Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 394 posts

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#151

Post by nickjj »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #112
whatever1 wrote: post #59

I really don’t get why everyone involved is allowed to have hidden prices. It looks like a highway robbery. I had a relative visiting from Europe and they had to go to the urgent care for some blood and urine tests and consultation. They received a $2,500 bill! My relative told the hospital that they are leaving the country and offered to pay $250 or good luck collecting from abroad. Then something magical happened.…

The other only way a price based system will work is if providers are required to show the bill ahead of time, with full insurance coverage and noncoverage clearly laid out, that is binding to the hospital and the insurance company. That must be signed off by a conscious capable representative. Yeah how does that work for emergencies and other situations? It doesn't! Just like hospitals unable to or refuse to disclos…

> Just like hospitals unable to or refuse to disclose prices.

Yep or they give an estimate which explicitly says it can change based on the procedure's outcome and then your real bill is 3x the estimate even though you have signed paperwork from a doctor saying nothing out of the ordinary happened so you call your insurance company and mention this and they immediately deny your grievance form and say you're responsible for the full amount that's not covered.

Then you bring this up with the hospital and they say "an estimate is what it is, there's nothing we can do" and then you ask for them to assign you to someone who can walk you through the itemized bill which says stuff like "Code 0234 Unknown" and explain why it costs $6,354 dollars and they don't comply.

This is all after you've called half a dozen departments ahead of time to try and get an accurate price quote but were denied by everyone. It's no surprise that bills get sent to collections.

For anyone out there in the US, I highly encourage you to record every single phone conversation you have with anything medical related. It will save you.

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#152

Post by peitho_pls »

quitit wrote: post #115
lenerdenator wrote: post #70

The events of the last week are just what happens when a company decides to refuse to meet its customers in the marketplace of sane ideas. You could probably have gotten away with what UNH did if the money wasn't so ridiculous. Thompson himself had a compensation package worth $10.2 million[0] a year. It's reasonable to think that other c-suiters at the company, along with those of its parent organization, made simil…

>People will say that this is necessary to remain competitive, but it just isn't. In other countries there are private health funds that return all of their profits to their members by simply covering more types of care and lowering premiums, all while still giving their staff very good, very attractive pay. That is clearly a win:win setting without being a government-run entity. A person doesn't need to earn 100M-20…

This article is about someone getting cutting edge care beyond medical literature from the one of the leading experts in the world. I've got to imagine most health funds would simply not be able to cover that type of care for an individual?

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#154

Post by itronitron »

whatever1 wrote: post #59

I really don’t get why everyone involved is allowed to have hidden prices. It looks like a highway robbery. I had a relative visiting from Europe and they had to go to the urgent care for some blood and urine tests and consultation. They received a $2,500 bill! My relative told the hospital that they are leaving the country and offered to pay $250 or good luck collecting from abroad. Then something magical happened.…

I've had the experience of buying a prescribed medication in an EU country without local insurance, so the pharmacist had to charge me full price (and sincerely apologized for doing so) yet the full price was less than my co-pay would have been in the USA.

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#155

Post by hypeatei »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98
iwontberude wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ghoulish? Internet? Have you spoken to regular people not terminally online? They have no sympathy for the CEO. I had sympathy for him as a human and a worker, but his behavior was beyond the pale and unfortunately rule of law doesn’t exist in the US.

> Have you spoken to regular people not terminally online? They have no sympathy for the CEO Everyone I have spoken to has no sympathy for him as a CEO but sympathy for him as a human. He is wrong and the healthcare system is broken. But this was also murder. If your sense of empathy is so fucked that you’re pro murder, you need to speak to a professional. (If you’re struggling with this and don’t want to let hate tu…

> you need to speak to a professional

I love this dismissive attitude that anyone who fails to empathize with someone who makes tens of millions a year AND denies health insurance claims is somehow mentally ill. Get real.

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#156

Post by no_wizard »

breadwinner wrote: post #138

Insurance companies are hardly the only ones at fault here. Hospitals and Pharma companies are guilty of price gouging [1]. When insurance pays hospitals hike up the prices. When the patient pays (such as for cosmetic or plastic surgery) the prices charged by hospitals and doctors are more reasonable. [1] https://www.dolthub.com/blog/2022-05-31-hospital-price-gougi...

Perhaps the house cleaning has only just begun

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#157

Post by gopher_space »

threemux wrote: post #37
griomnib wrote: post #6

No jury will convict the shooter, I suspect he’ll “resist arrest” and never make it to a court room for that reason.

Don't be so sure. It's interesting how quickly the places where this ghoulish view is proliferating (Reddit) have forgotten what they learned a month ago. The Internet is not reality and online posts are not a representative sample of the population. Instead, every survey of Americans shows around 80% are satisfied with their health coverage.

> Instead, every survey of Americans shows around 80% are satisfied with their health coverage.

Weird how heath coverage is the only thing in America 80% of the people are satisfied with. It's such a nice round number, too. I'm assuming it's men only, or were women polled before Roe v. Wade was dumped?

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#158

Post by peitho_pls »

lijok wrote: post #131

What a poorly designed system. If the insurer truly prioritizes client care as they claim, why on earth would the doctors contracted to review the treatments of the insured, have access to the insurance policies? Shouldn't the output of their review simply be whether or not the treatment seems appropriate, period? Why are the doctors weighing their review against the insurers policies? Honestly, this just seems like…

The insurer is a business, its ultimate priority is the make money. Same as the hospital, the drug producer, etc. I am sure they all want to prioritize client care but that have to ration it by cost at some level.

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#159

Post by cvalka »

samatman wrote: post #96
77pt77 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all it takes is one juror being inflexible.

That's all it takes for a hung jury, yes. In which case the prosecution will have plenty of grounds to screen for that in the next trial, that next trial will happen, and then the guy gets convicted of first degree murder. Presuming he's found in the first place. There's no world in which all twelve jurors vote not guilty if the defendant is demonstrated to be the assassin beyond reasonable doubt. That simply won't h…

It's very unlikely but it can happen.

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#160

Post by avn2109 »

lenerdenator wrote: post #70

The events of the last week are just what happens when a company decides to refuse to meet its customers in the marketplace of sane ideas. You could probably have gotten away with what UNH did if the money wasn't so ridiculous. Thompson himself had a compensation package worth $10.2 million[0] a year. It's reasonable to think that other c-suiters at the company, along with those of its parent organization, made simil…

By far the most interesting aspect of this tale is the sudden rush of evidence (news stories, internet videos etc) that insurers have abruptly started paying claims which were previously denied or mired in paperwork. The comments of e.g. [0] and [1] are filled with people claiming this. The system is clearly rattled by the appearance of the people's justice, in a "Let them eat cake" kinda way, and is trying to make a sudden show of not being so rapacious and unjust.

[0] mhttps://www.tiktok.com/@theredcoquette/video/744542308485049...

[1] https://www.tiktok.com/@joysparkleshine/video/74460838068822...

[2] https://www.wfsb.com/2024/12/05/anthem-backtracks-anesthesio...

Post reply on HN