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Emergency room patients can face steep bills even when treatment is declined

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Re: Emergency room patients can face steep bills even when treatment is declined

#241

Post by sandworm101 »

assblaster wrote: post #180
sandworm101 wrote: post #100

I cannot get over how odd "in network" is for everyone outside the united states. For emergencies we all just go to the nearest hospital. They see us. They treat us. Or they stabilize us and discuss whether we should transfer to another hospital for better/faster treatment. There is no discussion of in or out of networks. Stories like this make me very happy that I no longer live in the US. The constant fear of a sur…

Insurers offer guaranteed patients to hospitals and doctors in exchange for reduced payment rates. In other words, they hospitals make their money off of volume. This is why there are networks of providers. If you prefer, you can visit any hospital you want in the United States, as long as you pay for the medical care. Why should hospitals accept low insurance payment from insurers who do not give them a benefit of i…

More questions that we never bother asking. There are fixed rates agreed nationally, not backroom deals between corporations.

Re: Emergency room patients can face steep bills even when treatment is declined

#242

Post by andruby »

assblaster wrote: post #224
falsedan wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Medicaid pays $100 for a $500 procedure On what planet would the special interest groups responsible for setting reimbursements make it less than the cost of delivery? Let's try again: > If a medical provider overcharges $100 for a $400 procedure Ok now your position makes more sense. Debt recovery is a well-known problem and yes, providers write it off or sell the debt on. > What other business exists where it'…

>On what planet would the special interest groups responsible for setting reimbursements make it less than the cost of delivery? Take a guess what Medicaid pays for a labor epidural for a pregnant mother, which involves putting a very large needle next to a woman's spinal cord, with possible complications of paralysis, death, headache, back pain, infection, failure of epidural, etc? If you run a hospital where 100% o…

> Take a guess what Medicaid pays for a labor epidural for a pregnant mother, which involves putting a very large needle next to a woman's spinal cord, with possible complications of paralysis, death, headache, back pain, infection, failure of epidural, etc?

I've looked up the price and for one hospital in Belgium [0]. The rates, including the room you stay in, are:

Uninsured: €140~€420 Insured: €17~€200 Insured with low income: €10~€190

The large variation is due to shared common room vs single personal room.

An epidural really shouldn't be insanely expensive. Of course, exposure to litigation and risk for the doctor is much lower here.

[0] https://www.azdelta.be/nl/patient/wat-het-u-zal-kosten/prijs... (in dutch)

Re: Emergency room patients can face steep bills even when treatment is declined

#243

Post by piyush_soni »

assblaster wrote: post #216
falsedan wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lay people don't have the training to determine if an ailment is life-threatening or not; that's why they pay for insurance, so they can see a medical professional who is qualified to say if you could die or not.

You can say that about 100% of medical complaints. Emergency rooms should be for emergencies. You yourself will know if you are about to die.

You mean one should wait until the signs show with certainty that they're about to die before going to the ER? That'd a bit of a stretch :). Of course, I went because I thought it was an emergency (though I can see your definition of 'emergency' is quite different from mine). It's not like I went because I had cold.

Re: Emergency room patients can face steep bills even when treatment is declined

#244

Post by kamaal »

gm-conspiracy wrote: post #211
kamaal wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non US citizen, saving your eye sight is more important than losing it for an opportunity to sue?

No, I am saying, what happened to her, she has a right to sue. Basically, she would be compensated, and it would serve as a deterrent to our US hospital system to not behave as poorly. I would even argue it is discrimination based on nationality.

>>it would serve as a deterrent to our US hospital system

Basically it won't be a deterrent to anything. They will just charge patients extra to pay for malpractice insurance.

Re: Emergency room patients can face steep bills even when treatment is declined

#245

Post by true_religion »

tialaramex wrote: post #230
DanBC wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without showing any form of ID. That's changing a bit under the hostile environment. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-overs...

Only if you don't look like you belong. Classic hidden privilege. As a tall middle-aged white guy, I go wherever I want, nobody asks to see any ID, nobody checks why I'm there. If they need to interact with me they start by apologising "I'm sorry sir". Hospitals, government departments, everywhere I go I look like I'm supposed to be there. But behave the exact same way as a 5'6" black teenager and you'll get stopped…

Former 5 foot 7 black teenager here, never got stopped. Never got questioned. Never had a single incidence of racism placed on me. Can't say that I know anyone who has had issues in my area either.

Looking like you belong has a lot more to do with your attitude than your race.

Re: Emergency room patients can face steep bills even when treatment is declined

#246

Post by paulsutter »

softawre wrote: post #215
paulsutter wrote: post #72

I paid $5500 last year for an unnecessary emergency room visit (doctor sent me down to get a scan). They wired me up to machines and made me wait 5 hours for the scan, then 3 hours to get discharged. They wouldn’t let me leave until the doctor on duty wrote up her treatment recommendation. Even though I was just there for a scan. No insurance last year so after my “35% cash payer discount” it came out to $5500 after…

I think the concept of not going to an emergency room unless it is an actual emergency is well known?

The doctor sent me there. Gave me a slip of paper and said “give this to the ER desk to get a scan”.

So I did what he said.

Re: Emergency room patients can face steep bills even when treatment is declined

#247

Post by JesseWright »

tunbgeetf wrote: post #23
Arnt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it that does cost $5k? Keeping a mostly-unused tomography machine and crew ready in case someone at the ER needs it? Insurance premiums charged per patient who walks in the door? We get these complaints in Germany too (where I currently live) BTW. "A five-minute drive with an ambulance shouldn't cost €500!" someone complained to the newspaper here recently. It doesn't, what costs €500 is keeping enough ambula…

€500 is still something many people can pay in Germany, 5k isn't something the average American can foot (with no treatment to boot). It's not at all a comparable complaint. IIRC an ambulance ride in the US is 10-20k, that's indicative of just how much more medical care costs over there.

I have never heard of an ambulance ride costing anywhere _near_ $10K-$20K. The average, out-of-pocket price of an ambulance ride is much closer to $1000 - and often less. New York's 2012 fee schedule offers a good example: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/fdny/downloads/pdf/about/fee-sch...

Re: Emergency room patients can face steep bills even when treatment is declined

#248

Post by jhall1468 »

justherefortart wrote: post #125
jhall1468 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they write it off as a bad debt then you end up with it on your credit report for 7.5 years. Good call.

Most credit scores are ignoring medical collections or deemphasizing it. I went to the ER a while back, my insurance paid roughly 1600 for the 8k+ they billed. I have a HSA that pays out as well, yet they have tried to bill me on top of that. They'll never see another cent. Credit is overrated anyway. Causes more troubles than it's worth.

> Most credit scores are ignoring medical collections or deemphasizing it.

Absolutely false. Modern FICO scores are doing that. The FICO score your bank will actually use doesn't differentiate debt.

> Credit is overrated anyway. Causes more troubles than it's worth.

I suppose if you never want to be a homeowner that's true.

Re: Emergency room patients can face steep bills even when treatment is declined

#249

Post by sjg007 »

assblaster wrote: post #224
falsedan wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Medicaid pays $100 for a $500 procedure On what planet would the special interest groups responsible for setting reimbursements make it less than the cost of delivery? Let's try again: > If a medical provider overcharges $100 for a $400 procedure Ok now your position makes more sense. Debt recovery is a well-known problem and yes, providers write it off or sell the debt on. > What other business exists where it'…

>On what planet would the special interest groups responsible for setting reimbursements make it less than the cost of delivery? Take a guess what Medicaid pays for a labor epidural for a pregnant mother, which involves putting a very large needle next to a woman's spinal cord, with possible complications of paralysis, death, headache, back pain, infection, failure of epidural, etc? If you run a hospital where 100% o…

This is not true.

https://www.kff.org/report-section/understanding-medicaid-ho...

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