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UVA has ruined us: Health system sues thousands of patients, seizing paychecks and putting liens
WaPO ^ | 9/9/2019 | J. Hancock and E. Lucas

Posted on 09/09/2019 11:30:49 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog

Heather Waldron and John Hawley are losing their four-bedroom house in the hills above Blacksburg, Va. A teenage daughter, one of their five children, sold her clothes for spending money. They worried about paying the electric bill. Financial disaster, they say, contributed to their divorce, finalized in April.

Their money problems began when the University of Virginia Health System pursued the couple with a lawsuit and a lien on their home to recoup $164,000 in charges for Waldron’s emergency surgery in 2017.

The family has lots of company: Over six years ending in June 2018, the health system and its doctors sued former patients more than 36,000 times for over $106 million, seizing wages and bank accounts, putting liens on property and homes and forcing families into bankruptcy, a Kaiser Health News analysis has found.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; Miscellaneous; Politics/Elections; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: blacksburg; health; healthcare; healthcarebills; payer; single; uva
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To: Sequoyah101
I’m with you, because of my age and a preexsistng condition; as self employed, my only option was Obamacare. Paid $22K in 2017 and $20K in 2018. Now I’m employed I will pay around $6K with good insurance.
It sucked, but I knew if I did not have insurance and I had an issue it would have bankrupted my family.
41 posted on 09/09/2019 12:58:11 PM PDT by martinidon
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To: Responsibility2nd
[Funny how all of these health care woes began in the Obama Regime.]

"We have to pass it so you can find out what's in it!" - Nancy Pelosi


42 posted on 09/09/2019 1:00:22 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Q: How much is their home worth....?

That might explain a lot.


43 posted on 09/09/2019 1:00:38 PM PDT by mewzilla (Break out the mustard seeds)
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To: IndispensableDestiny
They have to pay for all the hospital system administrators.

Don't forget the Emergency Room patients who must be treated; and, then never pay their bills. Someone has to pay those bills; and, it is the person with health insurance.

44 posted on 09/09/2019 1:01:25 PM PDT by LibertarianLiz
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To: Labyrinthos

If they are up to their armpits in debt because, for example, they bought a home in the mid six-figures, that might explain why they can’t afford health insurance.


45 posted on 09/09/2019 1:03:51 PM PDT by mewzilla (Break out the mustard seeds)
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To: softengine

“UVA is also immersed in the whole LGBTQP thing. Go to an appointment there and you will find yourself facing some student who’s there to “collect information”. That information will include sexual preferences information. I was recently asked, with unabashed glee, if I was sexually active with male, female, or both. Sickening and offensive. “

They can ask me anything...and I can give them any answer that I feel like, at least for now (and I do just that).


46 posted on 09/09/2019 1:10:15 PM PDT by BobL (I eat at McDonald's and shop at Walmart - I just don't tell anyone.)
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To: Sequoyah101
They did. It is a myth that you can negotiate a cheaper rate for cash

In my experience, it was routine process in the hospital accounting department to give a 60% discount for full cash payment on major surgery and specialty appointments. You had to ask for it in order to get it. No negotiation beyond that.

Of course they never expected very many people to take them up on that offer. I was fortunate enough that I could do so.

The net savings was way more than several years of insurance payments.

47 posted on 09/09/2019 1:10:22 PM PDT by flamberge (The wheels keep turning)
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To: Valpal1

Thanks for sharing that.


48 posted on 09/09/2019 1:11:30 PM PDT by MarMema
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To: Buckeye McFrog

all hosptials do this, Many people are bankrupted because of high healthcare costs that are not part of a functioning compteitive market.


49 posted on 09/09/2019 1:24:01 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Voter ID for 2020!! Leftists totalitarian fascists appear to be planning to eradicate conservatives)
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To: LibertarianLiz

Any time I’ve been in the ER, the billing person and cart was there promptly.


50 posted on 09/09/2019 1:26:10 PM PDT by wally_bert (Hola. Me llamo Inspector Carlton Lassiter. Me gusta queso.)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Obamacare has bankrupted millions. My niece was 1 of them, it’s not just UVA hospitals all of them are doing it.

We are Medicare and Tricare Life, we owe 0 on any medical bill. But if the IDIOTS don’t file right or on time they will try and use a collection agency. Tough luck, Medicare/Tricare Life have a time frame to file. And now they are not paying for duplicate test 1 run by Primary 1 run by Specialist. Just call Tricare and they fix it. Happened more than once.


51 posted on 09/09/2019 1:33:07 PM PDT by GailA (Intractable Pain, a Subset of Chronic pain Last a Life TIME at Level 10.)
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To: BobL

Most hospitals now ask these questions for a variety of health reasons. 1 of the first do you own a Gun.

Answer NO, I own Several but I’ll never tell them that.

And if you are stupid enough not to get the copies of my Medicare and Tricare Life card to bad, you waited 1 yr to demand payment. They have a 6 month time frame. Now tell the Feds you are going to sue them.


52 posted on 09/09/2019 1:52:12 PM PDT by GailA (Intractable Pain, a Subset of Chronic pain Last a Life TIME at Level 10.)
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To: GailA

Agree, I always tell people that there are 3 answers to the gun question:

1) No.
2) Yes, but I keep them unloaded and locked up.
3) None of your GD business

Answer #3 is what will get you red-flagged.


53 posted on 09/09/2019 1:59:52 PM PDT by BobL (I eat at McDonald's and shop at Walmart - I just don't tell anyone.)
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To: IndispensableDestiny

You would think the open fraud of such charges would prompt an enterprising prosecutor with public ambitions to go after the hospitals and physicians.


54 posted on 09/09/2019 2:51:57 PM PDT by pierrem15 ("Massacrez-les, car le seigneur connait les siens")
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To: Valpal1

That is a different deal than attempting to negotiate for a reduced fee for cash. Even if insured and needing other than emergency surgery I will go to the surgery center in Oklahoma City or Wichita, Kansas. Their performance is excellent from what I have been able to determine. They are motivated by competition and free enterprise instead of having a monopoly. I had a procedure done in the same circumstances 8 years ago but it wasn’t cheap. In that case low bid was the last thing I wanted.

What if it is not elective though? What if it is an emergency and you have no choice but to be treated where you can as fast as you can and don’t have any means to even take care of your own affairs?


55 posted on 09/09/2019 4:15:26 PM PDT by Sequoyah101 (We are governed by the consent of the governed and we are fools for allowing it.)
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To: martinidon

Pay or don’t pay your money and take your chances don’t you?

I am told that the reason negotiating a price lower than book if you are not already covered by insurance and a negotiated rate is that they need to support their book price so the medicare / medicade payments which are a % of usual and customary book price are supported at a high level. I don’t know how they get around the negotiated insurance rates.


56 posted on 09/09/2019 4:17:55 PM PDT by Sequoyah101 (We are governed by the consent of the governed and we are fools for allowing it.)
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To: BobL

“I’m going to say no.”

A truthful answer.


57 posted on 09/09/2019 4:26:29 PM PDT by MortMan (Americans are a people increasingly separated by our connectivity.)
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To: Sequoyah101

Before Obamacare, we had reasonably priced catastrophic medical insurance to cover emergency medical care. That doesn’t exist anymore.

Both industries (medical care and medical insurance) are both a complete mess due to market interference at both the state and federal level.

The choice people provided a list of surgery centers that would do the surgery for that price and the Oklahoma place was one of them. We went with the Seattle one because it was only 5 hours away. I would never have found them on my own.


58 posted on 09/09/2019 4:55:30 PM PDT by Valpal1
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To: Valpal1

Apparently self-employed people who pay for their own insurance are also as rare as unicorns. When stupid care started the people on the other end of the phone at blue crap acted like they never encountered a person who paid for their own insurance at full price, without subsidies etc.

One more year and I go to Medicare. I could get some service at the Indian health facility and even go to the Indian Hospital but a doctor I know says that the Indian Health Service is the final solution to the Indian problem. It is probably about like the VA though I’ve never been there. They have great equipment and maybe some good doctors but it takes forever to get an appointment and time means nothing at all. The tribes do something with the casino money and dribble some of it to health care but I think a lot of it lines pockets of the powerful. Manhattan was bought for beads, trinkets and cloth. The Indians around here have not gone far beyond that. The Choctaws and Chickasaws do a lot of good for their people from what I can see. The Cherokees, not so much except they talk a good game.


59 posted on 09/09/2019 5:20:13 PM PDT by Sequoyah101 (We are governed by the consent of the governed and we are fools for allowing it.)
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To: cuban leaf

I asked my Primary doctor if paying by cash would make visits cheaper-he said no.


60 posted on 09/09/2019 8:44:36 PM PDT by Amberdawn (Want To Honor Our Troops? Then Be A Citizen Worth Fighting For.)
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