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Avoiding hospital over-charging
- MarkMMullin 7y agoGiven my first terminal was an ASR-33, this is of interest to me - yes I have insurance, and yes I have friends who got staggering bills because the anesthesiologist wasn't in-network (not to bash on anesthesiologists, I have counted some as good friends and they're the greatest geeks in medicine). - will this keep in-network hospitals using in-network providers for services ?
- obiefernandez 7y agoAbsolutely vital information for Americans. That we need this is one of the reasons I don't live in my native country anymore.
- mxz3000 7y agoIt's ridiculous anyone should have to think about this at all. I'm happy to be European right about now.
- ycombonator 7y agoSoon you will wish you were American. Who is going to pay for the health care of millions of non-working economic refugees that are pouring into Europe. Germany can only pay Erdogan to stop the inflow for a few years. Then what
- Ididntdothis 7y agoIn Germany you go to a hospital, get treated and don't have to worry about surprise billing. It's hard to believe that the country accepts this.
- disabled 7y agoI am happy to be both a US|Croatian (European Union) citizen, as somebody with 2 rare immune-mediated neurological diseases affecting my peripheral nervous system. I have tried 10 different treatments, plus combinations of them, with only one thing working: a blood product that I must self administer. If the healthcare law gets overturned in the US, I have no choice but to head off to Europe.
- ycombonator 7y agoThis looks like a tip for someone who has gone to emergency with a high fever, what about someone who is about to faint, in the heart attack, you want the patient to argue with the intake person by showing printed cards ?
- grumpycorp 7y agoNo but the hospital will try to do it anyway. I came in to the ER with one of my hands bent the wrong way and they were like, please use your other hand to sign these forms.
- pavel_lishin 7y agoCan someone with a legal background double check this for me? "Print out these cards and present them to officials" strongly reminds me of sovereign citizen nonsense.
- glitchc 7y agoConcur. Sketchy as all heck, this kind of advice is actually dangerous. Truth is, it doesn’t matter what you sign. If you don’t have insurance, all amounts are negotiable after the fact. The hospital will write down a $10,000 bill to $500 if they are convinced that’s all you can afford to pay.
- prostheticvamp 7y agoI’m too ugh to engage with this at length but just a word: If you don’t have insurance, go for it. If you have insurance: People standing on EMTALA are generally another word for “we are never going to see a penny for this patient.” Your ED doc does not give a fuck. However, the hospital will be assigning you a nurse case manager ASAP, whose only job will be to scrutinize everything done for you, to ensure you don’t get a single iota of care beyond the bare minimum needed to meet EMTALA standards, with as prompt a discharge as humanly possible. This will save you money - at the expense of appropriate care you’d otherwise receive (care that doesn’t qualify as an “emergency”, which means EMTALA doesn’t touch it, but that we’d normally do very urgently in order to keep your tuchus alive.) This is the standard of care random homeless people get. People have every right to prioritize according to their resources, but if you’re not worried about ending up homeless, this isn’t the route I’d take.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoThe fact it's necessary to write such an article already demonstrates how corrupt hospitals are. The whole process seems to be full of intentional pitfalls. If the patient doesn't follow any of the rules (he doesn't know about) either the insurance or the hospital will screw you big time. Or they make some mistakes themselves and screw you that way. And it's always up to the patient to spend time and effort fixing things. I can't find think of any other industry that gets away with this nonsense. It's really hard to believe that the country is not capable of bringing some level of sanity into this.
- phonebanshee 7y agoRead the last paragraph first. In fact, only read the last paragraph, where the author explains that they have zero expertise and are basically just making it up based on a bunch of pages they found on Google.
- glitchc 7y agoIf the advice works as intended, why does the author have a disclaimer at the end indemnify him? Has he tried this out in a real emergency or is this just armchair pontification?
- chkaloon 7y agoThe advice about marking up the consent form is similar to the advice given by Elisabeth Rosenthal in her book American Sickness. It's not fringe advice. https://www.amazon.com/American-Sickness-Healthcare-Became-Business/dp/0143110853 https://www.amazon.com/American-Sickness-Healthcare-Became-B...