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It’s almost as if, and stay with me here, preventative care is cheaper than reactive care. Well, that and hospital billing is bullshit. Got charged $500 becaus
by village-idiot 8y ago
It’s almost as if, and stay with me here, preventative care is cheaper than reactive care.
Well, that and hospital billing is bullshit. Got charged $500 because the doctor at the ER we went to for a sudden emergency was out of network, even though the ER wasn’t. How the heck I’m supposed to do something about that is beyond me.
- nonbel 8y agoHospital "billing" is mostly BS opaque negotiations between them and insurance companies. Those numbers mean nothing for individual patients. http://selfpaypatient.com/2014/01/03/insured-patients-can-save-money-by-pretending-to-be-uninsured/ http://selfpaypatient.com/2014/01/03/insured-patients-can-sa...
- village-idiot 8y agoYup. This is why I rage against the “free market” solutions being proposed that do nothing about opaque billing. You can’t have a free market when you need to buy the product and can’t tell how much it will cost before hand.
- refurb 8y agoDon’t forget that government regulations actually contributed to the opaque billing issue. Laws state that hospitals must maintain a chargemaster with prices for all procedures. When hospitals realized that the chargemaster would become a starting point for negotiations with insurance companies, they inflated the numbers wildly. In the end the uninsured bear the brunt of it.
- maxxxxx 8y agoBlaming this on government regulations seems a stretch.
- village-idiot 8y agoGovernment regulations written by the companies that are being “regulated”.
- refurb 8y agoUnintended consequences. There are plenty of them in healthcare. Look at what the 340b program is doing to low cost physician cancer practices - moving them all to higher cost hospitals!
- maxxxxx 8y agoAny self respecting citizen will have a few assistants and lawyers on retainer to handle these issues :). If you can't afford that, tough luck , you are free game for being ripped off. That't how it feels to deal with hospital billing. It's a full time job.
- village-idiot 8y agoMy company offers a benefit where I have access to assistants who will find the cheapest medical service for me. That these jobs even exist is a sign that the market has broken down.