Twenty some odd years ago my Mother worked at the non-profit county hospital here in my small Texas hometown. It was sold to Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) and at midnight when the transfer of ownership took hold, the price of a bottle of sterilized water went from $2.30 to $23.75.
Meanwhile, Medicare and hospitals to charge facility fees, even work is NOT done in the hospital. Medicare overpays the charge and tells the hospital to rebill patients an additional $75!
Medicare Part D i nw charging my 92-year-old mother $16 for the same medicine she paid $0 last year. Same policy, too.
Im sure those who were not on board from the beginging or those who looked as though they were not going to play are now being targeted. This is how they operate and how they get even
More “frog and the scorpion” stories to come.
And then we have the government TriCare program where retirees can't get painkillers/antibiotics without a conference of doctors to insure that they really need them - the average attending physician in the Keesler AFB hospital can't prescribe much but over-the-counter meds w/o "consulting" a step or two above their levels.
The Obama DOJ run by Black leftist Holder has been searching for disgruntled employees ready to make wild claims inorder to shut down as many hospitals as they can.
Its all about getting back at White run corporations that did not donate to them.
But in this case.
HMA was being sold when this DOJ lawsuit was just spit out .
Its Pres Jarrett and Holders way to shake down millions to make it go away so the deal can go thru.
Its pathetic to see how many posters here instantly believe anything published in the Obama run media complex.
In the absence of top level oversight and a strong compliance effort by hospitals, small abuses tend to grow and compound until auditors or whistle blowers bring them to the attention of the federal government. Lawsuits and enforcement actions then result in paybacks, fines, operating restrictions, and management changes. Every now and then, someone even goes to jail.
When “SOMEONE ELSE” is paying for it, there are no built-in price controls that a free market provides. No competition, no consumer choice... and yet this “right” to healthcare is upon us.
Screw this country.
Fraud and government money go hand in hand. The market rules, but when the government rigs the market the rigging rules and will be rigged, so to speak.
Many will find they do not meet 0’care regs, and will be forced to change or will go out of business, same goes for doctors and nurses. Which is why both parties want Amnesty bill to pass, they are importing your future ME Male doctor. Who have a woman bias. Been the victim of one in Oct. Bad English, not able to under stand it either.
If it was another administration I wouldn’t be suspicious. But hospitals do rip people oof. The assumption is insurance or taxpayers are paying for it. When I negotiated my surgery they immediately went down 50%. When I went line by line through the expenses there were dozens of charges for things I never used or my doctor requested. They got caught and they knew it
Now, the hospitals and large healthcare providers, despite the efforts of their legal and compliance teams, will fall victim to government coding and rules entrapment. The government can pay and chase; set up confusing and conflicting rules, pay the provider, and chase them for fines, penalties and imprisonment.
I stopped taking Medicare since November 2011 because of pay and chase. In my case, we were using a 2010 code for a procedure and getting paid for every claim through 2011. The regional contractor never even changed the code on their website until September 2013. By law, the regional Medicare contractor is responsible for educating the provider and publishing changes on their website. In fact, they have algorithms built into their payment software that reject incorrect and old codes. The only reason that I found out that there was a coding change, was when I was stung with a Medicare audit.
Any provider, big or small, should EXPECT entrapment schemes to be used against them by Medicare.
ALL PROVIDERS MUST STOP TAKING MEDICARE AT ONCE.
But the government scheming to keep these same people out of the hospital is perfectly justifiable.
Our government is so F’d up.