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She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

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Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#141

Post by CatWChainsaw »

My dental insurance tried to make me pay the full cost of my invisalign treatment twice. I've ignored the second bill. Delta Dental can eat shit and see how they like their own insurance plans.

They also dragged their feet paying the part they said they would cover. They split it into two equal payments and said I would get half now and half in the next calendar year as long as I had continuous coverage during that time. Checked EOBs/statements/etc for any hint that they could do this, it was the first time I'd heard about it.

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#142

Post by throw10920 »

CatWChainsaw wrote: post #140
throw10920 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are these > people who constantly show up to defend the US health care system that you're claiming exist? I don't see any of them.

Check gaulish further down in comments.

OK, that's one commentator in this thread. Not even "people", just n=1. It sure seems like GP is engaging in hyperbole to push an agenda.

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#143

Post by CatWChainsaw »

throw10920 wrote: post #142
CatWChainsaw wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check gaulish further down in comments.

OK, that's one commentator in this thread. Not even "people", just n=1. It sure seems like GP is engaging in hyperbole to push an agenda.

I could start keeping tabs of other healthcare threads and the comments defending to make your N robust enough for you to think that more than one person in the US is defending the healthcare system as-is, if you'd like.

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#144

Post by consz »

tomrod wrote: post #61
consz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, this is the correct way to handle this? I haven’t paid attention to any medical bills sent in the mail since I started working 15 years ago (I generally pay what they ask at the point of service), and I’ve never noticed any consequences (no denial of service anywhere, has never shown up in any way on my credit report, etc) — as far as my experience has shown, any bills sent after the fact are co…

If you are in the US, you are probably often paying for the wrong services as billing errors are quite common.

Maybe? I don’t really care, that sounds like an error for the hospital to fix or get right the first time. Ignoring it seems to have no repercussions.

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#145

Post by tomrod »

consz wrote: post #144
tomrod wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are in the US, you are probably often paying for the wrong services as billing errors are quite common.

Maybe? I don’t really care, that sounds like an error for the hospital to fix or get right the first time. Ignoring it seems to have no repercussions.

My experience has been that bills can often be 5X the actual services. It can matter if you have any sort of real interaction. For minor common stuff you're right it is immaterial -- like a doc visit with a copay. But get a frenectomy? Mole removal? Vein ablation? Ortho surgery? I highly, highly recommend reviewing the procedure codes for anyone who recognizes they are their best, and often only, advocate.

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#146

Post by beej71 »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #58
beej71 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked, Americans already pay more tax for health care than anybody except the Norwegians.

Overall perhaps, but the taxes I paid in NZ were much, much higher than what I paid in the US, even when accounting for health insurance and other out of pocket costs.

Here's an interesting chart on the matter: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/154e8143-en/index.html?i...

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#147

Post by [deleted] »

CatWChainsaw wrote: post #143
throw10920 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, that's one commentator in this thread. Not even "people", just n=1. It sure seems like GP is engaging in hyperbole to push an agenda.

I could start keeping tabs of other healthcare threads and the comments defending to make your N robust enough for you to think that more than one person in the US is defending the healthcare system as-is, if you'd like.

[deleted]

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#148

Post by AmericanChopper »

beej71 wrote: post #146
AmericanChopper wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overall perhaps, but the taxes I paid in NZ were much, much higher than what I paid in the US, even when accounting for health insurance and other out of pocket costs.

Here's an interesting chart on the matter: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/154e8143-en/index.html?i...

Per capita statistics have no affect on me personally given the level of taxes I paid in the US and NZ was substantially higher than their respective per capita averages.

Re: She paid husband's hospital bill. A year after his death, they wanted more money

#149

Post by consz »

tomrod wrote: post #145
consz wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe? I don’t really care, that sounds like an error for the hospital to fix or get right the first time. Ignoring it seems to have no repercussions.

My experience has been that bills can often be 5X the actual services. It can matter if you have any sort of real interaction. For minor common stuff you're right it is immaterial -- like a doc visit with a copay. But get a frenectomy? Mole removal? Vein ablation? Ortho surgery? I highly, highly recommend reviewing the procedure codes for anyone who recognizes they are their best, and often only, advocate.

I don’t understand why it’s worth doing that work — ignoring and not paying the subsequent bills in the mail seems to have no downside, so why bother reviewing the procedure codes afterwards? Maybe we’re talking past each other.
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