Medical bills -- a rip off industry

[dolfan]

Taking 2 minutes to vent. An employee at the store had a thumb slicing injury this morning, nothing serious. She was instructed to go to ER to be safe. She went, they glued the little wound shut. I dropped by (you know this is a very small town) the ER on my way to work, told the billing lady in ER who I was. She said, "Yeah, I was just fixin' to call you." She was going to tell me what I knew already --- employee of store at ER. Well, I said, "Look, don't turn this in on workers' comp. We'll pay it today, just let us know what the ER visit bill is. Call the store and tell the manager, she'll get you a check up here by lunch."

Just now, lady from ER calls, says, "Since y'all are gonna pay today, we knocked off 58%." So, I called mgr., she's taking a check to ER for 42% of their normal charge.

You don't think hospitals overcharge?? Wow. Just wow. If they can drop 58% of a bill because I went in and said, "Hey, how y'all doin'?" then they're overcharging insurance companies and everyone else, too.

[cndlou]

Yep! I know this first hand... I work in the billing office for a hospital, well techinally for the clinics associated with the hospital... It is not fair, but it likely has a lot to do with the deadbeats that come in and apply for charity. While many, many truely need charity, there is a large number that come in and say they can't pay their bill but are driving brand new expensive "pimped out" (that is what we call it...lol) cars... As I said, I work for the hospital system and recently had neck surgery... I am about to go broke...paying just what my insurance didn't pay... sad, sad!

[scooter]

Part of the reason they overcharge is that the insurance company only pays a fraction of the bill.

Like if you went to the hospital under your insurance to get a bandaid.

The insurance company has a set price they will pay for a bandaid.

Sometimes it's less than what a bandaid costs the hospital, etc.

[dolfan]

Yep! I know this first hand... I work in the billing office for a hospital, well techinally for the clinics associated with the hospital... It is not fair, but it likely has a lot to do with the deadbeats that come in and apply for charity. While many, many truely need charity, there is a large number that come in and say they can't pay their bill but are driving brand new expensive "pimped out" (that is what we call it...lol) cars... As I said, I work for the hospital system and recently had neck surgery... I am about to go broke...paying just what my insurance didn't pay... sad, sad!

I know that people that do not pay their bills hurts the hospital business, but they're no different from any other in that regard. If car lots charged people with proof of automobile insurance twice the price they charged people who came in without proof of it but had cash in hand, there'd be Congressional hearings on car lots and an expensive government program to police car lots. We have such an expensive policing of hospitals and it happens anyway.

Scooter, the difference is that if I'd had them send us a bill in the mail, we'd have paid more than $500. That's just not right. That amount is not tied to their costs of doing business. That's gouging.

[Full Quiver]

The biggest problem is Medicare & Medicaid and America better realize this asap. Neither of these programs even cover the doctor's cost let alone profits and therefore all services are overpriced. Medicare and medicaid are both scams, criminal, and unconstitutional. There is no chance that the Constitution allows the govt. to make private businesses take a loss.

I'm sure medical billing & collection is costly therefore cash ALWAYS talks.

[dolfan]

The biggest problem is Medicare & Medicaid and America better realize this asap. Neither of these programs even cover the doctor's cost let alone profits and therefore all services are overpriced. Medicare and medicaid are both scams, criminal, and unconstitutional. There is no chance that the Constitution allows the govt. to make private businesses take a loss.

I'm sure medical billing & collection is costly therefore cash ALWAYS talks.

Now, I'm going to have to call that one. Those programs are not unconstitutional. Medicare is constitutional because the Social Security Act is constitutional and so is the Federal Insurance Contributions Act. So says the SCOTUS, and that's the only opinion that matters.

The Constitution may very well make private business take a loss. If your business owes income taxes that put it in the red, guess what? The Constitution lets it take a loss. Further, no doctor is required to accept these insurances and is free to ignore them. If they are so harmful to doctors' bottom lines (and, I don't dispute that they are), eventually doctors will either quit accepting them or, under Obamacare, go practice medicine in Mexico or open a Texaco.

The rest of this is just more of my drivel: That idea that the constitution doesn't allow the government to put private business in a loss situation is patently untrue. The Constitution is powerless to do anything about it. It is a piece of paper and nothing more. It has no life, no guns and no power. The courts and the legislatures -- state and federal -- have utterly changed how government is constituted and the language of the Constitution is a convenient punching bag for justifying most anything politicians or judges want. It started out as a work of fine art -- fallen art, but fine to the fallen human eye -- and now it is unrecognizable. The Constitution was trashed long, long ago, before you or I were born. Even if it weren't, it would still be high time we Christians quit citing it as having any bearing on anything we do, think or say.

[Phil Hoover]

at my hospital (where I work), any "self-pays" are automatically given a 50% discount.....as long as the person pays a deposit ($65) and then pays the rest of the bill in less than 30 days.