Posted on 01/02/2014 3:06:08 PM PST by kristinn
Hospital staff in Northern Virginia are turning away sick people on a frigid Thursday morning because they can't determine whether their Obamacare insurance plans are in effect.
Patients in a close-in DC suburb who think they've signed up for new insurance plans are struggling to show their December enrollments are in force, and health care administrators aren't taking their word for it.
In place of quick service and painless billing, these Virginians are now facing the threat of sticker-shock that comes with bills they can't afford.
'They had no idea if my insurance was active or not!' a coughing Maria Galvez told MailOnline outside the Inova Healthplex facility in the town of Springfield.
She was leaving the building without getting a needed chest x-ray.
'The people in there told me that since I didn't have an insurance card, I would be billed for the whole cost of the x-ray,' Galvez said, her young daughter in tow. 'It's not fair – you know, I signed up last week like I was supposed to.'
The x-ray's cost, she was told, would likely be more than $500.
Galvez said she enrolled in a Carefirst Blue Cross bronze plan at a cost of about $450 per month through healthcare.gov, three days before Christmas.
'No one has sent me a bill,' she said.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified in a December 11 congressional hearing that the federal government can't say how many new enrollees have written checks for their first month's premiums.
'Some may have paid, some may have not,' she conceded.
It's unlikely that a valid insurance card would have changed Galvez' fortunes, however.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
that’s why there is my christmas present outside (sign)-
Impeach Obama
Save the American Dream
I have had 17 Dummycrats demand I take it down. 250 Conservatives whom love. The stupid sheriff said I was to remove it. Let him know Freedom of Speech and he is a dumb democrat
Depending on the policy, anything from 60/40 to 90/10. 100% payment comes once the out of pocket for the year is met.
California has “doc in a boxes”. They’re similar, NP’s located in various retail establishments. In my town, you can get a checkup and do your grocery shopping while you wait. A bit more than that $50 bucks, though. Community Clinics do the free care.
I’m in California, and I’ve never paid anything but the negotiated rate. Obamacare issues no policies, they’re issued by private insurance companies and follow the usual practices of those companies. The only way they can track your deductable use is by having the bill for every visit submitted for payment. If you haven’t reached the deductable yet, they reduce the bill to the negotiated rate and the doctor bills you for that amount. If you’ve reached the deductable, they reduce the bill to the negotiated rate, pay their share of the cost, then the doctor bills you for the rest.
A while back I know I sprained my ankle, wasn’t sure how bad or if it was fractured or broken. A quick trip the my primary care physician and a XRay cost around $300 total.
Same day appointment, spent maybe 90 minutes at the Doctor’s office and a hour at the XRay place. Had I gone to the ER I probably would have still been waiting to be called up in the waiting room, by the time I got home form the Dr. and XRay. All this was possible BEFORE ObamaCare.
I live in “third world” Indonesia, I needed an X-ray of my teeth for some work I was planning to have done. I walked into one of the many private hospitals in Jakarta, so clean you could eat your dinner off the floor. I had no appointment nor had I ever been in the hospital before, in five minutes I had registered as a patient, ten minutes later I was getting the X-ray done. I was all done within half an hour.
I paid cash as I left, the bill was $25.
Get the government out of health care and you’ll be amazed how accessible it becomes.
bump
She must see just about everything!
A friend of mine works in a hospital here. She once saw a mother and son in the ER for a skinned nose. They were not too open to the idea that a crusty skinned injury would heal on its own.
The REAL obamacare disaster has now started where hundreds, thousands and maybe even tens of thousands of folks start to be killed by obamacare towards the end because they no longer have medical insurance or medical care from their doctors because obamacare cancelled their insurance and they were unable to obtain comparable insurance or medical care.
I’m talking about chronically ill people who are being kept alive by highly specialized treatments by highly specialized doctors in highly specialized treatment centers. You don’t treat cancer, hemophilia, kidney failure, cystic fibrosis, psoriatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, childhood genetic diseases, and thousands of other such diseases in the ER.
Those are the people who will truly suffer and die because their existing insurance has been cancelled and they are unable to sign up for new insurance, or unable to afford new insurance, or are offered only policies that no longer include their existing specialized care givers.
Obama and the Democrats will soon have blood on their hands as they persist in trying to implement their totally unworkable legislation, even when it starts to kill innocent children. We need to show the nation that blood so we can end this horror.
Can't speak for the others, but kidney dialysis patients are all eligible for Medicare, regardless of age.
Thus, Obamacare has not impacted us...yet.
i have heard many people relay similar experiences there. sure wish we had this.
First, if you show up at any emergency room, and it’s not a simple cut or simple sprain....then there’s tests. You can figure $3,000 will be spent in less than three hours over some low-to-medium episode. I’d take an educated guess that you could see $15,000 spent in eight hours at an emergency room with serious life-threatening conditions and tests.
Course, if it wasn’t that bad, and you simply waited til Monday morning...called your local mom-and-pop clinic, and saw them...the same tests would be about half the costs, and they’d probably limit the tests to only necessary things.
Second, anyone who thinks first-class care is accomplished at emergency rooms...is foolish. Their job is to sustain you and get out of some really bad mess in a hurry. Decisions are made....which may or may not help your circumstance. They do the best they can...with the limits they have.
Third, if your deductible is $6,000 and you’ve just entered the emergency room because of a traffic accident and some serious bleeding or head injury....you’d best expect them to ask what your policy is, and if you got a credit card number to put against the initial $6,000. If you don’t like this kind of attitude....you’d best tote around $6,000 in your pocket and be prepared to pay on the spot.
Wait I thought hospitals could not turn anyone away??????????????????
LOCKSTEPPING DUMBOCRATS VOTED STRAIGHT PARTY LINE FOR THIS ... the biggest ACA whopper is yet to be exposed: the feds tightening their grip over your doctor and your healthcare. Section 1311(h)(1)(B) gives the Secretary of HHS blanket authority to dictate how doctors treat patients. Not just patients in government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, but patients with private plans they pay for themselves. On Dec. 2, 2013, we learned from the Federal Register that the rules are now being written. Starting in 2015, insurance companies will be barred from doing business with doctors who fail to comply.
More than half the cost of O/Care's so-called "senior entitlement" scam is subsidized by actually restricting and rationing senior care---by cutting what hospitals, doctors, hospice care, home care and Advantage plans are paid to care for seniors.
THE CUTS ARE NO ACCIDENT: "Tolerant and compassionate" Obama knows that the most expensive h/care is delivered the last three years of life.......
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Sen Harry Reid, 74, recently said that enrolling in O/Care costs him about $4,500 more than before. But Harry says that's OK b/c the increase is "age-related.”
(Sniffle) "Tolerant and compassionate" Obama knows that the most expensive h/care is delivered the last three years of life...so oldsters HAVE to pay more (sob).
Heck, socking Harry w/ a massive increase could even save money. For sure, decrepit Sen Harry will necessitate expensive medical care for diseases of old age including the ones he's being treated for now--- senility, Alzheimer's, dementia, arthritis, osteoarthritis, heart problems, heart attacks, stroke, kidney failure, prostate enlargement, osteoporosis (brittle bones)....etc.
Course, just in case ol' Harry hangs in there, Obamacare's I-PAB kicks in to ration medical care when stubborn old buzzards like Harry insist on getting more healthcare than his lousy $4500 per month entitles him to.
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Harry's dam lucky he represents Nevada---if he represented Alaska, he'd been on the ice floe w/ the rest of the older, sick Eskimos----floating out into the frigid Arctic Ocean wearing a sealskin coat, bearskin shorts, and a pair of mukluks.
Only emergencies.
You know things are gonna be bad when a newspaper from The U.K. points out the flaws in your system.
“Only emergencies.”
Thanks
Don’t know where u live but here in Indy u still get sent from the doctors office to the hospital to get xrays
I live in a suburb east of Nashville, TN and my doctor has an x-ray machine in his office.
You need a different doctor. My doc in Fishers has his own x-ray in the office.
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