Only in America would there be an article about the incomprehensible cost of health care but that’s the way our non-system works. Bill for everything you can, then if a person or insurer questions the bill, negotiate. We even have a new category of worker, a “medical billing advocate.”
Ask Jean Poole, a medical billing advocate, about her work helping people navigate the bewildering world of medical bills and insurance claims, and the stories pour out. There’s the client who was billed almost $11,000 for an 11-minute hand surgery. The cancer patient who was charged $9,550.40 for a round of chemotherapy he never received.
Read the article for details.
Medicynical Note: Our non-system of care is designed to be opaque when it comes to cost and maximize revenue rather than care. That’s why we spend more and get less….45-50 million uninsured at any given time. That’s why we encounter the sad fund raisers for families, often young, who encounter catastrophic illness but have no or inadequate insurance and no savings to speak of.
Medicynic 