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Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

latimes.com

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Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#151

Post by rntksi »

cbanek wrote: post #51
mehrdadn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I don't understand about tips like these is, what obligation does the other party have to cooperate at all? Like you "ask for a supervisor" (and then a director!) what incentive do they have to not just say no? Or if you ask for an itemized bill, what if they just refuse? How are you supposed to get past a blunt refusal, which to me seems like the easiest response for them?

Once upon a time, I had a surprise bill for about $4,000 that health insurance decided should have been $700 for that procedure. I fought it and won. But it took forever, almost a year of calling them and going back and forth - and this was actually decent corporate health insurance. It took a lot of reading through the 600+ page plan document and finding loopholes. For example, I asked them that if they thought it s…

These stories are horrifying to me. I live in a less developed country than the US, other businesses may be crooked and all but at least the medical field is manageable.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#152

Post by mattmcknight »

Retric wrote: post #136
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that it's a common misconception, would you supply some evidence for your position?

Hospitals receive extra payments when they have an unusual number of Medicare patients. https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/finance/dsh/index.html It’s just another case where the government splits spending across multiple programs.

That's Medicaid, not Medicare

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#153

Post by mikeash »

cosmodisk wrote: post #46

Reading this in Europe.I'm sure if I'd go with article alone to my American colleague on Monday, he'd defent the system even if he'd have to die for it. Knowing he's a healthy 20something man with affluent parents that could potentially bankroll even a year's stay in a private hospital- I could understand it to certain degree, however I fail to understand why nobody really is up for changing this system,where million…

Essentially everyone wants to change the system. The problem is that half of the voters want to fix it by having the government provide universal coverage, and half want to fix it by getting government out of the picture as much as possible and letting the market solve everything.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#154

Post by mattmcknight »

ericd wrote: post #2

We had a call with someone who works on the pricelist/chargemaster for a major metro hospital recently, they set their prices by taking the Medicare reimbursement rate, and multiplying by 8.

Simple change to next year's Medicare plans: if you accept Medicare you cannot charge any patient more than you charge Medicare.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#155

Post by dcposch »

omegaworks wrote: post #101
oppositelock wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to the ER with chest pains seeming like a heart attack. They did an EKG, determined it wasn't a heart attack, then a blood test, which determined it was low potassium, and did a chest x-ray just in case. I received a saline IV and potassium pills as treatment, and went home after a couple of hours. The bill was about $18,000 for this. The insurance negotiated rate was about $1,500, of which I had to pay about…

>I don't understand why this isn't prosecuted. Simply examine the way the issue was presented by frontrunners in the supposedly liberal party of the United States on the debate stage yesterday. Two candidates call for true universal coverage, a few call for a public option but brand it as universal coverage to confuse viewers, and several (with moderator and broadcast sponsor support) outright mislead by stating that…

Three candidates actually. (Bernie, Warren, and Yang.)

...

Loss aversion is a powerful emotion with destructive effects on our politics.

Once enough people have something to lose from a change, change becomes extremely hard, even if the overall net effect would be positive.

Not only does this preserve bad policies, it turns some into a one-way ratchet--where it's easy to make things worse and very hard to make them better.

Examples

- Medical middlemen (insurance, insurance brokers, billing companies...) are pure waste. But they employ so many people and generate so much revenue that they are very hard to attack. The US has slowly climbed to ~2x the per-person medical spending of our peers... so now, any effort to reduce that to 1.9x will be met with fierce resistance.

- Prison guard unions are powerful nationally and in many states, including California. They fight any and all attempts to reduce incarceration. That was true in 1980 with ~100 prisoners per 100k population... and it's true now with ~650, by far the highest in the world.

- Realtors and car dealers essentially tax the two biggest purchases most people in America make, house and car. They have powerful lobbies in all 50 states.

There is no particular amount that will placate these rent-seekers. They just never want their income stream reduced.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#156

Post by maximente »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #116
alexanderdmitri wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our first born came with a $42k bill. Hospital and doctor said we were covered by our insurance pre-auth, but come bill time apparently pre-auth was null and void b/c it was requisite on a negotiation that fell through. Each side had a different story and their representatives acted absolutely helpless. We were broke at the time we found out about the pregnancy and memories of the first two years of my boy's life are…

Why aren’t US citizens queuing up to emigrate? At this stage, it seems like the US is the “land of the free”, whereby “freedom” is defined as the ability to freely exploit everyone.

most are still stuck in the loyalty type mentality buffered by things like patriotism and national anthems and flags for any event with >5 people and a TV camera.

50 years ago people had the same loyalty towards their companies, and look where that got US manufacturing workers. nowadays you'd be nuts to expect to stick with a company for 10 years. get yours and get out: others be damned.

so it shall be with citizenship. as more and more citizens have more and more power to up and leave, or work outside the confines of the US without too much hassle, questions such as "what on earth are we still doing here?" will be asked, at first in whispers (as they are now), later in louder volumes.

where things go from there, anyone knows.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#157

Post by robocat »

mehrdadn wrote: post #42
throwaway1777 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure if you go through the effort to challenge such charges you can get them changed. https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18261698/how-to-fight-expensiv...

The thing I don't understand about tips like these is, what obligation does the other party have to cooperate at all? Like you "ask for a supervisor" (and then a director!) what incentive do they have to not just say no? Or if you ask for an itemized bill, what if they just refuse? How are you supposed to get past a blunt refusal, which to me seems like the easiest response for them?

Even worse, the people that would fight are often: dead, incapacitated, have age related mental issues, or old enough to not care to fight...

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#158

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #141
sjg007 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal law means your insurance has to pay for emergency room care. They do like to try to weasel out of it by saying you actually have a true emergency though. You can push back and get your state insurance regulator involved.

Isn't this why the costs are so outrageous? The guaranteed insurance coverage means hospitals know they can charge whatever they want. This is why I'm not psyched about single payer healthcare solutions: It's not solving the problem, and may just mean huge government waste. It'd be far more effective to aggressively regulate hospital billing, wouldn't it?

> It's not solving the problem, and may just mean huge government waste.

You should look into the efficiency of medicare and medicaid if you're really worried about this. It might put some of your fears to rest.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#159

Post by vernie »

djsumdog wrote: post #85
awb wrote: post #44

Just to pile on about how ridiculous medical costs are: After giving birth my wife was offered Ibuprofen. On the bill we were charged $80 for the 2 pills she took. This was before Obamacare. After Obamacare I twisted my ankle and the doctors insisted I wear a cheap fabric boot with stiff plastic plates while it healed over the next couple weeks. I asked how much it cost and they said $280. I took it off and refused i…

The ACA was a blatant failure in most states. It's still not affordable and large groups of people were never insured. ACA approved plans proved to be bogus. I wrote about this once before: https://fightthefuture.org/article/returning-to-america-and-...

It was a wrap for the ACA when Lieberman used all his remaining Joementum to kill the public option.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#160

Post by [deleted] »

janesvilleseo wrote: post #82

I’m sure going to get downvoted for this but.... I just don’t pay my medical bills I pay my dentist and eye doctor bills since those are different. But I just let my insurance pay their part and I walk away from the rest. I haven’t had anything catastrophic yet. But have and do have bills in the 1,000s. My credit score is great in the 740+ range. I know big stuff they could take me to court or put a lien on my proper…

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