Medical Billing


But for the 10 minutes total I spent w/ an ER physician (not counting the hospital bill), I was billed $630.
My insurance gets involved and that bill drops to $220.
How the fuck does that happen?!
Clearly the actual price for services rendered is $220. Had I not had insurance (read: poor) I would have been stuck paying $630.
In ANY OTHER profession a billing practice like this would be criminal.
Fuck Obamacare or any other bullshit brought forward by Congress recently. Until there is clarity, transparency and recourse for the common bloke, our system is fucked.
How have we arrived at a point where this is OK?!
Having insurance is nice, but it does not-a-fucking-thing to control costs.
I'm all for free-market economies, but the market needs to be fundamentally reorganized so that the providers compete for patients. There's plenty of fucking patients.
Hell, the little-bit-o'-liberal in me would entertain the idea of tax dollars paying for health care; if the providers competed for the business.
Comments
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Actually if you didn't have insurance, you would have ended paying around the $220 you paid out anyway.pawz said:Last September I unfortunately had to make a trip to the ER. At the chagrin of some here, I lived. Sorry, not sorry. Relatively speaking it was a minor issue.
But for the 10 minutes total I spent w/ an ER physician (not counting the hospital bill), I was billed $630.
My insurance gets involved and that bill drops to $220.
How the fuck does that happen?!
Clearly the actual price for services rendered is $220. Had I not had insurance (read: poor) I would have been stuck paying $630.
In ANY OTHER profession a billing practice like this would be criminal.
Fuck Obamacare or any other bullshit brought forward by Congress recently. Until there is clarity, transparency and recourse for the common bloke, our system is fucked.
How have we arrived at a point where this is OK?!
Having insurance is nice, but it does not-a-fucking-thing to control costs.
I'm all for free-market economies, but the market needs to be fundamentally reorganized so that the providers compete for patients. There's plenty of fucking patients.
Hell, the little-bit-o'-liberal in me would entertain the idea of tax dollars paying for health care; if the providers competed for the business.
But how are we getting screwed by providers and insurance companies?????? -
News flash, these issues existed well before Obamacare.
And if we had single payer healthcare, a professional bill reviewer would be in charge of making sure none of this BS was happening.
Just like they make sure that our airforce isn't paying $5000 per hammer. -
It works like this in all kinds of sectors of the market. Do you think Walmart pays the same rate for services that you do? Of course not. Hell, providers give you different rates based on your own subscription level. ex."Buy 1 full price or buy 2 and the 3rd is 50% off". Imagine the kind of rate you would get if you agreed to buy 100,000 of something. That's what insurers are doing.
Prices can be very discriminatory in a free market.
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What do free markets have to do with the US?UW_Doog_Bot said:
Prices can be very discriminatory in a free market. -
Lol, you haven't ever worked for a military supplier have you?Baphomet said:News flash, these issues existed well before Obamacare.
And if we had single payer healthcare, a professional bill reviewer would be in charge of making sure none of this BS was happening.
Just like they make sure that our airforce isn't paying $5000 per hammer. -
That was the jokeUW_Doog_Bot said:
Lol, you haven't ever worked for a military supplier have you?Baphomet said:News flash, these issues existed well before Obamacare.
And if we had single payer healthcare, a professional bill reviewer would be in charge of making sure none of this BS was happening.
Just like they make sure that our airforce isn't paying $5000 per hammer. -
Whoosh on me then. I'm used to Honda in the tug.Baphomet said:
That was the jokeUW_Doog_Bot said:
Lol, you haven't ever worked for a military supplier have you?Baphomet said:News flash, these issues existed well before Obamacare.
And if we had single payer healthcare, a professional bill reviewer would be in charge of making sure none of this BS was happening.
Just like they make sure that our airforce isn't paying $5000 per hammer.
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You don't see my wwoooooossshhhhh.UW_Doog_Bot said:
Whoosh on me then. I'm used to Honda in the tug.Baphomet said:
That was the jokeUW_Doog_Bot said:
Lol, you haven't ever worked for a military supplier have you?Baphomet said:News flash, these issues existed well before Obamacare.
And if we had single payer healthcare, a professional bill reviewer would be in charge of making sure none of this BS was happening.
Just like they make sure that our airforce isn't paying $5000 per hammer.
HTH -
That's 2 arguments we are on the same side of today. I have even been fucked by an ER over a 3 minute ordeal too.pawz said:Last September I unfortunately had to make a trip to the ER. At the chagrin of some here, I lived. Sorry, not sorry. Relatively speaking it was a minor issue.
But for the 10 minutes total I spent w/ an ER physician (not counting the hospital bill), I was billed $630.
My insurance gets involved and that bill drops to $220.
How the fuck does that happen?!
Clearly the actual price for services rendered is $220. Had I not had insurance (read: poor) I would have been stuck paying $630.
In ANY OTHER profession a billing practice like this would be criminal.
Fuck Obamacare or any other bullshit brought forward by Congress recently. Until there is clarity, transparency and recourse for the common bloke, our system is fucked.
How have we arrived at a point where this is OK?!
Having insurance is nice, but it does not-a-fucking-thing to control costs.
I'm all for free-market economies, but the market needs to be fundamentally reorganized so that the providers compete for patients. There's plenty of fucking patients.
Hell, the little-bit-o'-liberal in me would entertain the idea of tax dollars paying for health care; if the providers competed for the business.
What a cool day man. -
I was there for like an hour and had to pay soemthing like 1200
wtf -
$10.00 per aspirin tablet is cheap!
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I don't use the white man's medicine. Problem solved.
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Swaye said:
I don't use the white man's medicine. Problem solved.
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Wow, pretty racist.2001400ex said: -
You always get a cash discount. Doctor gets his money now not after the insurance company decides to give it to him and with no overhead to fill out the bullshit forms
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They should just display prices, or you get some kind of estimate like for auto repairs. Doctors, especially specialists, are very rich and they enjoy the money and making more...
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It's because you are paying for all the people who don't pay their medical bills. Which is because the government requires providers to provide care regardless of a patients ability to pay...Pitchfork51 said:I was there for like an hour and had to pay soemthing like 1200
wtf -
This. Would solve a lot of problems.ApostleofGrief said:They should just display prices, or you get some kind of estimate like for auto repairs. Doctors, especially specialists, are very rich and they enjoy the money and making more...
A headache for the receptionist I'm sure. But fuck them. -
Hondo the racist can't keep bottling it in. Most hardcore Hillary liberals can't after so long. Sad!GrundleStiltzkin said: -
I miss the days of cheap ER visits!
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Family member in the last year has generated upwards of $1M in medical bills (brain surgery, rehab, extended PT, chemo, radiation etc..)
After the adjustments nearly $700K of that disappeared off the billing, insurance paid most, UW wrote off about $140K for radiation due to it being part of a clinical trial, our out of pocket <$2000 mostly for prescriptions and co-pays.
Of all that the brain surgeons time stuck out as being pretty cheap all considered. I think it was $3600 for a 5 hour operation. Compare that to $20,000 a day for ICU post-op or $40,000 for the operations room.
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I'm not saying that there isn't shit to fix in terms of the way clinics and hospitals bill their patients...
But it seems like there's a lot of people in America who want to have their cake and eat it, too. I know this guy who makes damn good money who bitched about how he had to pay $1,500 for an ER visit, and went on about how much better universal healthcare (or whatever it's called these days) would be.
I was like "you have $50,000 in your checking account BECAUSE you live in America and get to keep a relatively reasonable amount of the money you make. The lack of universal health care if what allows you to have the money to pay that bill."
He didn't understand, which makes me mad that he makes so much more money than me. -
I've always been in favor of a global study of all health systems, figure out who has the lowest cost per person with a good wuality of care, and them straight up copying it.
Why reinvent the damn wheel -
My wife rang up a hundred grand visit in 2014 when we were poor and broke. The great thing is the hospital social staff walked right past me to her and naturally assumed she was poor and broke (Black) and we ended up paying nothing, Senator. At all.
She has had two visits since and I just knock down the bill with my cash discounts. We also get in and out in a fucking hurry
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Race gettin down with the sistasRaceBannon said:My wife rang up a hundred grand visit in 2014 when we were poor and broke. The great thing is the hospital social staff walked right past me to her and naturally assumed she was poor and broke (Black) and we ended up paying nothing, Senator. At all.
She has had two visits since and I just knock down the bill with my cash discounts. We also get in and out in a fucking hurry
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Chimportant. Gif thread. Now.Doogles said:
Race gettin down with the sistasRaceBannon said:My wife rang up a hundred grand visit in 2014 when we were poor and broke. The great thing is the hospital social staff walked right past me to her and naturally assumed she was poor and broke (Black) and we ended up paying nothing, Senator. At all.
She has had two visits since and I just knock down the bill with my cash discounts. We also get in and out in a fucking hurry -
Except countries with Universal Healthcare pay half of what Americans do, per capita. The US pays more for healthcare than any country in the world.Fenderbender123 said:I'm not saying that there isn't shit to fix in terms of the way clinics and hospitals bill their patients...
But it seems like there's a lot of people in America who want to have their cake and eat it, too. I know this guy who makes damn good money who bitched about how he had to pay $1,500 for an ER visit, and went on about how much better universal healthcare (or whatever it's called these days) would be.
I was like "you have $50,000 in your checking account BECAUSE you live in America and get to keep a relatively reasonable amount of the money you make. The lack of universal health care if what allows you to have the money to pay that bill."
He didn't understand, which makes me mad that he makes so much more money than me. -
Sounds like you are a commie.Pitchfork51 said:I've always been in favor of a global study of all health systems, figure out who has the lowest cost per person with a good wuality of care, and them straight up copying it.
Why reinvent the damn wheel
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And it is free!UWhuskytskeet said:
Except countries with Universal Healthcare pay half of what Americans do, per capita. The US pays more for healthcare than any country in the world.Fenderbender123 said:I'm not saying that there isn't shit to fix in terms of the way clinics and hospitals bill their patients...
But it seems like there's a lot of people in America who want to have their cake and eat it, too. I know this guy who makes damn good money who bitched about how he had to pay $1,500 for an ER visit, and went on about how much better universal healthcare (or whatever it's called these days) would be.
I was like "you have $50,000 in your checking account BECAUSE you live in America and get to keep a relatively reasonable amount of the money you make. The lack of universal health care if what allows you to have the money to pay that bill."
He didn't understand, which makes me mad that he makes so much more money than me. -
This happens when you let people on cancer waiting lists die instead of treating them. Saves a ton!UWhuskytskeet said:
Sounds like you are a commie.Pitchfork51 said:I've always been in favor of a global study of all health systems, figure out who has the lowest cost per person with a good wuality of care, and them straight up copying it.
Why reinvent the damn wheel