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Ugh. A similar experience here in some ways; we lost twins at childbirth and had to work through a billing nightmare after spending almost a week at a universit

Ugh. A similar experience here in some ways; we lost twins at childbirth and had to work through a billing nightmare after spending almost a week at a university hospital that was 2h drive south of our home, hearing optimistic expectations from various doctors and surgeons. > Medical billing experts who reviewed the case described it as a dispute between a large hospital and a large insurer, with the patient stuck in the middle. This seems really, REALLY common...an individual ends up soaking up the most bitter aftershocks of a care incident and the accompanying battle between two possibly-responsible parties. I asked about one of these cases online for a friend at one point, and an insurance industry middle-man chimed in. Not to help out, but simply to become defensive, letting me know that he worked with these cases all the time, and you generally get what you pay for. So next time pay more for insurance, was his point. Meanwhile this person's Reddit profile was full of photos of his new Tesla. It made me sick to my stomach to have to tell my friend that yes, somebody replied, and no, it wasn't that helpful, and...let's change the subject for now.

Cryptonic 5y ago
What happened to you should not happen to anybody. This really makes me sad. Be strong
kindle-dev 5y ago
I do feel that insurers get the short-end of the stick. The doctors and hospital are the ones charging $257,000. And they're also driving Teslas. I've lost all respect for the hospital system after receiving a $47,000 surprise bill from an ER visit to get a single stitch.
- s5300 5y ago
  The doctors and hospitals are only charging that much because of a long running history of insurers otherwise not paying out. If they charge $50, insurance will begrudgingly pay $5 if you're lucky. So you have to charge $5000 for something fairly simple, in order to hopefully get close to $500
  - kindle-dev 5y ago
    This argument makes no sense. Medical bills are the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. Hospitals knowingly employ out-of-network doctors so they can bill patients huge sums directly.
    - robbedpeter 5y ago
      Maybe some "John Q Public" meets "Man On Fire" could shake things up. The trouble with civility is the people and institutions who exploit it.
    - s5300 5y ago
      I'm speaking directly from word of more than one personal doctor friend and a family member of mine that is the head management of an emergency room. I may be completely incorrect with this information - but I was told that prices are so high due to people on the insurance side of things being dicks about it, not the doctors/hospitals. There is a massive issue with how the medical boards artificially restrict # of doctors/residents and what else, leading to price issues, but that is not the discussion we're having
  - noduerme 5y ago
    Agreed. This is a case where an unfree market has arrived at the most absurd and circuitous route to everyone getting a slice of the pie. It's crazy that a lot of Americans fight any reform of the insurance industry on the grounds that doing so would constitute socialism or an attack on the free market. What we have right now is the furthest thing from a free market. It's a set of local monopolies fixing prices, and another group (doctors) trying to get paid in a broken system.
- aetherspawn 5y ago
  Uh, ouch. I got charged like $80 for two nurses to give me a venesection (half hour blood letting) and supervision, which was fully covered by our public health care system and billed the government directly. Didn’t even have to get a receipt. Australia.
  - me_me_me 5y ago
    They know it, you dont have to twits their knife :/
- Calavar 5y ago
  Hospitals charge exorbitant fees because they know that insurance will only pay for a fraction of whatever they ask for. The real crime is how much of our healthcare dollars fund a behemoth of a bureaucratic apparatus for this cat and mouse game where insurance companies deny payment on technicalities and hospitals file counterclaims and overbill to compensate. An obscene amount of money is burned here and not a cent of it adds any value to patient care. This is a big reason of why we spend so much more on healthcare than European countries and don't have better results. And it's an excellent datapoint against the idea that the private sector is always less wasteful than the public sector. As an aside, the vast majority of what the hospital does collect goes to the hospital itself, not to the physician. If the sticker of price a surgery is $50000, you can expect the surgeon to get about $1000 of that.
- Thorentis 5y ago
  How the fuck does a single stitch cost that much money? It's not like the Australian government is paying $47k to hospitals under Medicare. Things just don't cost that much.
  - deepsun 5y ago
    If patient sues the doctor that the stitches were wrong, legal costs may go above the $47k. Cost of doing business.
- stevesearer 5y ago
  Not as extreme, but I burned my hands on bacon grease a few years back and needed a trip to the ER and some bandages on both hands. When they were signing me out, I asked what care I was supposed to do for the bandages and they said to come back tomorrow and someone could show me. A few weeks after, it was quite a surprise to receive a not one, but two pricey ER bills! While the hospital ended up waiving the second visit, I imagine many people either pay it or go into debt especially since it required a couple of hours during business hours to sort out.
- DSingularity 5y ago
  Do you think most doctors are in it to stitch you up?

Cryptonic 5y ago

What happened to you should not happen to anybody. This really makes me sad. Be strong

kindle-dev 5y ago

I do feel that insurers get the short-end of the stick. The doctors and hospital are the ones charging $257,000. And they're also driving Teslas. I've lost all respect for the hospital system after receiving a $47,000 surprise bill from an ER visit to get a single stitch.

s5300 5y ago
The doctors and hospitals are only charging that much because of a long running history of insurers otherwise not paying out. If they charge $50, insurance will begrudgingly pay $5 if you're lucky. So you have to charge $5000 for something fairly simple, in order to hopefully get close to $500
- kindle-dev 5y ago
  This argument makes no sense. Medical bills are the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. Hospitals knowingly employ out-of-network doctors so they can bill patients huge sums directly.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    Maybe some "John Q Public" meets "Man On Fire" could shake things up. The trouble with civility is the people and institutions who exploit it.
  - s5300 5y ago
    I'm speaking directly from word of more than one personal doctor friend and a family member of mine that is the head management of an emergency room. I may be completely incorrect with this information - but I was told that prices are so high due to people on the insurance side of things being dicks about it, not the doctors/hospitals. There is a massive issue with how the medical boards artificially restrict # of doctors/residents and what else, leading to price issues, but that is not the discussion we're having
- noduerme 5y ago
  Agreed. This is a case where an unfree market has arrived at the most absurd and circuitous route to everyone getting a slice of the pie. It's crazy that a lot of Americans fight any reform of the insurance industry on the grounds that doing so would constitute socialism or an attack on the free market. What we have right now is the furthest thing from a free market. It's a set of local monopolies fixing prices, and another group (doctors) trying to get paid in a broken system.
aetherspawn 5y ago
Uh, ouch. I got charged like $80 for two nurses to give me a venesection (half hour blood letting) and supervision, which was fully covered by our public health care system and billed the government directly. Didn’t even have to get a receipt. Australia.
- me_me_me 5y ago
  They know it, you dont have to twits their knife :/
Calavar 5y ago
Hospitals charge exorbitant fees because they know that insurance will only pay for a fraction of whatever they ask for. The real crime is how much of our healthcare dollars fund a behemoth of a bureaucratic apparatus for this cat and mouse game where insurance companies deny payment on technicalities and hospitals file counterclaims and overbill to compensate. An obscene amount of money is burned here and not a cent of it adds any value to patient care. This is a big reason of why we spend so much more on healthcare than European countries and don't have better results. And it's an excellent datapoint against the idea that the private sector is always less wasteful than the public sector. As an aside, the vast majority of what the hospital does collect goes to the hospital itself, not to the physician. If the sticker of price a surgery is $50000, you can expect the surgeon to get about $1000 of that.
Thorentis 5y ago
How the fuck does a single stitch cost that much money? It's not like the Australian government is paying $47k to hospitals under Medicare. Things just don't cost that much.
- deepsun 5y ago
  If patient sues the doctor that the stitches were wrong, legal costs may go above the $47k. Cost of doing business.
stevesearer 5y ago
Not as extreme, but I burned my hands on bacon grease a few years back and needed a trip to the ER and some bandages on both hands. When they were signing me out, I asked what care I was supposed to do for the bandages and they said to come back tomorrow and someone could show me. A few weeks after, it was quite a surprise to receive a not one, but two pricey ER bills! While the hospital ended up waiving the second visit, I imagine many people either pay it or go into debt especially since it required a couple of hours during business hours to sort out.
DSingularity 5y ago
Do you think most doctors are in it to stitch you up?