General Discussion
Showing Original Post only (View all)A Doctor Delivers Bad News--today's LA Times. [View all]
A well-written look at today's health care mess:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-jones-healthcare-buyer-beware-20160508-story.html
A good friend of mine recently found herself between jobs, with a gap in her health insurance and a recurrence of her kidney stones. What she needed were fluids and pain relief, fast. I'm a gastroenterologist, and hoping to minimize the financial impact, I went with her to our local ER and had a conversation with the attending physician. Maybe we could pass on the CT scan and extraneous lab work?
The attending was in her room for less than two minutes and never examined her. But the CT scan and blood work were ordered. My friend received intravenous fluids (about $1 worth), pain meds (about $5 worth of dilaudid), and a $10,000 bill from the hospital. To add insult to injury, the bill from the ER attending was for service at the highest billable level.
My friend had the good sense and gumption to call the ER group's practice manager to point out that billing at that level was fraudulent. The ER group had the good sense to reduce the bill by half.