I’ve worked in the health industry all my life. It seems to me that one of the reasons for high health care are the doctors and facilities that are allowed to overcharge. I believe that if a certain doctor has more education than one of his colleagues, he should be able to make more money but some of these people over charge like they are God.
But what gets me is the insurance companies just pay the bills without questioning them. i.e., when my son was first born he had to have a spinal tap as he spiked a high temp. They called us back as they contaminated the specimen and it had to be done over. I sent in a letter to my ins co stating they should not have to pay for the hospital’s mistake. They just paid both bills and never got back to me. This was no small amount either.
Hospitals charge for a whole roll of tape for each patient when they only use a few strips per person – in surgery. I know. I’ve scrubbed on hundreds of cases and one roll of tape lasts about one week but each patient is charged for a whole roll – sometimes we had 5-6 in one room each day, sometimes more. Some of the people didn’t even need the tape. My friend chopped off $700 of her bill after a C-section. She had no insurance and she went over the bill item by item. They had sitz baths on there and she had a C-section.
I think costs could be cut drastically if more attention was paid to these kinds of things.
Maybe if the ins cos would pay more attention to what they are paying, the costs would not be running rampant.
November 25th, 2009 at 12:01 am
That is true. Insurance companies should pay more attention. BUT, patients should pay more attention too. Too many people take insurance for granted, don’t want to know or care about the real cost of health care, and leave it up for the insurance companies to pay for it. Patients need to look (like your friend) at the charges to make sure everything is correct. That is one of the reasons health care costs are so high. Many people don’t know the correct cost of services, and take the hospitals word for it. You know the cost of a hamburger at McDonald’s. For example, a cheeseburger is 2.89, and you know this because you pay for it yourself. And often times you won’t get that particular hamburger or go to another place that only charges 1.00. Now, if you paid someone 1.00 a day to buy your lunch for you at no extra cost or at only .50 per visit, then you would probably wouldn’t care what they paid. You would order a double cheeseburger from Chili’s instead of McDonald’s to “get your money’s worth.” And those costs add up.
So, in conclusion the insurance companies should pay attention, but it is also a consumer responsibility to pay attention too.