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I don’t understand how hospitals can ever expect a contract with such ambiguous terms to be valid. Contract law requires a “meeting of the minds” — if they with
by paulgb 4y ago
I don’t understand how hospitals can ever expect a contract with such ambiguous terms to be valid. Contract law requires a “meeting of the minds” — if they withhold price information until after the service is performed, and the final price is orders of magnitude higher than the expectation it’s clear that hasn’t happened.
Contract law is often seen as existing to protect the seller from non-payment, but it equally exists to protect the buyer from stuff like this, and it’s absurd that these companies expect the protection of contract law without giving their customers the same benefit.
- jopsen 4y agoI suspect healthcare providers won't give you a price before they are done, because they don't know what it'll cost. If they open you up, they might have a complication or run into some other issue that must be fixed before closing you down. Say allergic reaction to drugs or something that require extra care. I suppose one could argue that healthcare providers should assume this liability and give you a price upfront, factoring into it the risk of complications, etc. But in the end, if you don't pay for your own bad luck, then you might as well have universal healthcare :)
- paulgb 4y agoThat makes sense, but even nailing down a price for lab bloodwork turns out to be elusive. I’m dealing with a bill that I discussed with the doctor beforehand that turned out to be 4x what we discussed. I don’t blame the doctor, I don’t think he had access to the true cost either.
- BenjiWiebe 4y agoDepending on the blood work, it might be worth it to get it done via walkinlabs.com or a competitor. Up front with the pricing and usually cheaper than the alternatives as well.
- TomSwirly 4y agoNone of your hypotheticals actually happened in this situation. The hospital clerk wrote down that she was "in-network", gave her a quote and then after the procedure, the hospital discovered she was not, and upped the quote by $200k. Hospitals do whatever dishonest stuff they feel like all time, and the worst consequence to them is that they don't get their $200k and consequentially ruin someone's life with debt collectors. If every time hospitals tried to steal from someone - because that's what this is - one of their senior managers did a year in the penitentiary, such brazen dishonesty would cease overnight.
- ballenf 4y agoThey won’t even give you a “no complications” price. Even if they do 10 of the same procedure a week.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago> I suppose one could argue that healthcare providers should assume this liability and give you a price upfront, factoring into it the risk of complications, etc. But in the end, if you don't pay for your own bad luck It's not your bad luck, it's their proffeshional responsebility to providing accurate diagnostics and figure out what treatment you need a nd how much it will cost. Every proffeshion has to deal with this, from lawyers to builders, and they provide estimates or even fixed fee services. If they really have no clue they provide an hourly rate. But no other proffeshion just makes up prices out of nowhere. The only thing different about hospitals is that you are unconcious and can't control anything. Let me ask you a question - how does 'free market' and competition work without price information?