Medical Billing In America Makes Absolutely No Sense en-us Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500 Fri, 11 Jul 2014 23:30:24 -0400 Angry Bear Blog Jim Mon, 16 Apr 2012 02:41:35 -0400 There are a lot of good advice out there to avoid getting taken for a ride, but it's still up to the people to remain does one keep up with everything? Praveen Tue, 03 Apr 2012 05:19:28 -0400 I am generalizing because I have seen this repeatedly. Any industry that claims that it is for the service of people is most likely taking you for a ride. And more so if they are the so called not-for-profit ones. citizen1 Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:52:17 -0400 In my anger I wrote "employee paid" above, when that should be "employer paid". Obamacare also makes me misspell. Kill it now. Or, maybe I should be on the BI staff. Nah. citizen1 Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:41:37 -0400 Obamacare makes it worse because it did NOTHING to correct the problems in the article. Obamacare did NOTHING to correct the main problem that made US health care this f-ing mess: that "employee paid" health insurance is untaxed. That is an accounting fiction. That could be fixed in a one sentence law, put in effect overnight. Obamacare codifies the very tax dodge that evolved the US system. And Obamacare does not fix several other structural problems in US health care. Obamacare does make everything 2700 pages more complicated, while being unConstitutional. Kill it now. junkwaffle Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:11:39 -0400 Why is ACA making it worse? It's not in full effect until 2014 or so. jsmith9999999999999 Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:02:44 -0400 No other industry is allowed to get away with the monkey business the health care industry gets away with. Imagine a plumber, mechanic, financial adviser or anything else quoting you a worst case and then one month later sending you a bill for 22000 times more. jsmith9999999999999 Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:59:39 -0400 Agreed! Anyone whose spent time in a hospital knows the links they're willing to go too. They'll tell you the total bill will not exceed 1,000 and then turn around and send you a bill at the end for 22,000. They deserve to be arrested as the crooks that they are. Every last one of them is more a plague on our society then a benefit. citizen1 Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:51:47 -0400 Obamacare did exactly NOTHING to attempt to fix this problem. It actually made it worse. Kill it fast. Radiolarian Mon, 02 Apr 2012 10:42:45 -0400 This whole system of health insurance is a scam. Insurance companies are in business to fleece the insured out of as much money as possible and then pay as little as possible for your care. It's simple, except that they have developed an incredibly complicated system to hide their crime. Health insurance, while a good idea in principle, has become one of the the biggest criminal syndicates in the country. Insurers actually serve no useful function, duplicating efforts that the hospitals and doctors already have to do, which is billing. So we the people pay a lot, get little in return, and have the highest motality rate in the developed world, but pay the most for our care. Health insurance exec's make millions while denying you care, with money you gave them. Laocoon Mon, 02 Apr 2012 10:06:30 -0400 Not included is an estimate of how much time it takes the average consumer to stay on top of this. My husband just retired and is dealing with the health issues that forced his retirement. I spend time daily just following up on health insurance claims. If I don't then we are at risk of being billed directly after the time limit has passed. The time and aggravation spent on this is an unrecognized quality of life impairment. The system is so inefficient yet each medical staffer I talk to has very rational reasons for what they do. In addition it has taken me over one year to get an important medication to keep myself going. It's all about who pays or rather who doesn't pay. It's crazy out there. douglas cassel Mon, 02 Apr 2012 10:00:26 -0400 Actually it does make sense, just in a alternate universe. The entire system represents the outcome of poorly designed government regulation upon an large number of unrelated providers with a lot of history. Hospitals and doctors have a multitude of different prices for different insurance companies, the uninsured, medicare, medicaid, and private pay. Keeping track of what each person is contracted to pay is a very complex issue, varies based upon a myriad of reasons, and makes sense only historically. Nevertheless, medical billing remains the primary method for how government and insurance companies make certain only appropriate procedures get reimbursed. No other system can accomplish this goal. Bottom line, pick providers contracted by your insurance, never pay the first two bills, and always be ready to question anything that is not clear to you. MotorCityMiserable Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:55:07 -0400 The push in the industry is towards high deductible plans, an effort to make the consumer "more informed and make better decisions" about their health care. Trying to get the information to make these decisions is very difficault, if not impossible. I recently was diagnosed with acid reflux and was told I needed a upper GI scope. Good luck trying to get pricing. The insurance company said to call the provider; the provider said to call the network; and the network referred me to the insurance company. The best answers I could get were ranges. I ended up going to a local facility and then the bills started rolling in: facility, physician, lab, anestigiology(sp). The discounts from the billed charges were between 25-50%, but the biggest bitch is that I was billed for both an anesthesiologist and nurse anesthetist. There must be greater transparency on the billing side, and I would suggest that each provider be required to post the cost of their 100 most common charges each year, similar to the menu being posted outside for a restaurant. question mark guy Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:11:52 -0400 One thing this tells us. Anyone harping on the US has the highest medical costs has no clue as to how much we are paying, because we don't know. The billed price, the final price and the actual cost are not related in anyway. But one thing for sure politicians are riding it for all it's worth so we need to take it's value away from them and ask them are they taking about the difference from billed and final price. Mark Caplan Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:43:43 -0400 Same thing here. I paid the $70 copay to see a specialist but was seen only by a nurse practitioner. I complained to the NC State Health Plan administrators, Blue Cross Blue Shield. The insurance rep told me the bill from the medical office stated I was treated by the practice's chief medical doctor (completely untrue). But the insurance rep had no interest in correcting the mistake or fraud. The rep said the insurer occasionally audits claims and that was the end of the conversation. MikeD Mon, 02 Apr 2012 07:55:03 -0400 *be higher. MikeD Mon, 02 Apr 2012 07:54:14 -0400 One of many things wrong with the medical system. It's in no small part due to incompetent, apathetic people who work in many facets of the industry, including the billing specialists, HMO reps, and receptionist/schedulers/assistants. You'd think their standards would by higher. HAHA Mon, 02 Apr 2012 07:52:33 -0400 Good Article. I am a type 1 diabetic and my doctor wants to see me every 3 months and also see a diabetic educator 2 times a year. I try and tell her that it is overkill, a waste of my time, and useless. I usually get away by canceling the appointment and dealing with the receptionist. I control my diabetes and have all the knowledge needed to manage my condition accordingly. I do not need to see my endocrinologist 4 times a year, a daibetic educator 2 times a year, and my regular doctor every year. But i am forced to do this. why? because or else my prescriptions do not get filled otherwise. Why should i be forced to see a doctor to obtain insulin? I should be able to pick up what i need at the pharmacy directly. whats scary is my medical insurance is $500/month. $1000 deductible and I pay about $2000/year just in Co-pays. That's roughly $9000/year i spend. What's even scarier is that i have done the math -- and should i lose my insurance, It will cost me about $20,000-$30,000/year for my doc visits, insulin, pump supplies, tests strips. So go ahead and blame me for your insurance costs if you want. I was born with diabetes and i blame your costs on the medical insurance companies that are in cahoot with doctors and big pharma manufacturing companies to get paid as much as possible. Ruler4You Mon, 02 Apr 2012 07:42:39 -0400 Of course it makes no sense... it's rife with corruption, graft, theft and fraud. Now, THAT makes sense. TORT reform "IS" what the system needs. We jail the congressmen (and women), insurance exectutives and medical administrators guilty of perpetuating this theft and start over. Simple.