Tag Archives: health care

$608?

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So I got a call from my wife letting me know that my daughter's routine wellness visit to the doctor was going to cost someone $608.  I say someone is going to pay it because it won't be just us.  Our insurer will be picking up a healthy chunk of the bill, as they should since that's why we pay them ransom premiums every month, but the interesting thing to me is that the only reason we actually know the cost is because the doctor's office still has us in their system as an "out of pocket" patient and they send the bills directly to our house.  The reason for this is we used to have an HSA plan so all the bills were paid directly by us, but we've been on our current "regular" insurance plan for over a year so we shouldn't be getting these bills. Can we say inefficiency? 

You have to wonder how we've gotten to the point that a simple wellness visit that takes 15 minutes and involves a routine vaccination can cost north of $600.  Sheesh.

But wait, there's more.  It ends up that the doctor's office billed for something they didn't do.  When my wife called they said that the thing they billed for was a standard part of a wellness check, which is why they billed it even though they didn't provide the service.  They assured her that it would be removed from the bill that the insurer receives. Riiiight.

Here's my questions: What would have happened if we'd never seen the bill?  How often does this kind of thing happen and what is it costing on a state or nationwide basis? When did practice managers start going to the same management school as car dealership repair shop managers?

What a cluster.

This Can’t Happen

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Congress' attempt at health care reform is a big issue right now, and if you watch the news about what our Congresscritters are up to you can surmise that hardly anyone will be happy with the results.  On the other hand most people seem to be holding their breath and hoping that, if nothing else, the changes to the system will at least be an improvement on the status quo.

Whatever the result we need to make sure that situations like this will never arise. From the story:

The financially strapped Jackson Health System has stopped paying for dialysis treatments for 175 poor patients with failing kidneys — a decision that experts say could be deadly.

“It is no game,'' says Emelina García Cordoví, 67, whose treatments at a South Miami-Dade center were cut off Dec. 31. “We are talking of the lives of persons who depend exclusively on their dialysis.''

Jackson, Miami-Dade's government health system intended to be a safety net for the poor and uninsured, said it expects to save $4.2 million by stopping payments for outpatient dialysis treatment for the 175 patients. Of those, other avenues for care have been found for all but 41, says spokesman Robert Alonso. About a third of those are undocumented immigrants, who are not eligible for government programs.