Posted on 01/26/2007 12:36:12 AM PST by neverdem
Not necessarily, the money squeezed out of insured patients like your niece is used to fund uninsured care. Also like the author shows, the money sent to the neediest doctors is a joke so naturally they will affiliate with a big bucks hospital just so they can keep providing care out in the country.
It would help if the goos DR had answered her own question.
She did.
I doubt that we need to take up a collection.
Insurance companies!!! They gotta be dismantled. Health insurance must be outlawed, seriously. A doc who operated on my knee, got something like $150 for the surgery. Even anesthesiologist got more. What a joke!
Good point.
She stated the rates with the code numbers as well.
It's because she makes money as a plastic surgeon that she can even afford to take on the Medi-Cal patients who chew up days of her time for a total of $83.50. Of course the $83.50 does not include the equally pathetic amount she will be paid for performing the surgery and doing follow-up visits, but the principle is the same: there is no way she can consider caring for Medicare and Medi-Cal patients anything other than charity. The costs of maintaining her office, paying her staff, and paying the staggering amount in malpractice insurance she has to carry also aren't even touched by the money she makes from this charity care.
And what she says in her article about the problems of medical coding is true. She is billing a 99213, an extended visit, for the time she spends telling the patient about breast cancer options. That number implies that she's spending 20-30 minutes with the patient. The truth is she is spending far more time, perhaps an hour or so, and then may have to devote additional time to fielding phone calls from the patient. She should have billed 99215, a CPT-4 code involving much more time, but Medi-Cal would have rejected the claim altogether if she had.
Fine, you want government healthcare, go right ahead.
Her care probably cost close to that, if not more.
What do you think it costs to have that ICU available so your niece could be admitted to it at any time, 24/7/365?
And who do you think should pay for that cost?
Do doctors or lawyers ever get proficient at their chosen profession? I do not understand the practice thing. Can mechanics charge more if they call it a practice?
You are either a provider or affiliated. You speak the truth. The "trusted" group of GYNs we use for our patient's just totally redid their services menu, from meet and potatoes to Botox, massage therapy, and pregnancy body molding (WTF?), among other things. Folks will pay cash on the head for these services, but boy, so much as misplace one digit on a ICD9 code and you will generate hours of misery for a patient and practice alike. This is everybody's problem, in the big picture.
First, I don't believe it cost that much to care for her. Not even close.
Second, I didn't say I thought someone else should be stuck with the bill.
Third, it is just as available to the other 50,000 people in the area as it was to her. Her bill came to about $35,000 a day.
Forth, we don't charge the entire cost of the fire department since the last fire to the next fire victim just because they had a fire.
That's actually a good analogy.
Fire Department infrastructure and salaries -all of it-is paid by taxpayers.
What's the line item in your town budget to maintain and equip your local hospital?
Huh?
Think that's bad. I've had two surgeries in 3 years for the same dang problem. Each time the surgeon operates, the problem just gets worse, the last surgery being done this past Oct. and I had to be see early Jan. because new problems have devoloped at the incision area and the main problems are STILL there. I thought they were wupposed to make things better, not worse.
I agree with you. I think insurance companies should be abolished. Medical savings accounts can be set up that earn interest, patients can pay whomever they want for their medical care at the fees the physicans set. It is absurd for an insurance company to dictate to a physican the course of care they must follow. Get the system back to physician - patient relationship.
That's about the same as an oil change and a tire rotation at the local Honda dealer.
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