Imagine getting a billing statement, two years later, from the hospital for treating an emergency health problem for “$101,600 total charges.” Does your heart flutter? The next line sums, “insurance payments and adjustments $100,900.” Your amount due is the difference of $700. You breathe a sigh of relief and say, “Thank God for Medicare!”
You request an itemized accounting of the items charged and their billing. Research leads you to believe that similar hospital total services should result in Medicare coverage paying less than $15,000.
After making calls, you find that “adjustments” totaled “minus $88,000,” so Medicare actually paid $13,000, which is a bit less than your research calculated.
That “adjustments” amount should be a line item by itself in the accounting statement.
Better yet, quit putting exorbitant charges in the original billing! What purpose is served? Could it be that if you do not have insurance, you get these high charges and when you moan about it, you get a 50 percent discount (still overpaying), as I have seen in my research, and you feel better?
Even better, go to better health habits and avoid the medical business as much as possible! Especially go to healthy nutrition as championed by Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Colin Campbell, and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, to name a few. These experts have been guiding us truthfully over the past 40 years!
This article appears in Mar 9-16, 2017.
