Many doctors are ripping off Medicare like you wouldn't believe. I had a cortisone shot last month for a sore back...got the insurance statement yesterday. The charge was $1250.00 for 45 minutes plus the injection.
I showed the statement to my primary doctor, a good conservative. He wasn't shocked at all. He said this stuff is going on all the time, even with the most reputable doctors.
I agreed with him because for years and years I have noticed many out-of-whack charges on other medical bills of mine. Luckily, I have great insurance, and all my medical bills are covered totally.
The problem is that folks won't report obvious medical frauds for fear of losing their doctors, so the Gravy Train for medical practitioners goes on and on unabated.
I hope the Trump Train derails this unabated rip-off of taxpayers running into billions of dollars from doctor's overcharging and billing the government Medicare program for it.
Leni
An acquaintance of mine had an eye problem....he went to the top eye doctor in the US-——the DR had treated Bob Hope.
The acquaintance got a bill for two eye surgeries...... only one was actually treated.
Luckily I have no fear of losing this doctor...and I’m going to pursue this
For a spinal injection [interthecal] imaging is required to place the needle at exactly the right point; mistakes not allowed. However, the greatest charge may well have been for legal protection.
This goes way back to 1980. My wife was in intensive care for 14 days with double pneumonia. We received the hospital bill which was 100 pages computer printout. There were so many items for each day of hospital stay, I could not believe it. Most items had no description in English, rather just a code number for each item. There is not enough time in a 24 hour period to administer so many services each day. 5 different doctors padded the bill with a 2 minute visit to her room each day.
I called the hospital to explain the hundreds of code numbered items. They said I should ask our doctor for code explanations. Yeah right, our doctor was going to go through 100 pages full of line items with no description, just a code number.
Then I called the insurance company to explain why it was impossible to deliver 10 page long services in a single day, and I was present in the hospital 16 hours each day in the room and did not see 1/10th of what is in the bill. The insurance company said do not worry about it, they will pay the entire bill of $31,000, my share would be only $250.
I reached a conclusion that insurance company actually wants the hospital bill very high so that no one will dare to be without health insurance, and they can charge bigger premiums because the bills are so high.
You raise a very important point about why healthcare costs have outpaced inflation by huge margins. When I called the health insurance company to complain about being billed for fake services rendered in a hospital stay, their response was do not worry, they will pay all of that bill.
Which tells me, the insurance writers want to keep prices of hospitalization sky high, so that no one will dare be without health insurance. Higher bills justify higher premiums.