4 ms·

In some countries in Europe, if you have private insurance they'll pull off the "call charge" trick as often as they can. Need to make or reschedule an appointm

In some countries in Europe, if you have private insurance they'll pull off the "call charge" trick as often as they can. Need to make or reschedule an appointment? Make a call. Did some blood test and need the results? Call to get them. They call you to tell you they can't make the appointment and need to reschedule? You still get charged. If it's not a call it's a fake shot. Fake disinfection charge. And so on. The principle is "anything that can be charged, will be charged". The level of insurance fraud with this is ridiculous.

hiddencost 3y ago
[flagged]
- smallmancontrov 3y ago
  A user named "hiddencost" doubts that privatized healthcare follows its incentive to create hidden costs. Chef's kiss.
- buran77 3y ago
  > they tend to not be well supported by the number Personal opinion or did you ever talk to anyone investigating these things? First of all, the fraud is committed by the patient, they're the one submitting the claim to their private insurance without validating it. Secondly, it will always be called a mistake if you object to it. But nobody does because remember, private insurance pays anyway. On top of it once you object and have a few arguments with them you may even find yourself having difficulties to get an appointment if it's a desired doctor with a queue at the door. There are no numbers because this is not investigated, there just aren't resources for this. Nobody with a private insurance bothers reporting a $5-10 shot they never received and nobody wastes resources to investigate it. I've seen attempts to swindle me out of 5 digit sums of EUR that would have otherwise been blindly paid by the insurance. I actually checked everything, I objected, it was called a system error. I have acquaintances who work with the authorities and they confirmed that even if you find a pattern it's impossible to prove intent, so it never goes further than "we correct the mistake for those who report it". Politician corruption is basically non-existent, and Al Capone just didn't pay tax. According to the numbers.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  Fraud and waste are estimated to be 10% of healthcare costs: https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-976-health-care-fraud-generally https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual... Which is almost ~2% of GDP alone... 0.1% of credit card payments are fraud: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/other20181016a.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/othe... That's a more typical number. Something is extremely broken with US healthcare. The interesting thing is that every side seems to be losing. The winners are certainly not average doctors. Compared to the size of the market - health insurance is one of the worst insurance businesses. Hospital administration is also not a great business.

hiddencost 3y ago

[flagged]

smallmancontrov 3y ago
A user named "hiddencost" doubts that privatized healthcare follows its incentive to create hidden costs. Chef's kiss.
buran77 3y ago
> they tend to not be well supported by the number Personal opinion or did you ever talk to anyone investigating these things? First of all, the fraud is committed by the patient, they're the one submitting the claim to their private insurance without validating it. Secondly, it will always be called a mistake if you object to it. But nobody does because remember, private insurance pays anyway. On top of it once you object and have a few arguments with them you may even find yourself having difficulties to get an appointment if it's a desired doctor with a queue at the door. There are no numbers because this is not investigated, there just aren't resources for this. Nobody with a private insurance bothers reporting a $5-10 shot they never received and nobody wastes resources to investigate it. I've seen attempts to swindle me out of 5 digit sums of EUR that would have otherwise been blindly paid by the insurance. I actually checked everything, I objected, it was called a system error. I have acquaintances who work with the authorities and they confirmed that even if you find a pattern it's impossible to prove intent, so it never goes further than "we correct the mistake for those who report it". Politician corruption is basically non-existent, and Al Capone just didn't pay tax. According to the numbers.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
Fraud and waste are estimated to be 10% of healthcare costs: https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-976-health-care-fraud-generally https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual... Which is almost ~2% of GDP alone... 0.1% of credit card payments are fraud: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/other20181016a.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/othe... That's a more typical number. Something is extremely broken with US healthcare. The interesting thing is that every side seems to be losing. The winners are certainly not average doctors. Compared to the size of the market - health insurance is one of the worst insurance businesses. Hospital administration is also not a great business.