Posted on 05/19/2022 1:55:35 PM PDT by grundle
DENVER (AP) — Colorado’s Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a woman who expected to pay about $1,300 for spinal fusion surgery but was billed more than $300,000 by a suburban Denver hospital that included charges it never disclosed she might be liable for.
This week’s ruling in favor of Lisa French, who underwent two surgeries in 2014, follows efforts by many U.S. states and the federal government to help curb health care costs by restricting or eliminating so-called “surprise billing ” and requiring increased price transparency for consumers.
In a unanimous opinion, the Colorado justices ruled Monday that agreements French signed before surgery at St. Anthony North Health Campus in Westminster don’t compel her to pay the extra charges, which stemmed from a then-secret list of prices for services that hadn't been disclosed to her.
French had expected to pay $1,337 out of pocket after her medical insurance covered the rest, believing St. Anthony’s was an in-network provider. But a hospital employee provided her an incorrect estimate after apparently misreading her insurance card; in fact, the hospital wasn’t in-network, The Denver Post reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Good news. Hospitals provide agreements and then violate them expecting the courts to rule in their favor.
Who do they think they are? Russians?
Most doctors are greedy corrupt scum.
Those thousand dollar aspirin tablets can sure add up.
This is a “meeting of the minds” situation - a true contractural obligations doesn’t exist unless the parties understand the terms and agree. Boilerplate has gotten around that, but if the justice system was honest, it wouldn’t recognize boilerplate.
This wasn’t a doctor and I disagree that “Most doctors are greedy corrupt scum.”
Most doctors are very caring and compassionate. It’s the hospitals that get greedy with $100 bandaids and $10,000/day hospital stays.
But, but who is going to pay for all the illegals and indigent patients the US Government forces hospitals to accept?
Demo-commie created problem.
I don’t think the ruling is good enough, there should be a bunch of people in JAIL awaiting Trial for FRAUD, Extortion, Mail Fraud,...
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Why did so many "follow the science" and kill a lot of people that could have been cured with Zelenko's cocktail?
“Who do they think they are? Russians?”
No they think they’re Ukrainians.
No. Democrats.
Fortunately the last time I had major surgery the doctor and anesthesiologist were either hospital employees or at least contracted by the hospital so I never saw a bill from them. Everything was on the hospital bill in one shot. I think the only line items were for the surgery and the one-night stay. No bills per aspirin.
Something most people don’t know is a lot of the various departments are not ran by the hospital. They are separate private companies that provide services under contract such as X-Ray, physical therapy, Emergency Room and so on. Even some of the Doctors are working for themselves.
Of course each hospital is different but the chances are when you go to a hospital you will be getting bills from different providers.
Yeah, ‘most doctors’ are wonderful. Just like all the ‘rank and file FBI agents’.
Sorry, caring and compassionate doctors as the norm is not something I’ve experienced in my fairly extensive experience. Many are a dangerous combination of ignorant and arrogant. Others make one wonder whether they give out medical degrees in a raffle these days.
By and large, even the ones with some shred of compassion only know our corrupt medical system and wouldn’t know what to do without it.
We know who will pay the difference.
This is incident is institutional, not personal to particular doctors.
You have to be in the right “pricing club,” even if you think you are insured. And God help the poor bastard of modest means whose insurance somehow gaps and can be charged list price, while he’s too sick to fight or negotiate.
And, who can negotiate before the medical service while in pain or otherwise at less than full capacity? That’s why you buy insurance, and in the case of this person, rely (in the legal sense) on the representations of the insurers and the hospital interface people.
Apparently here, the hosptital interface people felt incentivized to get the patient “in,” even if it meant saying, “Sure, we’re in network.” It’s probably part of their job training.
The real underlying issue that the media doesn’t want to cover, is that hospitals are being compelled to treat shot-up uninsured gang bangers, and illegal aliens, and random deadbeats who walk away from all bills because they are judgement-proof.
And hospitals, in order to stay open, have to try to get money from anywhere they can.
I knew a lady who worked in a hospital in Philadelphia. The hospital mainly treated ghetto dwellers (who had no money but demanded prime service or they would sue for racism). The hospital eventually went bankrupt and closed.
I told the lady it was time to get out now, when she told me they were so short of money that they provided her with food-service gloves. She worked in a lab handling blood samples which included HIV patients. She got out, the hospital closed, and the ghetto patients went to burden other hospitals.
That's because the entire medical profession is one giant scam.
Why did she go to a hospital not approved by her insurer?
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