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Avatar of Sue (Sunni) Patterson

by Sue (Sunni) Patterson

Claim Modifiers: More Code-Speak on Your Medical Bills

April 26, 2013 in health care costs, Health Insurance, Hospital Bills, Insurance Bills

If you have ever been hospitalized or had a major test/procedure performed, you may have received a frustratingly hard to decipher medical bill from your provider. And, if you are insured, you will also have received a similarly cryptic Explanation of Benefits (EOB) describing your insurance company’s payment decision. (The EOBs can sometimes be a bit clearer and more detailed than the average provider bill.) To the average lay person, medical bill jargon does not sync with customer psychology in the way that other bills, like retail, residential services, etc. do. Most other industries present their bills in a careful way, focusing on clear billing, to make sure that customers know why they have financial responsibility.

CPT and Claim Modifier Codes

With that in mind, let’s look more closely at some of the usual suspects that show up on an unreadable medical bill. One type of common code is called a Current Procedural Terminology or CPT code. This code, in plain English, represents a service that a doctor (or other medical professional) provides.

CPTs often do not “read” well. Patients not involved in the medical industry themselves may have no idea what one of these codes represents on a bill. Looking at the charge associated with it can be frustrating when there’s no common-vocabulary explanation to make the patient remember just what was done in the provider office. This means that patients who are proactively concerned about their care, and costs, will often call providers or insurers just to ask “what does this CPT code mean?”

About Claim Modifiers

Claim modifiers are additional digits attached to a CPT to explain to an insurer or other party how a procedure may have differed from “the norm.” Some modifiers are also used to differentiate a core service from an advanced service level based on the doctor’s documentation. Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Martha Bebinger

by Martha Bebinger

Should Medicare fund sex change surgery?

March 30, 2013 in Health Insurance, Medical Care

I had a WOAH moment yesterday when I opened this email from a doctor who passes along developments in the exploding world of transgender health:

Medicare announced that beginning March 28, 2013 and for a 30 day period, it is inviting comments from the public regarding reconsideration of its current policy to deny coverage of sexual reassignment surgery.

Anyone wanting to recommend a change of this policy and to advocate for medicare covering sexual reassignment surgery, the website to go to is

http://www.cms.gov/medicare-coverage-database/details/nca-tracking-sheet.aspx?NCAId=269

Don’t bother trying to open the link. Less than 24 hours after the Centers

graphic courtesy of Wikimedia

for Medicare and Medicaid Services posted this announcement, they took it down. A spokesperson told The Hill the agency decided not to take public comments while a challenge to the agency’s policy is “working its way through the proper administrative challenges.”

Medicare and Medicare, and almost all commercial insurance plans, don’t fund surgery for men or women who feel like they were born into the wrong body.

So since Medicare can’t or won’t ask, we will:

Should Medicare and Medicaid fund sex change or gender reassignment surgery?

22 Comments »

Avatar of Casey Rackham

by Casey Rackham

You, your employer and your health

March 19, 2013 in health care costs, Health Insurance, News

Is your employer offering rewards or penalties if you participate in a wellness program, stop smoking or lose weight?

photo credit (www.pgcompanies.com)

CVS is joining a growing list of employers who tie wellness participation to rewards and penalties. In this case, the pharmacy chain says employees can save $50 a month on their insurance if they have a series of tests (body mass index, blood pressure, etc.).  Employees who don’t have the tests lose the money, $600 a year.

CVS Caremark spokesman Michael D’Angelis told the Boston Herald that the policy will help “colleagues take more responsibility for improving their health and managing health-associated costs.” The company says a third party will review and manage the employees’ test results. Some privacy advocates worry CVS and other firms will use the information to discriminate against less healthy workers who drive up health care costs.

More companies are expected to follow the example of CVS by offering incentives/penalties in exchange for monitoring employees’ health.  Affordable Care Act rules that encourage these options take effect January 1, 2014.  The Obama administration says expanding wellness programs “may offer our nation the opportunity to not only improve the health of Americans, but also help control health care spending.”

What’s happening in your workplace?

 

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Avatar of Martha Bebinger

by Martha Bebinger

Here’s one reason you can’t find health care prices…

March 18, 2013 in Health Insurance, Hospital Bills, Member Stories

Most states don’t have laws requiring hospitals and other providers to tell you how much anything costs.

That’s the finding of a report that gives 29 states an “F” for transparency in health care pricing and nine a “D.” As Kaiser Health News reports, a group that includes some of the country’s largest employers plans to issue annual report cards on transparency.

Massachusetts and New Hampshire are the only two states (in blue) that get “A”s. The provision of the Massachusetts law that says insurers and providers will have to give you a price for an MRI, if you call, takes effect later this year. I’ve tried to find out how much hospitals and labs in the Bay State charge for services; it’s very difficult.  So for now, the “A” awarded to Massachusetts must be for intent, not action.

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Avatar of Casey Rackham

by Casey Rackham

Affordable Care Act looks to prevent chronic diseases in women

March 12, 2013 in health care costs, Health Insurance, Medical Care, Women's care

Like many people in the United States, I’m aware that the Affordable Care Act was signed into law by President Obama and that it aims to make sure that everyone has healthcare; however, until now I hadn’t taken the time to ask how it affects women like me. A quick glance at the services provided under the umbrella of the Affordable Care Act shows that there are a handful of preventive services that I never knew I should consider, let alone take advantage of.

photo credit (qualityquest.org)

One of the major elements of the act is encouraging women to visit their doctor in regards to preventive care services since, according to HealthCare.gov, chronic diseases that are often preventable are responsible for 7 of 10 deaths among Americans each year and account for 75% of the nation’s health spending. If the preventive services cut down on the percentage of people with chronic diseases, then the nation’s spending spent on health will presumably go down.

Some of the services offered to women are screenings for anemia, cervical cancer, gestational diabetes, gonorrhea, Hepatitis B, and osteoporosis. Additionally, in August 2011 the Affordable Care Act introduced eight new preventive care services for women including Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Casey Rackham

by Casey Rackham

Should annual physicals actually be annual?

February 26, 2013 in Health Insurance, Medical Care, Member Stories

I’ve been going to my childhood doctor every year for as long as I can remember. She’s helped me through the chicken pox, flu shots, ear infections, and the perils of puberty. But as my mom pointed out a couple of weeks ago, I’m now in my twenties, which is too old to still be going to a pediatrician. The nostalgia in me wants to scream, “No, you can’t make me go to a new doctor,” but the logic in me says, “I guess it’s time I go to a doctor’s office where the waiting room isn’t filled with Legos.”

My healthcare conscience mother and me.

My healthcare conscience mother and me.

But how urgent is it for me to find a new doctor for my annual physical? Here are the facts: I’m a 22-year-old female, I haven’t had a physical in almost 14 months, and I don’t believe that I have a serious illness that has surfaced since my last visit. Can’t I just skip a year and wait until I’ve found a new doctor that I like?

While my mom might say no, my pediatrician says yes. Dr. Marilyn Lange, a doctor in Los Angeles and a graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine, says that a woman of my age can get away with only having a physical every three to four years unless she has a medical problem. “There are definitely reasons to do it,” says Dr. Lange, “but if you want to skip a year, that’s fine.”

An article published by Duke Medicine supports Dr. Lange’s claim and says that how often you get a physical depends on your age and disease risk factors. Assuming you are healthy, the article suggests you get a physical every two to three years if you’re under 30, every one to two years if you’re between 30 and 40, and every year if you’re over 50.

Additionally, a Danish study released in 2012 found Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Sue (Sunni) Patterson

by Sue (Sunni) Patterson

Preventing Child Medical Identity Theft

January 29, 2013 in health care costs, Health Insurance, Hospital Bills, Insurance Bills, Medical Care

Along with being able to talk to providers and insurance companies from an informed standpoint, you will also benefit from knowing more about how criminals work to fraudulently bill others for various items including health care services. There has been a flurry of reports about a growing practice that’s pretty disturbing, especially to new parents. It involves criminals simply using children’s identities to bill medical services and other items to credit accounts.

Doesn’t The Government Check a Consumer’s Age?

You would think that children would be safe from identity theft because of their age. But, the reality is that with the complex database systems of many governments and private businesses, it’s often possible for criminals to commit fraud by using the Social Security number and other identifying information of a minor. At the same time, many of these efforts are successful specifically because nobody else is checking the credit account for a minor. Since a child can’t usually make purchases or access his or her credit, everyone figures the accounts will be dormant. What some unlucky parents are finding out, though, is that to many government agencies and businesses, one Social Security number is as good as another, and the issue of age does not factor into many of these fraudulent accounts. In some cases, criminals who open these kind of accounts can keep using them for months or even years.

What To Do About Child Identity Theft

Much of what consumer advocates recommend in terms of deterring child identity theft is the same as what you would do to prevent adult identity theft. Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Deborah Gordon

by Deborah Gordon

The Rise of U.S. Health Care Consumers: Lessons from Abroad

January 5, 2013 in health care costs, Health Insurance, International Health Care, Medical Care, Quality of care

Can you imagine buying gas from a station with no signs to let you know the prices? Or having the clerk at a clothing store pick the “right” jeans for you, with no opportunity to figure out for yourself which ones fit best? In a sense, this is how Americans buy something far more important: health care.

Economists and policy makers have long emphasized the challenges in treating health care as a consumer good. Supply generally drives demand; there is little correlation between cost and quality; and end users have neither visibility into costs, nor much incentive to find out. Lack of price transparency makes it nearly impossible to find health care cost information even for someone motivated to look for it. Consumers also have little basis for evaluating quality; often the data that is available is dense and hard to interpret. In other words, most Americans do not have the practice or capacity, let alone the information they would need, to make informed health care decisions.

But it does not need to stay this way – and, indeed, it cannot if health care reform is to succeed. Under the Affordable Care Act, 12 million consumers are expected to purchase their own health insurance via a health insurance exchange by 2014, growing to 28 million in 2019. Americans, including lower-income individuals qualifying for subsidized health insurance, will have new health plan choices, and new means of comparison shopping. Even without reform, health insurers are designing and employers are increasingly offering products that shift costs and choices to the consumer.

Remarkably, as a nation and a health care industry, we have not prepared our population for the increased responsibility and decision-making power they will soon assume. Yet there are places around the world that have a lot to teach us in this arena, and they’re not necessarily the ones you might guess – or the ones health economists tend to focus on. Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Sue (Sunni) Patterson

by Sue (Sunni) Patterson

Protect Yourself from Medical Debt Overload with Self-Advocacy

December 27, 2012 in health care costs, Health Insurance, Hospital Bills, Insurance Bills, Medical Debt

You or someone you know may be closing out the year with large amounts of medical debt even after insurance payments or what you thought were relatively minor surgeries or other procedures. In fact, you may feel like you’ve been hit by a blizzard by the sheer number of bills related to that one procedure. And they keep on coming.

One step you can do is confirm or validate the bill, especially if a lot of time has elapsed since the initial service. This simply means you want proof that you had the services rendered and do in fact owe the balance due. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, credit agencies are supposed to help consumers to ensure that bills are correct and fair before payment is rendered. But without good knowledge of these laws and taking the time necessary to investigate, you could end up paying much more than you owe. Here are a few other ways to stand up for yourself and your bottom line.

Keep Proof of Charges

The bad apples that pollute our debt collection environment may be operating on an entirely fraudulent basis. There have been many news stories of consumers receiving calls from phone bank operators, posing fraudulently as legitimate debt collectors. A tip off is that in many instances, the caller will fail to fully identify him/herself, their company, and the nature of the call. There are also reports that unprincipled companies are using ‘bread crumbs’ of financial data in order to manufacture phony debts that their workers demand payment for during outbound telephone calls. Collectors have been known to threaten litigation or other legal action without any legal basis as well as fail to provide written proof that a debt is owed when requested by the consumer.

One big part of your arsenal is the paper trail of charges, as well as Explanation of Benefits (or EOBs) that show whether or not the insurance company paid their fair share. Keep all of these documents on hand so that you can prove any overcharges and trigger an analysis by a credit agency.

Get Credit Bureaus In On the Action Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Sue (Sunni) Patterson

by Sue (Sunni) Patterson

What is Being Done About Medical Billing Fraud?

November 19, 2012 in health care costs, Health Insurance, Insurance Bills, Medical Care, Member Stories

Over the last few years, healthcare insurers have been focusing on fraud detection. Their efforts have been undertaken with the cooperation of the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association (NHCAA). The increasing numbers of suspected fraudulent medical claims are related to the economy, legislative attempts to help the consumer and general changes in ethical behavior. Also, a real danger exists because when medical service providers and attorneys are working in cahoots with fraudsters, prescribed treatment can be unnecessary and may even cause harm to patients.

The property and casualty insurance industry is also stepping up to implement fraud control. That’s because a significant amount of healthcare fraud starts with an incident related to property casualty insurance. For example, in the New York City area, about one in five no-fault auto insurance claims appear to contain elements of fraud. In addition, as much as one in three claims appear to be inflated.

Recently the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NCIB) asked leading property/casualty insurers to participate in a project to analyze medical billing data and place it in a single database. It is hoped that the ongoing participation of these insurers on supplying data for this project will enable the industry to be aware of emerging trends regarding potential fraud around medical billing. Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Sue (Sunni) Patterson

by Sue (Sunni) Patterson

Plan Ahead for International Travel Medical Bills

November 2, 2012 in health care costs, Health Insurance, Insurance Bills, lifestyle, Medical Care, Medicare, Member Stories

You may be closing out 2011 with a holiday trip, domestically or internationally. If you plan to leave the country, you may want to consider the following when it comes to your health:

  • You may not have health insurance coverage for illnesses or injuries that are treated abroad, even if you have US based medical coverage. Confirm with your benefits administrator.
  • Generally, Medicare does not provide coverage for hospital or medical costs incurred abroad, however, rare circumstances may be covered.
  • AARP can assist with obtaining foreign medical coverage and offers valuable travel tips.
  • US consulate personnel will help you locate health care providers and facilities and even contact family members, if necessary.
  • You can purchase travel insurance that covers health care needs and pays for medical evacuation if you need to be transported back to the US for treatment.

Obtaining medical treatment in another country can be expensive and a medical evacuation can cost over $50,000. Plus, you may encounter challenges with deciphering charges while abroad. Be vigilant, prepared, and follow the same self-advocacy steps you would while receiving medical care in your home state.

If you choose to purchase medical expense coverage while travelling abroad, double check you’ve carefully researched the following:

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Avatar of Adrian Gropper MD

by Adrian Gropper MD

Your health data could be worth over $3,000 / year

October 21, 2012 in health care costs, Health Insurance

In a recent post about the new MA Health Information Exchange, I suggested that a patient-accessible connection to the HIE could save a patient thousands of dollars per year. And now there’s a real-world, peer-reviewed example of what we/’re talking about. Research of medicare Part D beneficiaries published in October 2012 issue of Health Affairs (sorry, it’s paywalled) shows:

“Nationwide, beneficiaries on average spent $368 more annually than they would have spent had they purchased the cheapest plan available in their region, given their medication needs. More than a fifth of beneficiaries spent at least $500 a year more than they needed to.”

and

“Our findings suggest that beneficiaries need more targeted assistance from the government to help them choose plans, such as customized communications about the most cost-effective plans that would cover their medication needs.”

Prescription drugs, as covered by Part D, represent about 10% of the nation’s overall healthcare cost. If, as a gross estimate, we took $368 from this study to be 10% of what a person would save if their overall health insurance was appropriate to their specific needs, then the annual per/beneficiary saving would be over $3,000.

To save this kind of money, patients will need to be able to pay an accountant or similar trusted advocate to match their specific health care costs Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Virginia D Reiber

by Virginia D Reiber

US Healthcare: an oxymoron

October 19, 2012 in Health Insurance, Hospital Bills, Insurance Bills, Medical Care, Medical Debt

It was very exciting to read about Amanda’s grass roots Twitter research.  Amanda, you have started an activist conversation that we, the people, need to have.  Comments from so many people on what Amanda started touched on a deep and growing moral and economic issue for which we must demand answers: loss of a job means loss of insurance, medical debt, loss of shelter and bankruptcy is not a rarity, unaffordable insurance premiums as the norm for the middle class, poor medical care for the disenfranchised, etc.  I will add another observation.  Do you know that if you have a very serious mental illness, have MassHealth, and need to be in hospital, you may wait 2-3 days in an ER for a bed?  Or, if you have poor insurance, be treated in the ER, and when you are medicated and are saner, sent home? There also were a couple of comments from folks who wanted to know why the US did not have systems of care like The UK and Canada.  People want to move to Vermont where there is a progressive move toward single payer healthcare for everybody.  There IS an organization in the US committed to healthcare for all. PNHP was started by public health physicians in 1985!

Does anyone wonder why there is no political will in the US? PNHP started in 1985 with the inception of “managed care”, also viewed by many of us as for-profit healthcare. In this case “healthcare” is an oxymoron, isn’t it? Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Martha Bebinger

by Martha Bebinger

Check This! @amandapalmer’s #insurancepoll

October 16, 2012 in health care costs, Health Insurance, Insurance Bills, Medical Debt

As you read this, there’s a fascinating conversation about health insurance in America and abroad taking place on Twitter and on musician Amanda Palmer’s blog. It’s an outpouring of stories about medical bankruptcy, asking a friend to stitch up a deep finger wound, skipping medications and losing loved ones who couldn’t afford needed care.

The conversation started shortly after Palmer read Nick Kristof’s column about a college buddy with stage 4 prostate cancer, cancer he didn’t catch sooner because he didn’t have health insurance.

Palmer decided to poll her 698k Twitter followers about their health insurance, She asked these four questions:

1) COUNTRY?! 2) profession? 3) insured? 4) if not, why not, if so, at what cost per month (or covered by job)?

Palmer has a couple of volunteers now tallying the results, which keep coming in (check the hashtag #insurancepoll).

Many of Palmer’s followers live in Germany, the UK or France and are baffled by the stories on Palmer’s blog about the cracks in the American health care system.

In Massachusetts, Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Sue (Sunni) Patterson

by Sue (Sunni) Patterson

Share Your Medical Bill Story in 2012 Cost of Care Contest

October 15, 2012 in health care costs, Health Insurance, Hospital Bills, Insurance Bills, Medical Care, Member Stories

In listening to you, we’ve found, time and time again, that outrageously high medical bills are not a rare occurrence in this country. Many glitches and loopholes in today’s American health care system often leads to unexpected, mysterious billed amounts that threaten individual families and force many Americans to the brink of bankruptcy or worse. But too often, those with serious medical financial problems have no outlet for their rage and consternation.

Now, a non-profit consumer advocacy group called Costs of Care is sponsoring a contest that’s based on listening to the American patient – yes, you! Anyone who has ever had to deal with a surprise high-dollar bill for medical care is invited to participate.

The Costs of Care 2012 Essay Contest provides a listening ear for struggling Americans, and even a chance to win a portion of $4000 in cash prizes. Contest creators seek “anecdotes,” not policy positions, about big medical billing problems, and “high value healthcare decisions.” Judges include former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala and other panelists, including doctors and health care officials. The deadline for this contest is November 15, so would-be contestants have just a short time to send in their stories of up to 750 words for consideration.

What’s behind the Contest

In soliciting stories from American patients, Costs of Care and other participants are seeking to put needed pressure on today’s community of medical providers. Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Sue (Sunni) Patterson

by Sue (Sunni) Patterson

How to Protect Yourself from Higher Than Expected Medical Bills

September 28, 2012 in health care costs, Health Insurance, Hospital Bills, Insurance Bills, Medical Care

If you are insured and visit your local emergency room at a hospital network in your area of residence, you expect to pay the stated co-pay that shows on your insurance card, right? This is, in some senses, a reasonable expectation, but it’s not always what happens. News media outlets around the country have aggressively broadcast many cases where huge out-of-network charges for secondary providers have led to excessive medical billing amounts for patients who simply visited the wrong hospital at the wrong time.

The Problem: Hospital Network Staff Outsourcing

This major problem, that results in more out of pocket dollars than expected, really has to do with how hospitals staff. Hospitals may simply bring in outside doctors, nurses, technicians and other staff who aren’t effectively on staff at that facility, in order to help fully staff an emergency room or other hospital department. This is a convenient fix for hospitals, but what’s enraging is the idea that hospital administrators don’t think about the dramatic impact that out-of-network charges can have on patients.

What happens with out-of-network charges is that when outside physicians or other staffers happen to provide care to a particular patient, that patient is simply billed for the balance of that care because of an automatic insurer denial. Insurance companies won’t usually pay for the work of out-of-network professionals, but hospitals hire them anyway. Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Kristiina Sorensen

by Kristiina Sorensen

“Take me to MGH”

September 13, 2012 in Health Insurance, Medical Care, Member Stories

One day my husband came home from work and announced that he wanted to get a tattoo.  Greg was a neuroradiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital — more of a science nerd than an ink lover — so this caught my attention.  He said he wanted to have a tattoo right across his forehead that said:

“IF FOUND DOWN, TAKE ME TO MGH.”

A volunteer tests out Greg's tattoo design.

If he ever collapsed somewhere, he said, he wanted to be sure that he was taken to Mass General, and not to the nearest community hospital.

Greg had started working at a lab at MGH when he was in medical school, and he had done his radiology residency and fellowship there, so his ties to the hospital went back a long ways.  But this bit about the tattoo was more than just institutional loyalty.  He was convinced that the care at Mass General was better than at many of the smaller hospitals.

He proved his commitment to MGH one night when he became a patient himself.  One evening I came home and found Greg lying on the bathroom floor writhing in pain.   On the 1-to-10 scale of pain, he said he was at a 10.  He clearly needed to be seen by a doctor, so he managed to get himself out to the car, and I started heading to the nearest emergency room.  “No,” he said. “Take me to MGH.”  Every bump in the road caused him to moan in pain, and and every extra minute of the drive was excruciating, but even in unbearable pain, he was adamant that he wanted to go to Mass General. Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Sue (Sunni) Patterson

by Sue (Sunni) Patterson

Will Medicare Changes Result in Better Quality?

September 3, 2012 in health care costs, Health Insurance, Hospital Bills, Insurance Bills, Medical Care, Medical Debt, Medicare

As the price of health care in America keeps rising, you may be among those that are frustrated by the kind of generic approach taken by  health insurance companies and government entitlement programs. The traditional fee-for-service format of health care reimbursement means that the best hospitals and doctor’s offices don’t get rewarded and the lower performing offices don’t have consequences. But, this is all likely to change with new Medicare rules that are slated to pursue more of a ‘meritocracy’ in the way that health care dollars get paid out.

New Medicare Rules

Reports from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services show that Medicare is going to begin making some changes in the way that it reimburses health care providers starting late this year. In what Medicare officials call a ‘value-based purchasing’ program, Medicare will consider various aspects of a provider’s operations in setting the reimbursement rates for that particular office. Key factors will include observation of outcomes, or in other words, whether the procedures and services performed at an office actually help patients to recover from illnesses and improve quality of life.

Responses to the Changes

For you, this represents a major change and a big potential edge in making sure you get what you deserve for the money, especially when you have out of pocket expenses. On the downside, though, some providers are arguing that hospitals and offices in rural areas, or those with other significant disadvantages, may be punished unfairly. Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Sarah Bechta

by Sarah Bechta

Open enrollment time again – what to do about Tiered Insurance Plans

September 1, 2012 in Health Insurance, Member Stories

Ahhh, September!  Summer scheduling chaos is over, back-to-school shopping is done, the kids are back in school, and I can now use my precious free time to….worry about open enrollment for health insurance?!  Yup, even though we have until December, it is already on my mind.  Actually, it never really left my mind, because I have been dealing with the fall-out of Tiered Insurance Plans since last open enrollment.

As I have posted before, last year I struggled with the new option of Tiered Health Insurance Plans.  Personally, I tried to figure out if choosing a Tiered Plan would actually save my family money.  After many hours of research, I concluded that I could draw no meaningful conclusions.  Because my family’s physicians and hospitals were ranked on different tiers for different insurances, I couldn’t conclude that these tiers were based on meaningful, standardized data.  We opted for the more traditional, non-tiered, health insurance.

Professionally (I am a pediatrician), I have been surprised at the lack of understanding that families have about the tiered plans.  My practice also falls into the category of being ranked differently for different insurances.  Conversations in my office usually go something like this:

Parent:  I think your office is billing me extra co-pays by mistake.  Every time I pay my $25 co-pay, I get a bill from your office for another $25.

Me (lightbulb going off in my head): Let me see what kind of insurance you have.  (Confirm that they have the insurance that ranks us as Tier 3).  Did this increase start after your insurance changed with open enrollment? Read the rest of this entry →

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Avatar of Sue (Sunni) Patterson

by Sue (Sunni) Patterson

How Much is Health Insurance Coverage Really Costing You?

August 30, 2012 in health care costs, Health Insurance, Hospital Bills, Insurance Bills, Medical Care, Medical Debt, Medicare

Just when you think you have the health care business figured out, new reports come out showing even more dark details about how American patients are simply charged massive amounts of money for health care services on a pretty arbitrary basis.

The newest wrinkle in this story actually turns the conventional wisdom about payment for health care on its ear: where many assume that most uninsured patients get the highest bills, new reports are showing that, in many cases, the “cash-up-front” deals given to cash-paying patients may be as little as less than half of a contractually agreed price that the hospital would bill the insurance company. Why is this a problem? Because it means that many of those who pay high deductibles, premiums and coinsurance on a health plan may still be paying more for each service, visit or procedure than someone who doesn’t have any insurance at all. It also injects a huge monkey wrench into the now established idea that everyone needs health insurance to make health care affordable. On the flip side, if you have a high deductible but choose to self-pay a medical bill, how will you ever meet your deductible? This is particularly troublesome should you have a catastrophic event. Read the rest of this entry →

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