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Id wish for consolidated billing. Every time I end up in the hospital (which is about twice a year), I seem to end up with bills from 5-6 different providers. 1
by hermitdev 7y ago
Id wish for consolidated billing. Every time I end up in the hospital (which is about twice a year), I seem to end up with bills from 5-6 different providers. 1 from the hospital itself, a separate one from ER services, another from the pharmacy, one each from the specialists I see, another for lab work and yet another from radiology/imaging.
This bifurcation of billing makes an easy trap into falling into dilliquency because youre inundated with so many bills for the same visit that, even if you can afford to pay, you're like, "didnt I already pay for this?"
Seriously, the hospital near me seems to be a racket for Bill collectors. It seems no one is employed by the hospital proper and that theyre effectively all subcontractors that submit their bills directly to the end client, despite never being notified of that.
I cannot imagine a process like this where I hire a contractor to build a house at X rate, and they agree, and then all of the subcontractors bill me directly outside of the initial agreement. Maybe not the best analogy...
I fucking hate medical billing practices.
(I'm in the US)
- jachee 7y agoIn your house building analogy, you've got a leg up on the medicine-industrial complex by being able to get a value for X up-front.
- zoomablemind 7y agoThe X rate is at least the negotiated professional rate, not necessarily the total bill. Too often hospital care involves out-of-network doctors, that will bill directly as they may not have contract with your insurance. Knowing who'll be on duty ahead of time is not always if at all possible.
- someguydave 7y agoThe reason the doctors are contractors who bill separately is so that they can all be “out of network” and get 100x the rate without giving you prior notice.
- csnover 7y agoThe podcast Arm And A Leg recently had an episode [0] which explains this practice of receiving surprise bills from unknown providers. The short version is that hospitals use staffing companies who do their own billing (I think they mention that the pitch to the hospital is that their lives are made easier by not having to manage the extra billing). These staffing companies are frequently owned by private equity firms so they have an incentive to try to bill outside of the system to extract more profit. The whole podcast is worth listening to, not just this one episode, especially if you are frequently involved in the medical system. [0] https://armandalegshow.com/episode/can-they-freaking-do-that/ https://armandalegshow.com/episode/can-they-freaking-do-that...