Also see more medical news from around the web at EP Monthly’s blog and at medbloggers.org.
Resurgence of house calls. Would you pay $275 to have an emergency physician come to your house (or office) instead of going to the emergency department? These docs are trying to tap a niche market and it seems to be catching on.
How do we help people who smoke compounds labeled “Trainwreck Ultra”? “Spice” can cause uncontrollable shaking, dizziness, and heart palpitations, but teens are still smoking it.
Need to see a doctor for a non-urgent condition in California’s Sutter Hospital emergency department? Instead meet the “navigator” who will tell you where to go and how to get there — for medical care, that is.
Infectious Disease Society of America confirms that we shouldn’t be spraying Raid on dandelions. ZeePacks won’t help your sinus “infections” and will increase the likelihood of developing a drug resistant infection. And for those ZeePack addicts, even if you need an antibiotic, so many ZeePacks have been prescribed that now more than 30% of one bacterial specimen (S. pneumoniae) are resistant to it. Even if it did work to cure sinus infections, chances are good that it still wouldn’t work because doctors inappropriately prescribe it for your coughs, runny noses … and sinus infections.
The $5000 tummy ache. A patient was billed $1200 for a blood test that is often reimbursed at $30. Does the need to improve the transparency of our medical billing system warrant the current mandate to purchase health insurance?
I just LOVE articles like the one you link to for ER Direct. The family doesn’t have health insurance, so going to the ER wasn’t an option, and gee wiz, ER Direct got a PA to her daughter’s bedside within two hours, and it only cost him $380! Our office has open access scheduling, and a same day appointment with a doctor would have cost him about $125.
Finding a primary care doctor that will work with you isn’t all that hard. Believe me, any time we get a patient who wants to pay us directly for their care, saving us the hassle of dealing with insurance companies, is a blessing and those patients are welcome here. Presenting a false dichotomy between ER care and no care because of a lack of health insurance is simply wrong.
Except for the minor issue that someone who actually pays their own bills gets charged astronomical rates as much as ten times higher than an insurance company would have been charged.
Of course, I’m looking at it wrong. The insurance companies and medicare (which are 98%+ of medical business) are getting volume discounts, it’s not the conscientious bill-paying person getting overcharged.
I complained about the absurd “default” rates on one of these blogs a while ago, and had a physician respond that they need to have their default rates set to astronomical numbers because they don’t know how much an insurance company will pay. The only way to guarantee sucking the maximum out of every insurance payment is to set rates absurdly high – and screw people who actually pay their own bills.
Tarl,
The default rates charged by hospitals really don’t make much sense. They do gouge the uninsured patient unnecessarily. Insurance companies won’t anywhere near what most hospitals charge as the “going rate” for services. They usually link their payments to Medicare – such as 120% of what Medicare pays for the same procedure (if you’re lucky).
Those who get gouged in billing need to provide proof of the overcharge and pay reasonable compensation for the services (search my blog – I’ve listed sites where people can research the information) or they need to go to small claims court and fight the charges. Then hospitals have to prove that the charges are reasonable and customary.
Tarl,
I had planned a rebuttal to your post, but about half way through I hit the delete key. Simply not worth the waste of time and energy.
If your doctor is charging you an astronomical rate, while knowing you’re paying your own bill, you need to find another doctor. Nobody I know in the medical community here charges anywhere near what you’re claiming.