not sure the BHCA or AHCA or whatever it's called now has much in it besides slogans and major spending cuts which aren't aimed at making care less expensive -- they're aimed and reducing the overall amount of care provided by shifting costs to those less capable of bearing them.

That's a pretty big contrast.

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#397

Post by [deleted] »

comex wrote: post #389
joe_the_user wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, 59 People were ready to vote but not so ready they'd take the action to remove the limit. Those are the facts. You are laying emphasis on the one person who wouldn't vote and I'm laying emphasis on the 51+ wouldn't take take stronger action. I think it's reasonable to give my emphasis given the way the Democratic Party has behaved over time.

On the other hand, if they had removed the limit, (a) there would have been an even bigger Republican backlash against "Obamacare" (if that's possible), and (b) the precedent would have emboldened Republicans to suspend the filibuster for their priorities as well. Result? In 2017, the Senate would have more motivation to repeal Obamacare and fewer limitations: they wouldn't have to shoehorn the repeal bill into the r…

[deleted]

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#398

Post by will_brown »

kobeya wrote: post #368
dboreham wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a couple of forces at work: 1. Medical folks charge more over time, for...reasons. 2. Previously insurance could be sold tailored to the customer's ability to pay; but that insurance didn't actually cover many useful things and had a low cap (hence was almost worthless). ACA disallowed that and made insurance industry offer policies that cover the stuff a regular person needs covered. So you could have the…

I made significant use of my healthcare pre-ACA ($30k-$50k charges before insurance). All of it was in-network, covered, and a small annual premium. The very year ACA took effect my health plan was canceled, my doctor went off-network, my new plan had 3x the annual premium and has grown 30% year over year, as have deductibles, and I fight tooth and nail every single charge to make sure it is in network and covered. Y…

In Florida, Blue Cross Blue Sheild had a plan called Go Blue pre ACA/Obamacare, it was a kind of bare minimum coverage but monthly premiums were like $80 and BCBS of Florida carries one of the best reputations and has one of the largest networks of providers.

Something like 80,000 Floridans lost that policy because it didn't carry the minimum services under ACA/Obamacare. But it wasn't just losing the policy, they were never able to afford the new blue cross blue sheild policies, having to purchase from a new insurer most of whom had reputations as fly by night operations (many not existing before ACA and shutting down 1 and 2 years in), and finally losing the good BCBS network.

Here is a copy of the actual letter sent out by BCBS when they had to cancel the policy: https://www.floridablue.com/blog/my-policy-being-canceled-no...

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#399

Post by charlieflowers »

kaybe wrote: post #319
bdamm wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine was in a sports accident almost two years ago. He had a good medical insurance plan for exactly this possibility. He fractures his pelvis into 14 pieces, and broke another dozen major bones including both femurs. The surgeries are still ongoing although he is mostly himself again. But even two years later, he is facing a daily barrage of calls, being put on hold, no callbacks, paper shuffling, record…

These stories have me at 'WTF USA'. Like seriously, how does the US society think this is ok? Can anyone explain this to me? Is it a 'won't happen to me' sentiment? Preferring the freedom of literally landing on the streets with one accident since you're presumably fully in charge? I do not understand, though there must be an understandable reason.

It's unbelievably horribly fucked up.

I think the only reason anyone can think it's OK is (1) they haven't had a major medical expense yet and (2) their political tribe tells them capitalism is the answer for everything.

Honestly, healthcare in the US is so broken I don't see how we avoid a crisis in the next few years because of it. Maybe it will somehow pop like a real estate bubble (sad when that's the most optimistic thing you can hope for).

Re: The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

#400

Post by ceejayoz »

ssambros wrote: post #339
kirrent wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in my country, the government would laugh, and then only pay a standard amount.

And unless they pay enough no providers will do the procedure unless you somehow force them.

Yes, which is why single-payer systems generally do a tiny bit of research, pick a reasonable amount, and pay that.
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