How comfortable would you be going to a restaurant or gas station, ordering and filling up, giving them your address and credit card so they could bill you later and then the credit card company decides if they will pay it or if you have to send in cash for it? How can the fries cost $250, when I can buy them in Canada for 99 cents?
Why aren%26#039;t there health care price menus when you go to the doctors office or hospital?
Get this.....I took my Son to the Doctors, for a work related injury...cut on his leg...needed antibiotics...no health coverage. Too old to be covered under our plan. Took him to the same Dr%26#039;s he has gone to nearly all his life....I get there, and let the receptionist know I will be paying cash.....She said Real Cash...I said yes....How much is the Dr%26#039;s visit....She didn%26#039;t know as no one pays cash....She had to go ask the Doctor.....(He gave us a reduced rate, because we were Patients of his but that isn%26#039;t the point)
I do think that all the procedures, etc should be listed and in a monetary amount, barring unforseen situations which would of course add to the bill. It should be a law......so we as Patients can shop around....(Not all Doctors are bad, and not all play the gouging game)
Why aren%26#039;t there health care price menus when you go to the doctors office or hospital?
move to canada
Why aren%26#039;t there health care price menus when you go to the doctors office or hospital?
The bigger the city the more expensive the medical treatment as with food, gas, etc.Yeah, the medical profession is a rip off....medicine for this, medicine for that, but they never tell you that the medicine you are gonna take is going to make another part of your body sick. Doesn%26#039;t make sense to me.
Why aren%26#039;t there health care price menus when you go to the doctors office or hospital?
this is why the people need to be the voice of change. insurance companies have become giants in the world of business and its obvious that their greed is out of control.
demand to know how much your visit is going to cost you in advance. and when you recieve your medical bills request a detailed list of what you are being billed for. we do this every time now and i have no problem questioning them about a $200 bandaid.
in doing this we have taken control and had our bill changed many times.
the laws need to be changed... thats all there is to it. but its up to the people to put pressure on the gov%26#039;t to enforce this change.
Why aren%26#039;t there health care price menus when you go to the doctors office or hospital?
If they had a menu, who would you blame because you got bad medical care? You would probably pick the cheapest option, and then complain because other are picking the more expensive one and getting better care.
Why aren%26#039;t there health care price menus when you go to the doctors office or hospital?
Professional practice management by MBAs and the disconnect caused by the take over of medical services gate keeping by insurance companies.
That is the state of socialized medicine in the US. It is the Corporate State Socialism Model with disease, pain and mental illness as profit centers.
Why aren%26#039;t there health care price menus when you go to the doctors office or hospital?
You are making a logical point that hospitals in particular HATE and don%26#039;t want to comply with. Many of us have been asking for years for what you want, it%26#039;s called
price transparency
Especially in the age of the Internet there is NO legitimate reason whatsoever that these prices are not available to the public.
For the silly who will say %26quot;there are all kinds of procedures,%26quot; here%26#039;s the deal, MEDICARE has a complete listing. They%26#039;ve made sure to complicate it so a regular person can%26#039;t access their database, but they have predetermined for no matter what STUPID CPT codes are used, what they will pay for the procedure. So clearly such a database CAN exist because it DOES exist and don%26#039;t let anyone tell you it can%26#039;t be done. Furthermore, the provider has to have the codes to file insurance OR just bill the uninsured, so they could absolutely tell you in advance what codes are being used. Bam goes that red herring argument I%26#039;ve heard before.
Now the real reason they don%26#039;t want the public to see this database is because of the UNFAIR pricing systems used. IT ALL depends on who your insurer is what you will pay--and if patients saw that many times they pay MORE than the company does they%26#039;d shriek bloody murder. If you saw what they have the NERVE to charge the uninsured, you would pass out.
Now a lot of folks will say %26quot;I work in medical billing and the insured pay for the uninsured.%26quot; Not really.
%26quot;In 1998, the CAGW (Citizens Against Government Waste) wrote a disheartening report on nonprofit hospitals indicating most were not worth the taxes they were exempted from. It was called Are You Getting Your Money鈥檚 Worth from Non-Profit Hospitals? In 2006, they revisited the issue and noted that nothing really had changed. One example in the short update (Wright, 鈥淣onprofit Hospitals Still Abusing Tax-Exempt Status,鈥?26 July 2006) noted that one 鈥渘onprofit鈥?hospital had charged a low-income, uninsured woman $20,296 for a procedure that Medicare would pay $3,994 to perform. The report urges government and taxpayers to look at the community benefits provided by nonprofits in light of what they receive (the massive tax breaks) and what they pay their people (benefits included) and the surpluses they run, as well as their billing practices.
In Who Killed Health Care?, Regina Herzlinger gives another frightening example of what too many hospitals are about: profit. She recalls being at a meeting for congressional legislative assistants about the creation of small, specialty hospitals to treat a particular health area, such as heart disease. The hospital was to be 鈥減artially owned and managed by doctors.鈥?She notes that hospitals account for the bulk of costs and increases in costs of health care, but the established general hospitals saw the creation of specialty hospitals as an economic threat, so they went to Congress to disallow such hospitals from existing. The hospitals were represented primarily by the CEO of a 鈥渃hain of 24 non-profit hospitals鈥?who stated that such a specialty hospital would interfere with the billion-dollar non-profit鈥檚 ability to provide free and subsidized care to the poor and sick in that region. Supposedly the best-paying patients were being lured away from his chain to the 55-bed specialty hospital. Congress listened and instituted a 鈥渕oratorium on the expansion of specialty hospitals.鈥?
Herzlinger then looks at the facts. In 2003, while battling the small hospital, the non-profit earned $26 million in profits and had $50 million in liquid assets鈥攁fter all expenses and charity care were deducted. In 2004, after Congress acted, the hospital had their profits and liquid assets increase 15 percent and saw fit to do things such as donate $200,000 to the local high school football league. However, the hospital鈥檚 charity care fell by 40 percent and profits increased. By 2005, the charity care was down to $3 million. By being considered as a non-profit, they had avoided 鈥渢ens of millions of dollars in taxes.鈥?The way they determined their charity care was also questionable. They listed the prices they鈥檇 charge the uninsured as what they were providing for free as well as declaring that the difference between the uninsured prices and what they did receive for Medicare and Medicaid were charity care as well. Herzlinger also notes that part of what the Congress was willing to fight, and the hospitals wanted them to fight, was that price transparency where patients would be told the truth before any procedures about costs so they could comparison shop (4-6).
--Cassandra Nathan%26#039;s Save America, Save the World pp. 142-144
(And I was able to share that with you because I typed that out to a Congressman who apparently doesn%26#039;t care.)
Furthermore on what the uninsured or just poorly insured pay, here%26#039;s the straight story. More than half of all bankruptcies in the US are over medical bills AND most of those folks have insurance (see http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/20... for just one story on that FACT). Read it, because it%26#039;s NOT about bums or idiots who didn%26#039;t read their policies.
Furthermore, predatory lenders have entered the fray:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnfl...
Here%26#039;s more on the topic from someone who does actually know medical billing practices:
%26quot;鈥淢y interest in this subject is a values issue,鈥?he explains. 鈥淚t just offends me that the people that didn鈥檛 have enough money to buy insurance be charged three times what the people who have insurance are charged. From a moral standpoint it seems to me it鈥檚 wrong.鈥?br>
Rooney points to the profits local hospitals are making by way of explaining his indignation. Clarian Hospital, for example, had profits of $132,709,138 in 2004 with cash and investments of $1.45 billion. Dan Evans, Clarian鈥檚 president and CEO, received $1,071,000 in total compensation that year. St. Vincent reported profits in 2005 of $86,498,143 with $500 million in cash and investments. The four hospitals in the Community system made a combined profit of $50 million in 2005.
Rooney has made helping people get out from under debt due to lack of health insurance a major focus of his Fairness Foundation. 鈥淲e鈥檝e done a lot of crusading on this and we鈥檝e been very successful,鈥?he says. 鈥淢y opinion is that when [hospitals] are confronted with a well-informed patient that says it鈥檚 an unreasonable bill [the hospitals鈥橾 alternative is to sue them and I believe they don鈥檛 want to be in court on this issue when they鈥檙e charging three times as much.鈥?br>
Rooney has found that hospitals have made a common practice of charging 3.5 times what Medicare will pay for services. While Rooney acknowledges that hospitals may need to charge more than Medicare will pay, he contends that authoritative research shows that Medicare plus 25 percent is the reasonable amount for hospitals to charge.
But hospitals are notorious for their lack of transparency when it comes to revealing what their costs actually are. 鈥淒an Evans, the head of Clarian, testified before the Senate Finance Committee two or three weeks ago,鈥?Rooney says. 鈥淗e said [transparency] could be done but it鈥檚 so complicated it鈥檚 not worthwhile and we don鈥檛 want to do it.鈥?But, Rooney adds, a health care system in Milwaukee, Wheaton Franciscan, has recently signed a contract in which it agrees to disclose what it will charge for 29 common hospital procedures.
The prevalent lack of transparency in hospitals, combined with the fact that people who are sick or injured are often unable to be their own best advocates, places patients in a particularly vulnerable position. Rooney also sees the higher prices being charged to the uninsured as a potential civil rights issue. 鈥淚 am concerned about the minority people. I don鈥檛 want to see them screwed. Nationally, 35 percent of Hispanics are uninsured; 22 percent of African-Americans are uninsured; and 11 percent of non-Hispanic Caucasians are uninsured. So when you鈥檙e doubling, tripling, multiplying the price by five times, you鈥檙e doing it mainly to minority people,鈥?Rooney says. 鈥淚 consider that racial discrimination.鈥?br>
In Maryland, what hospitals charge is now regulated by law. Rooney points out that Maryland鈥檚 Johns Hopkins Hospital is considered one of the nation鈥檚 best and manages to operate with a cost-to-charge ratio of 81 cents to the dollar. 鈥淭hey make a lot of money and they鈥檙e not gouging people,鈥?he says. He would like to see the governor take the lead on the regulatory issue in Indiana.%26quot;
http://www.nuvo.net/article.php?title=de...
Again, there is more to the article, before and after the quoted material, but I place it there to establish additional evidence for what I%26#039;ve said because some people want to argue about this. Oh, and the man being cited is the founder of the Golden Rule Insurance company as anyone who bothers to check sources will see.
You%26#039;ll also note what Johns Hopkins charges and frankly, you%26#039;d be hard pressed to find a better hospital in the WORLD than that one, so BS about the %26quot;costs%26quot; of providing quality care should be skipped.
Though I respect what Rooney does, you can be turned down by Golden Rule--I was--repeatedly, making me one of the people who could not be insured in the US (and my employers offered me NO insurance). I also do NOT agree with his views about governmental regulation of prices, because the villain number one is large insurance companies:
Read Linda Peeno, MD%26#039;s confession to basically letting the expensive die when she was able to deny legit claims in the insurance industry:
http://www.thenationalcoalition.org/DrPe...
Read this, again, just part of the article, about the unmitigated greed of United Health Care and know they%26#039;re not alone:
%26quot;While growing into a colossus, UnitedHealth has repeatedly failed to perform its basic job of paying medical bills. UnitedHealth, which covers 70 million Americans, has been sanctioned in nine states for paying claims slowly; shortchanging doctors, hospitals, or patients; or poorly handling complaints and appeals.
One Nebraska woman complained to state regulators that UnitedHealth%26#039;s computers had incorrectly rejected claims related to her son%26#039;s surgery six times.
At one point, UnitedHealth owed Dr. George Schroedinger, an orthopedic surgeon, $600,000. He and his clinic sued UnitedHealth of the Midwest in 2004.
Deciding for the clinic, U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh of Missouri declared that the company%26#039;s claims processing systems were %26quot;flawed in many ways, denying, reducing, and improperly processing claims on a regular basis. And despite innumerable requests, United was unwilling to remedy the underlying errors in its systems%26quot; (Star-Tribune Dec. 12, 2007).
Payment troubles continued after the verdict, and Dr. Schroedinger filed a second lawsuit. %26quot;These people can never get it right, which says to me that they just plain lie,%26quot; he said in an interview.
Failure to pay isn%26#039;t the only complaint. The insurer also gives incorrect information on which physicians are in its network, creating enormous problems for physicians%26#039; staff.
The AMA said that no other insurer has prompted as many complaints as UnitedHealth about abusive and unfair payment practices. AMA officials have met with UnitedHealth executives 16 times since 2000, with little to show for it.
%26quot;They have always got a new plan to fix it,%26quot; said Dr. William G. Plested III, past president of the AMA. But %26quot;nothing ever happens.%26quot;
It seems to us that this case is just the tip of the insurance iceberg. More and more stories are appearing daily in the news media about how insurance company are instructing employees their jobs are to deny claims and/or delay payments.
With such a high percentage of medical premiums and other costs going to the legal profession, to maintain compliance with endless government rules/regulations and being hoarded by the insurance companies and executives 鈥?is it any wonder medical costs are increasing so dramatically?
It%26#039;s time to take a closer look at the medical insurance companies.
UnitedHealth Group is not the first medical insurance company to rob patients, hospitals and clinics to pay obscene salaries to their executives.
It%26#039;s a modern day robbing patients to pay pimps.
Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., comments on medical-legal issues and is a visiting fellow in economics and citizenship at the International Trade Education Foundation of the Washington International Trade Council.
Robert J. Cihak, M.D., is a senior fellow and board member of the Discovery Institute and a past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
http://www.newsmax.com/medicine_men/medi...
Furthermore:
%26quot;the vast majority of health insurance policies are through for-profit stock companies. They are in the process of 鈥渟hedding lives鈥?as some term it when 鈥渦ndesirable鈥?customers are lost through various means, including raising premiums and co-pays and decreasing benefits (Britt, 鈥淗ealth insurers getting bigger cut of medical dollars,鈥?15 October 2004, investors.com). That same Investors Business Daily article from 2004 noted the example of Anthem, another insurance company. They said the top five executives (not just the CEO) received an average of an 817 percent increase in compensation between 2000 and 2003. The CEO, for example, had his compensation go from $2.5 million to $25 million during that time period. About $21 million of that was in stock payouts, the article noted.
A 2006 article, 鈥淯.S. Health Insurance: More Market Domination, More CEO Compensation鈥?br> (hcrenewal.blogspot.com) notes that in 56 percent of 294 metropolitan areas one insurer 鈥渃ontrols more than half the business in health maintenance organization and preferred provider networks underwriting.%26quot; In addition to having the most enrollees, they also are the biggest purchasers of health care and set the price and coverage terms. 鈥溾€橳he results is double-digit premium increases from 2001 and 2004鈥攑eaking with a 13.9 percent jump in 2003鈥攕oaring well above inflation and wages increases.鈥?quot; Where is all that money going? The article quotes a Wall Street Journal article looking at the compensation of the CEO of UnitedHealth Group. His salary and bonus is $8 million annually. He has benefits such as the use of a private jet. He has stock-option fortunes worth $1.6 billion.%26quot;
--Save America, Save the World by Cassandra Nathan pp. 127-128
So, Nathan knows her stuff and she has the best plan for reform I%26#039;ve seen.
I want QUALITY, ACCESSIBLE, AFFORDABLE health care for all.
That means preventative care (physical with follow up). Real medication (no Medicare %26quot;donut holes%26quot; the really ill are screwed again.) No bogus ridiculously low %26quot;caps%26quot; on needed medical procedures. No abuse of the ER. No paying for the silly with the sniffles to go to the doc for free. No more bankruptcies over medical bills. I want THIS plan that ends abuse of the taxpayer, takes the burden off employers, provides price transparency, and ends the rip-off of the US taxpayer at the hands of greedy insurance CEOs (which has been repeatedly documented).
http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.htm...
Read the PDF, not the blurb, for the bulk of the plan. Book is searchable on Amazon.com
Cassandra Nathan%26#039;s Save America, Save the World
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