51–60 of 377 posts
All this is a bit surreal (Canadian here), but it prompts the question: why won't people sue in a class action to refund money they gave to the insurance in the first place? I realize it's a complex subject, but at the end of the day, the insurance companies advertise and sell: insurance.
So while dying of a heart attack he should have been negotiating with the ambulance driver, the paramedics, the nurses, each intern and doctor to make sure they are "in-network".
> St. David’s said it was now willing to accept $782.29 to resolve the $108,951 balance because Drew Calver qualifies for its “financial assistance discount.” I
You can pay $100k or just $700, whatever is cool with us. I guess, go to the media and try to shame everyone involved is your best hope? I can see if they did this to people buying luxury suites or yachts. Doing this to people who are dying of a heart attack is particularly disgusting. And it's not like anyone involved is going to be punished for this practice or learn a lesson. They'll turn around and do the same thing to the next patient.
> UPDATE: Monday, shortly after publication and broadcast of this story by Kaiser Health News and NPR, St. David’s said it was now willing to accept $782.29 to resolve the $108,951 balance because Drew Calver qualifies for its “financial assistance discount.” Sounds all fine and dandy until you realize that these charges will just be made up for by people that aren't able to get NPR to publish a story about them.
Hell one time I got a $15k bill for something insurance should have covered. Called the hospital, turns out insurance had covered it and I didn't actually owe any money at all. How many people get this kind of stuff and just pay it anyway?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why don't they compete now or why can't you even get a price upfront from them? EDIT: I am responding to a comment that the AMA is the problem. Maybe the AMA is a problem but it has nothing to do with hospitals not competing over prices.
You can get a price upfront in my experience. Especially for standard procedures. And definitely for outpatient stuff. But it isn't reasonable to expect upfront pricing in things as complicated as heart surgery. Or where you are going in for unknown problems. There is no way to know what complications may arise or additional procedures, x-rays or scans may be required.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sounds all fine and dandy until you realize that these charges will just be made up for by people that aren't able to get NPR to publish a story about them. No, St. David's has already fully recouped their costs and then some. They were simply trying to extract as much money as the stone could bleed.
I was going to respond saying that most hospitals are nonprofits and aren't actually making a great profit margin off this sort of overcharging. But then I looked it up and St. David's, despite having a religious nonprofit-sounding name, is actually owned by HCA Healthcare, which is a for-profit that has almost 4x'd its stock price over the past five years while acquiring more hospitals to grow. So, yeah, this one is…
Went to the ER on the advice of my doctor. Went to my insurance's website to find an ER that accepted my insurance. Got there and asked at admittance, "Do you take my insurance?" Was assured they did. Got a big bill a few months later and it turned out the doctor working in the covered ER was not covered by my insurance.
> UPDATE: Monday, shortly after publication and broadcast of this story by Kaiser Health News and NPR, St. David’s said it was now willing to accept $782.29 to resolve the $108,951 balance because Drew Calver qualifies for its “financial assistance discount.” Sounds all fine and dandy until you realize that these charges will just be made up for by people that aren't able to get NPR to publish a story about them.
There is a whole industry of "medical billing advocates" you can pay to find what is likely thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars of completely made up charges on any given US hospital bill and "negotiate" them away. You don't necessarily need press coverage though it obviously helps. Hell one time I got a $15k bill for something insurance should have covered. Called the hospital, turns out insurance had cove…
> Hiring someone became imperative for me when coordinating my mother’s care got to be a way-more-than-full-time job. (In retrospect, I wish I had done that months earlier.)
> It could also be worthwhile in less critical cases, if no one in the family can take enough time off from work, or in which you’d simply rather pay someone else to clean up after a hospital’s paperwork pollution.
> This role has developed only recently, as systems have broken down. There’s not yet a standardized term; “health care advocate” is one among several.
> Mine specializes in gerontology and dementia. Others specialize in other disease areas; or in other aspects of the administrative nightmare, such as sorting out bogus hospital bills, which frequently include fraudulent additions.
> They are not inexpensive (mine charges $150/hour), so not an option for everyone.
> There are good and not-so-good advocates. I spoke with several before hiring one. Some were clearly clueless; the one I hired last month has seemed consistently competent.
> Since they recommend particular providers, there is an inherent principal-agent problem. Ask if they get any compensation from services they recommend. Take their recommendations with a grain of salt in any case.