Posted on 08/03/2020 7:56:27 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
....The more she read, the more annoyed de Cordova became. SignatureCare charges a “facility fee” for treatment, the document said, ranging “between five hundred dollars and one hundred thousand dollars.” Another charge, the “observation fee,” could range from $1,000 to $100,000.
De Cordova didn’t think her fees for the test could rise into the six figures. But SignatureCare was giving itself leeway to charge almost any amount to her insurance plan — and she could be on the hook. She knew she couldn’t sign the document. But that created a problem: She still needed to get her test results.
Even in a public health emergency, what could be considered the first rule of American health care is still in effect: There is no set price. Medical providers often inflate their charges and then give discounts to insurance plans that sign contracts with them. Out-of-network insurers and their members are often left to pay the full tab or whatever discount they can negotiate after the fact.....Texas is notorious for its high-priced out-of-network emergency bills and free-standing emergency departments. Some of the facilities appear to be using COVID-19 testing to draw in patients so their insurance plans can be charged for additional services, said Blake Hutson, associate state director for AARP Texas, the advocacy organization for older Americans. “It’s not a surprise they would be racking up the charges and adding on everything they can and billing the health plan,” he said....
(Excerpt) Read more at propublica.org ...
ProPublica = Fake News (On Steroids)
America’s health-care “system” is a hairball of progressive social-engineering, vast government bureaucratic incompetence, cost-shifting, and crony-capitalist corruption.
The only option to fix it is to allow patients and doctors to escape entirely from its control.
Normally, I would agree with you, but there is just so much chicanery with this COVID stuff that this just might be a broken clock situation.
Many of these facilities - including hospitals - should be charged under RICO.
4 years ago my daughter had a simple operation (about 90 minutes) to repair torn ligaments in her knee. The anaesthesiologist was employed by the hospital. She stayed in a normal (not ICU) room for 2 days. The bill was $128,000!!! The biggest joke was that I had cleared the operation and hospital stay with BC/BS, and had a maximum out-of-pocket of $1500 per family member...yet I received a bill from the hospital for about $86,000 after the “discount” for BC/BS. I called the doctor who performed the operation (a personal friend) and told him all of the facts and asked him to discuss this with the billing dept. at the hospital. He came back 2 days later and said to forget about the entire bill...maybe my not-so-subtle hint that I would call the state medical board and the newspapers, as well as potentially making a criminal complaint, had some effect. :>)
That a provider could even ATTEMPT something like this is absurd. Of course, the biggest problem is that the Sherman Antitrust Act has, for some reason ($$$ what could it be? $$$) NEVER once been applied to any actor in the medical industry. Somehow or other, I don’t think that this is what the law says, it is just “selective” prosecution that is related to huge contributions.
One of the big scams in Texas is if you go to an in-network hospital, the ER doctors are likely to be out of network. Expect huge out of pocket expenses even if you’ve done all you can to try to follow the rules.
And if someone calls 911 for you expect to pay hundreds of dollars to the city for the fire department answering the call, even if you don’t get in the ambulance.
So the threat of a multi-hundred thousand dollar bill for a routine test is a bit far fetched, but not totally without basis. I’d expect her to be able to get the test and results for under $10,000. But if she’d go to LabCorp or Quest, it would probably be under $300.
In our little burg, we pay$10/month on our water bill, and that covers our ambulance service. It was $5/month forever, but it recently went up. It’s a Godsend. Other towns in our area do the same.
Early in the COVID crisis when ER volumes were drastically down because of fear, I was referred to an Urgent Care by my doctor, however they shuttled me to their ER, claiming I would need cardiac monitoring which was never done. I left 2 hours later to go fill an $8 Rx which was all I really needed, but they generated an ER bill of $4000.
I’m convinced it was a pure revenue grab due to their low volumes. It was a ghost town.
I’ve seen articles like this before. Even if you have good insurance, go to a free testing site. Do not get tested on your insurance plan.
stop testing. end the lockdowns/shut-downs. get back to normal. it’s all a scam and it’s interference in the 2020 presidential election. FakeNewsMSM is complicit, as always.
What happens if you have to get tested for work or because it is required before you can have gallbladder surgery or something like that?
I don’t know. Testing for Work should also be on the company’s dime.
“The only option to fix it is to allow patients and doctors to escape entirely from its control.“
I am actually in favor of ripping the system up and starting over. If you ever read your EOB’s you will find that they have no basis in reality whatsoever. This does not mean that everone should get everything “for free”.
Medicine is a license to steal. It is mob rule racketeering.
Thank you for posting. I read three covid-related stories. Outstanding journalism and I recommended to others. No, I don’t imagine Sean Hannity is a writer there, but that’s OK with me.
Bkmk
I hate it when an article sneaks in a sentence like that without explaining it.
Why does she "need" to get her test results? Hundreds of millions of Americans don't know whether they are infected or not - so why is it so urgent to her to know her findings?
Regards,
Dud she at least get a positive test result even if she wasn't actually tested like others have gotten?
Don’t bother getting tested. What good would it do anyway?
The USA Medical industry is a scam. First they take your money and then you die anyway.
What’s the use?
Facility fees are the biggest scam out there. Basically, you are being charged for a hospital’s operating costs - even if the tests done are not in the hospital. Any doctor or lab or testing facility associated with the hospital is considered working at the hospital.
I went round and round with hospital and Medicare over facility fees. Hospital was charging $22 for every doctor’s visit and lab test off site. Medicare increased it to $109, leaving me with the entire amount to pay. I refused to pay and eventually it went away. Monitor your bills.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.