99 percent of hospital bills have overcharges: U.S. General Accounting Office
Tristan
Office
http://www.halsaservices.org/uploads/20%20Most%20Common%20Ways%20Hospitals%20Overcharge%20Patients.pdf
[excerpts]
"In almost every case where patients fight back in the courts, charges
are reduced or eliminated.
Of the 184 hospital debt cases handled by the Legal Assistance
Foundation between 1983 and 2001, for example, 128 (or 70 percent) had
their debts completely eliminated. Of the remainder, all but one had
their charges dramatically reduced.
Some excerpts of the 20 most common ways hospitals inflate their charges:
1. Billing for Services not Rendered
2. Duplicate Billings (eg, billing twice or more for a service rendered
but once)
3. Shoddy Testing
4. Phantom Charges
5. Quantity Errors
6. "Unbundling" Related Charges
7. Excessive Mark-ups (eg, $75 for a laxative, $30 for a "thermal
therapy kit" (plastic bag of ice cubes), $10 for a "urinal"(plastic
cup). Outrageous mark-ups are frequent and have been well documented.
An article in Money Magazine, for example, offered this illustration:
'Dr. James is busy replacing a 64-year-old knee. He traces a line on her
leg with a disposable skinmarking pen that costs the hospital less than
$1, then tosses it aside for my sake with a flippant $28.'
8. Exceeding "Comparable Charges"
9. Mis-coding the "DRG" (DRG (diagnostic related grouping)--hospitals
hire specialists who are "talented" in selecting codes that maximize
hospital reimbursement
10. Unnecessary Staffing
11. Delays That Lead to Longer Stays
12. Test Re-scheduling Delays
13. Test Result Delays
14. Surgery Delays
15. Teaching Hospital Delay eg, The medical staff of the teaching
hospital may want a large number of the residents to have an opportunity
to review your case; it may be their only chance to see this particular
affliction during their residency.
16. Late Checkout Effect
17. Paying for Wasteful Hospital Practices
18. Hospital-caused Infections. Between 5 and 10 percent of all hospital
patients contract an infection during their hospital stay
19. Padding Hospital Surplus
20. Discriminatory Billing--shifting hospital costs away from
third-party payers (such as Blue Cross and Medicare/Medicaid) and onto
the shoulders of self-payers)
Tristan
> "Speeders & Drunk Drivers are MURDERERS" <bet...@earthlink.net> wrote
> in
> news:9d920405-87ac-483e...@y28g2000prd.googlegroups.com:
>>> 99 percent of hospital bills have overcharges: U.S. General
>>> Accounting
>>> Officehttp://www.halsaservices.org/uploads/20%20Most%20Common%20Ways%2
>>> 0Ho
>> sp...
>> They have to do this to make up for all the FREE health care congress
>> requires them to give illeall aliens!!!
>
> Hey, Doofus! Public hospitals are not run by the federal government.
> Private hospitals turf the uninsured to public hospitals, which are
> required by the state that funds them to treat the public.
>
> Illegal aliens don't go to the hospital unless it's an emergency. For
> the obvious reason that any contact with officialdom increases the
> likelihood of detection and deportation.
>
> So when an illegal alien shows up bleeding at an emergency room, what are
> the doctors supposed to do? Let him bleed to death?
>
> How Christian of you.
I think that the PP was being a bit sarcastic. The hospitals (including
private hospitals) get paid for charity care cases (including illegals)
by various government programs. Hell, they can even pad the bill more
for those cases, as they do with the uninsured). Who's to know?
Wes Groleau
> 7. Excessive Mark-ups (eg, $75 for a laxative, $30 for a "thermal
> therapy kit" (plastic bag of ice cubes), $10 for a "urinal"(plastic
> cup). Outrageous mark-ups are frequent and have been well documented. An
> article in Money Magazine, for example, offered this illustration: 'Dr.
> James is busy replacing a 64-year-old knee. He traces a line on her leg
> with a disposable skinmarking pen that costs the hospital less than $1,
> then tosses it aside for my sake with a flippant $28.'
It costs us more than a dollar because of all the stupid tracking we
have to do on it. But we charge a lot less than $28. And we tell
the patient that we can't re-use it (more rules) but you can keep it,
it's a perfectly usable marker.
--
Wes Groleau
A provocative quote
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/WWW?itemid=87