"Estimated costs" should be illegal for routine procedures such as blood tests. The PURPOSE of insurance is to ELIMINATE cost uncertainty! Either charge or don't charge. Don't EVER leave a patient in a position of not knowing what their care will cost. A practice like this can only lead to abuse and fraud, and will NEVER benefit patients.
If it cannot be determined in advance whether Medicare will pay, then Medicare is corrupt and full of fraud. If a private insurance company tried to get by with a practice like this, they would be shut down by the insurance commissioner's office.
3 comments:
I can take a dog to the vet to have blood work done, and expect to pay $6.00 for the technician to draw the blood and no more than $25.00 for the lab work. The lab processing is no more complex than developing a roll of film, but it doesn't cost $240 per roll of film to get a lab to process it. It costs about 10% of that. The total cost of a lab test including the blood draw should be about $30, and nurses aren't (usually) subjected to the risk of patients biting them!
Where does the other $210 go?
I had intended to hide the name of the facility because my complaint is with how our Government runs Medicare, not with how medical facilities are forced to jump through legal hoops to avoid being regulated out of business. However, I see that I failed to hide the provider name since their logo is on the page.
My complaint is NOT with the medical provider.
Twice now the image of the letter that inspired this blog post (with personal details redacted) has become unavailable for display even though it was linked to a published document in a published folder. The first time it happened I assumed there was some sort of error, but the second time, I carefully verified the document had no restrictions to prevent it from being visible, and I checked and rechecked that the image was being displayed. Now I see it is gone again. This time, I'm uploading a separate copy and removing the link. If this document is being taken down, or if someone has complained that it somehow violates a copyright (which would be a fraudulent and illegal claim to make in this case) Please make me aware of your claim by leaving a comment rather than just registering a complaint. The law is very clear that those who post a fraudulent takedown notice must be prepared to demonstrate that the item in question actually contains copyrighted material and that it cannot be reasonably considered to be a fair use of the material. For example, claiming a logo or trademark's unauthorized display was a violation of trademark law requires demonstrating that the trademark was used in a way that represents an attempt to impersonate the owner of the trademark. Failing to evaluate whether the use of copyrighted material was fair use (such as being used to illustrate an editorial comment) constitutes a fraudulent abuse of the law and opens the claimant to the risk of being sued.
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