Medical bills prompt more than 60 perecent of U.S. bankruptcies

J Roberts

 

Another interesting article about the increase in bankruptcies as a result of medical bills.

HEALTH

By Theresa Tamkins

This year, an estimated 1.5 million Americans will declare bankruptcy. Many people may chalk up that misfortune to overspending or a lavish lifestyle, but a new study suggests that more than 60 percent of people who go bankrupt are actually capsized by medical bills.

Expert: “Medical bills … are an issue that can very easily and in pretty short order overwhelm a lot families.”

Bankruptcies due to medical bills increased by nearly 50 percent in a six-year period, from 46 percent in 2001 to 62 percent in 2007, and most of those who filed for bankruptcy were middle-class, well-educated homeowners, according to a report that will be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

“Unless you’re a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, you’re one illness away from financial ruin in this country,” says lead author Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., of the Harvard Medical School, in Cambridge, Mass. “If an illness is long enough and expensive enough, private insurance offers very little protection against medical bankruptcy, and that’s the major finding in our study.”

Woolhandler and her colleagues surveyed a random sample of 2,314 people who filed for bankruptcy in early 2007, looked at their court records, and then interviewed more than 1,000 of them.

They concluded that 62.1 percent of the bankruptcies were medically related because the individuals either had more than $5,000 (or 10 percent of their pretax income) in medical bills, mortgaged their home to pay for medical bills, or lost significant income due to an illness. On average, medically bankrupt families had $17,943 in out-of-pocket expenses, including $26,971 for those who lacked insurance and $17,749 who had insurance at some point.

Overall, three-quarters of the people with a medically-related bankruptcy had health insurance, they say.

“That was actually the predominant problem in patients in our study — 78 percent of them had health insurance, but many of them were bankrupted anyway because there were gaps in their coverage like co-payments and deductibles and uncovered services,” says Woolhandler. “Other people had private insurance but got so sick that they lost their job and lost their insurance.”

However, Peter Cunningham, Ph.D., a senior fellow at the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan policy research organization in Washington, D.C., isn’t completely convinced. He says it’s often hard to tell in which cases medical bills add to the bleak financial picture without being directly responsible for the bankruptcies.

“I’m not sure that it is correct to say that medical problems were the direct cause of all of these bankruptcies,” he says. “In most of these cases, it’s going to be medical expenses and other things, other debt that is accumulating.”

Either way, he agrees that medical bills are an increasing problem for many people.

“I think medical bills are something that a lot of families are having a lot of difficulty with and whether it’s the direct cause of bankruptcy or whether it helps to push them over the edge because they already were in a precarious financial situation, it’s a big concern and hopefully that’s what medical reform will try to address,” he says.

The study may overestimate the number of bankruptcies caused by medical bills yet underestimate the financial burden of health care on American families, because most people struggle along but don’t end up declaring bankruptcy, according to Cunningham.

“Bankruptcy is the most extreme or final step for people who are having problems paying medical bills,” he says. “Medical bills and medical costs are an issue that can very easily and in pretty short order overwhelm a lot families who are on otherwise solid financial ground, including those with private insurance.”

His group’s research found that medical bills unduly stress 1 in 5 families.

Either way, the high cost of health care is a problem that’s probably getting worse for people in the United States, particularly since the economic picture became grimmer after the study was conducted.

“The recession didn’t happen until a year after our study,” says Woolhandler. “We’re quite sure that the problem of bankruptcy overall is worse, the numbers have been soaring, and the number this year is expected to be higher than it was before Congress tightened bankruptcy eligibility in 2005.”

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Health Groups Give Obama Details on Cost-Cutting Measures

J Roberts

 An interesting letter to President Obama by industry trade groups proposing to reduce cost and achieve greater efficacy within the healthcare system. It is very high level and simply points out categories of spend that need to be attacked. The question remains – Can a fragmented group of doctors, hospitals, insurers and pharmacuetical associations come together to self impose cross entity discipline? The proof will be in the pudding.

Health Care Financial Management Association

 

In a letter to President Obama today, six healthcare groups outlined specific initiatives they said would fulfill the pledge they made a month ago to help “achieve your Administration’s goal of decreasing by 1.5 percentage points the annual health care spending growth rate—saving $2 trillion or more.” The six organizations—the American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, Advanced Medical Technology Association, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and Service Employees International Union—said that their proposed system-wide cost reductions, which “will require collaboration and good public policy,” have the potential to save $150 to $180 billion on utilization of care; $350 to $850 billion on chronic care; and $500 to $700 billion on administrative simplification and cost of doing business.

Each group presented its own initiatives to contribute to the overall cost savings. The American Hospital Association said it was committed to designing and implementing a national “Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence” campaign, which would focus on hospital performance improvements that “have meaningful quality improvement and associated cost savings.” Immediate cost savings could be achieved, according to the AHA, by promulgating best practices that would reduce surgical infections and complications, central line-associated blood stream infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, adverse drug events, and pressure ulcers. The AHA also listed longer-term goals that hospitals would work towards, including “improving care coordination, implementing health information technology, promoting efficiency resource utilization, preventing patient falls, improving perinatal care, and reducing supply costs.”

The AHA said it would work with “other stakeholders to achieve a more efficient, effective and coordinated health care system. The future vision of such as system includes simplified and standardized public and commercial insurance processing systems, reducing the need to practice defensive medicine and enhancing the ability of practitioners and providers to integrate clinically to improve quality of care.”

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Family Practitioner’s Say Recession Taking a Big Toll on Patients

J Roberts

Healthcare Financial Management Association On-line News

Even physicians are worried about the current recession and the impact it is having on patients ability to pay for healthcare. The below article details the outcomes of a recent survey by the American Academy of Family Physicians over this very issue. To read the survey go to the American Academy of Family Physicians at www.aafp.org and click on the News and Publication section.

Nearly 90 percent of family physicians say that their patients are worried about being able to pay for their health care, according to a new survey of 505 physicians by the American Academy of Family Physicians. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said appointment cancellations have increased and 54 percent reported seeing fewer total patients. But 73 percent said they had seen an increase in uninsured patients visiting their offices and 64 percent reported a decrease in the number of insured patients. In addition, 60 percent said that their patients are forgoing preventive care, which has led to health problems. And nearly 90 percent of respondents have noted a significant increase in patients with major stress symptoms since the beginning of the recession. Two-thirds of the family physicians who responded said they were taking specific actions, such as discounting their fees, increasing charity care, providing free screenings, and moving patients to generic prescriptions, to help their patients manage health care.

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Rating Health Care Online

J Roberts

This article provides insight into the many different types of health care resources and websites available to consumers regarding pricing and quality.

 

Bankrate.com

If you’re like most people, you’re taking more responsibility for and picking up more of the tab for your health care. A growing number of Web sites can assist your efforts by showing how the price and quality of care offered by different providers measures up.

1. Insurer sites

Many health insurers have member sites, says Carlton Doty, vice president and research director with Forrester Research Inc. While their capabilities vary, most include educational content as well as information on average prices for different procedures. If you’re insured, you’ll want to start your research here because the information should be most relevant to your situation, Doty says.

Aetna Navigator, the member site of Aetna Inc., for instance, lets members in more than 30 states compare prices charged by different health care providers. For example, the overall cost of a colonoscopy at one surgery center ran $1,200 to $1,800. The same procedure at a nearby hospital was $2,240 to $2,800.

The figures are based on two years of claims data, from which any extreme outliers have been removed, says Wayne Gowdy, senior product manager with Aetna. The site also offers information on the number of procedures performed at a hospital or clinic over a time period, as well as quality ratings. Aetna also offers a tool that lets members compare drug prices.

2. Government Web sites

A number of states, along with the federal government, host Web sites that provide price and/or quality information. For example, Wisconsin PricePoint lets residents of America’s Dairyland search more than 100 procedures at different hospitals, urgent care centers and emergency rooms. Use of the site is free.

For each facility and procedure, the site lists the range of prices charged, as well as the number of procedures completed, and the average and median length of stay. The figures are based on data the hospitals are required to provide to the government, says Joe Kachelski, PricePoint’s vice president. While he and his staff double-check numbers that look out of whack, they don’t eliminate outliers.

Again, the price differences can be significant. Case in point: Treating an ear infection at one urgent care center runs about $111. It’s $450 at the emergency room down the street.

3. Independent Web sites

A number of companies also operate sites. Healthgrades.com, for instance, assigns quality ratings of one, three or five stars to around 5,000 hospitals across the U.S., using data the hospitals submit to the federal or state governments.

To calculate the ratings, Healthgrades’ team adjusts the information to account for differences in patient population, says vice president Sarah Loughran. For example, one hospital may serve a largely elderly population, and age usually affects patient outcomes.

Then, Loughran and her staff will look at data on survival and complication rates, among other factors. Based on this, they’ll run the numbers to determine whether a particular hospital, given its patient population, performed as expected (three stars); better than expected (five stars); or worse than expected (one star). Most information is free. The Web site also provides information on physicians and nursing homes.


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Enlisting Help for a Lower Bill

J Roberts

A great article from The New York Times Online that talks about the many challenges people face when sick, underinsured or have no insurance.  Here is a list of steps and helpful points to better manage the medical bills.

 The New York Times

MEDICAL bills have a way of piling up — especially when you’re sick or underinsured. Just ask Kirk Kupka, 48, and his wife, Susie, 53.

Mr. Kupka has multiple sclerosis. The Kupkas, who live in Lindstrom, Minn., have an annual income of $45,000 — a combination of her salary as an office manager and his disability payments.

More than 20 percent of that income goes toward health care. Their annual insurance premiums total $5,400, and then there’s the $4,000 Mr. Kupka spends on drugs, doctor’s visits and lab fees before he fulfills his policy’s deductible.

In the three years since Mr. Kupka’s disability forced him to stop working as a mental health therapist, he has accumulated $12,000 in debt.

“It’s frustrating,” he says. “We earn too much to qualify for state and county assistance, but not enough to stay ahead of the bills. I’ve thought maybe my wife and I should get divorced. But not only is it against our faith, it turns out it wouldn’t help.”

Medical debt can lead to drastic measures, forcing people to raid their 401(k)s, tap into home equity lines and, in some cases, declare bankruptcy. Surveys by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit health care research foundation, found that 41 percent of adults said they were struggling to pay their health care bills in 2007, up from 34 percent in 2005. That percentage is almost surely growing.

And as Mr. Kupka’s situation illustrates, it’s not just uninsured patients who rack up large bills. Nearly two-thirds of those with debt problems, according to Commonwealth, had health insurance.

But insurance covers less and less these days, as employers continue shifting more health care costs to their employees, and as consumers resort to lower-cost plans that come with high deductibles or less generous benefits.

“People who have been faithfully paying insurance premiums for years are coming in with medical bills they can’t pay,” said Gail Cunningham, a spokeswoman for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, an umbrella group for services that help consumers cope with debt.

But if you’re having trouble paying your medical bills, you’re not helpless, either. There are ways to reduce, or at least more effectively manage, medical debt.

CONFRONT, DON’T IGNORE Procrastinating only leads to trouble. If your bills are turned over to a collection agency, the debt goes on your credit report and will remain there for lenders, and even potential employers, to see. You may have difficulty getting a loan and, if you do get one, you’ll be charged higher rates. So take action — even if that doesn’t mean writing any checks right away.

Proceed to Step 2:

SCRUTINIZE YOUR BILLS Look over your outstanding bills and make sure the listed services actually square with the care you received. Errors are common. If terms or procedures confuse you, call the hospital’s or doctor’s billing department and ask for an explanation.

If your insurer denied one or more of your claims, resubmit the bills, advises Mark Rukavina, executive director of the Access Project (www.accessproject.org), a nonprofit group in Boston that helps consumers cope with medical debt.

“If that doesn’t work, file a formal grievance or appeal with the insurer,” Mr. Rukavina said. “Even it that fails, most states allow insured patients the right to an external review by a certified third party, often a state agency. And patients should exercise this right.”

HIRE AN EXPERT Try first to negotiate with your providers for a discount or an extended payment plan. Explain that you simply can’t pay your bills in full right now, and you need some leeway.

If this tactic doesn’t work, or you don’t have the time or energy to haggle, consider hiring a billing specialist — a professional trained to spot errors who speaks the language that medical providers understand and respond to.

Some billing experts charge only if they save you money. Others may ask for a retainer up front. Make sure you clarify the terms at the outset.

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Tallying the Cost to Bring Baby Home

Doug

Another informative article from the Wall Street Journal about the lack of pricing transparency and how difficult it is for consumers to get an estimate of charges, understand the cost, and their portion of the payment.

By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS

Bringing my newborn son home was a joy. Figuring out the hospital bill wasn’t.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles provided excellent care and thoughtful treatment during my uncomplicated traditional delivery in December. Then the invoices started coming. The hospital sent one for me, and another for my baby. The doctors billed separately. The total charge for three days: $36,625.

People lucky enough to have good health insurance, including me, don’t have to come up with such sums. Insurers typically pay a lower, negotiated price for hospital care, and patients pay a portion of that amount. Even people without insurance often get sharp discounts from list prices on their hospital bills.

Still, consumers have a big financial stake in the cost of care. People who get health insurance through their workplaces have been paying higher premiums in recent years, and more people have been enrolling in plans that include very high deductibles. A recent survey by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans found that two-thirds of employers are increasing, or considering an increase in, workers’ deductibles, co-insurance and co-payments.

It’s important for patients to get good information about what they have to pay and why. That’s not easy. Before my son was born, it was difficult to figure out what I was going to owe. And I struggled after the birth to learn whether the amounts I was told to pay were appropriate. I could have done a better job at calculating some of my costs. But often, information wasn’t available, or was hard to decipher.

My own health plan is a so-called PPO, or preferred-provider organization, which means I pay less when I use doctors and hospitals that have contracts with Aetna Inc., the insurer that administers my employer’s coverage. For hospital and surgery services from these providers, I am on the hook for 15% of Aetna’s negotiated price. I also have a $400 annual deductible. Fortunately, there is a $2,000 cap on how much I might have to spend out of pocket each year for my in-network care.

From the Wallet

    Having a Baby? How to Prepare for the Hospital Bill

My research started before my due date, with a call to Aetna. I asked the customer-service representative how much the birth would cost me, and she didn’t answer the question directly. She did confirm that Cedars-Sinai was in my network. Aetna’s Web site offered typical maternity costs for other Los Angeles-area hospitals, but there was no such listing for Cedars-Sinai.

The Aetna representative did say that I had $1,370 remaining before I reached my out-of-pocket maximum for the year. So I decided to set aside $1,370 toward maternity costs, and hoped that I’d have some of that left over for a crib.

It didn’t turn out that way. In fact, I owed a total of $2,118.90, a sum I arrived at only after adding figures from five separate documents. Why the difference? Along with dark hair and blue eyes, my son was born with his own $400 deductible. Also, the maximum annual out-of-pocket charge for the two of us was $4,000, double what mine alone had been. I should have re-read the fine print of my plan.

Before paying the bills, I wanted to double check them to make sure I’d actually received the services I was billed for. At my request, Cedars-Sinai sent itemized invoices, with 14 items listed for my baby and 34 items for me, not including doctors’ fees.

Those charges I could decipher seemed stunningly high. A “Tray, Anes Epidural” cost $530.29. (After inquiring, I learned this was the tray of sterile equipment used to give me an epidural anesthetic injection.) An “Anes-cat 1-basic Outlying Area” was billed at $2,152.55. (I was told this was the cost of the hospital’s resources related to the epidural.) These items were in addition to the separate anesthesiologist’s charge of $1,530 for giving the epidural. Even though the pain-killing epidural shot felt priceless during my 20 hours of labor, I was amazed that its total cost could run so high.

To decipher other items, I decided to check out consumer services that advise people about medical bills. Candy Butcher, chief executive of Medical Billing Advocates of America, wondered why the hospital listed a price of $2,382.92 for my recovery, when I hadn’t had a Caesarean section. It turned out the charge was for the 90 minutes I spent in the birthing room after my delivery. I recalled lying exhausted there while a kind nurse checked my vitals and cleaned me up. Important help, for sure, but was it really worth that much money?

(more…)

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Recession Will Cause More Health Cost Shifting

J Roberts

> Workforce Management

According to the below article more employers are looking to shift the cost of care to their employees in 2009.

The recession likely will boost group health care costs higher than employers anticipated, leading more organizations to shift more costs to employees and adopt lower-cost consumer-driven health plans, according to a survey released Thursday, April 30.

Employers surveyed by benefit consultant Mercer of New York now expect . That compares with a 6 percent average increase employers predicted in a 2008 Mercer survey. , according to the survey. In fact, 15 percent of the 428 responding employers said medical plan utilization has been higher than expected.

Mercer consultants said . More employees, fearful of being laid off, want to get medical tests and have health care services completed while they still have employer-based coverage, said Beth Umland, Mercers director of research for health and benefits in New York.

With costs going up at a time when many employers can least afford it, many intend to shift more costs to employees next year.

For example, 47 percent of respondents said they are likely to increase the percentage of premium employees pay in 2010.

In addition, 22 percent of employers say they are likely to add consumer-driven health care planseither a CDHP linked to a health savings account or a health reimbursement arrangementin 2010. This will be a boon to CDHPs, said Linda Havlin, Mercers global leader for research and knowledge management in Chicago.

Increased employer interest in CDHPs during a recession is not surprising, given that this type of plan costs much less than other health care plans, according to Mercer.

In 2008, Mercer found that HSA-based CDHPs cost an average of $6,027 per employee, compared with an average of $7,815 per employee for more traditional preferred provider organization plans.

The survey also found that more employers were in favor of broad health care reform legislation that would require employers to offer a health care plan or pay a fee to help fund coverage for the uninsured, and a requirement that all individuals be covered in a health care plan.

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For Some, More Costly Care Is Not by Choice

J Roberts

The following article reports that more people are being enrolled in high-deductible healthcare plans including those with sick children or family members that have a chronic illness. A recent study reveals that many people are faced with greater out-of-pocket costs as a result of in enrolling in a high-deductible health plan. If you or someone you know experience greater out-of-pocket costs as a result of a high-deductible or even a high coinsurance plan, Medical Cost Advocate may be able to assist.

U.S. News & World Report – Online

Many low-income American families with sick children are being enrolled in high-deductible health-care plans, a new study has found.

In 2007, about 10 percent of employers offered high-deductible plans, and about 14.8 million adults were enrolled in the plans. But as more families with sick children are enrolled in these plans, there are concerns that families facing high out-of-pocket costs might fail to get recommended care for their children, according to background information in a news release on the study from Children’s Hospital Boston.

About half of the people enrolled in high-deductible plans in 2007 did not have a choice of plans, according to a national survey that year.

In this study, researchers analyzed enrollment and claims data from Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in New England. They identified 839 families with children who initially had traditional HMO (health maintenance organization) plans through Harvard Pilgrim but whose employers switched them to a high-deductible health plan when Harvard Pilgrim began offering it. The researchers compared these families with 5,133 families whose employers stayed with the traditional plan.

About one-third of the families who were switched to a high-deductible plan had a child with a chronic condition, 13 percent lived in neighborhoods with high poverty, 36 percent had an above-average burden of illness, and 19 percent had incurred more than $7,000 a year in health-care costs, including out-of-pocket costs.

The study also found:

The study was published in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics. ‘The usual assumption is that high-deductible plans attract healthy and wealthy people, based on studies of people who chose those plans themselves,’ Dr. Alison Galbraith, of Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School and an author of the study, said in the news release. ‘Our population only had one plan offered to them, and we found that many of those who were switched to high-deductible plans had children with chronic conditions,’ Galbraith said. ‘There wasn’t a difference in the amount of chronic illness between the high-deductible and traditional families, but it was striking that there wasn’t less illness in the high deductible group. We need to be aware of this as these plans become more popular.’ The findings ‘show that families with children in high-deductible plans may comprise two distinct groups, one with higher-risk characteristics and one with lower-risk characteristics compared to traditional plans,’ she said. ‘This makes it important to monitor the effects of enrollment in high-deductible plans on children’s use of needed care, especially for vulnerable populations that are enrolled.’ More information

The U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has more about health insurance.

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No room for patience: Hospitals seeking payments up front

J Roberts

Hospitals and other healthcare facilities are beginning to require patients to partially pay up-front for service before receiving treatment.  If you are confronted with the requirement to pay upfront we recommend you pay as little as possible. Another option is to prospectively negotiate your full payment for needed services with the asistance of Medical Cost Advocate. To understand more, read the below article and then visit our homepage and click on the Prospective Negotiation tab.

 

Philadelphia Inquirer

There was a time, say two years ago, when a relatively well-off suburban hospital like Abington Memorial could afford to wait for patients to pay their parts of their bills.

Times have changed.

Like many hospitals around the country, Abington Memorial has started to ask patients for their money up front instead of sending bills later. The effort to reduce billing costs is paying off: Abington collected only 4 percent of co-payments and deductibles from patients while they were at the hospital during the first eight months of fiscal 2008. It got 20 percent during that time period this year. “People are always less likely to pay after the fact,” said Michael Walsh, Abington’s chief financial officer. The new strategy has “had a positive impact on our bottom line.”
Kenneth Braithwaite, who leads the Delaware Valley Healthcare Council, said hospitals worried less about bad debt – uncollectible patient bills – when it accounted for 1.5 to 3 percent of revenue. But some hospitals are telling him now that their bad debt is above 5 percent and even into the low double digits. Braithwaite sees increasing patient debt as an “emerging issue” and recently established a task force to assure that hospitals treat struggling patients with “understanding” and share “best practices” for collections. Employers have been transferring more of the cost of health care to their employees in the form of higher co-pays and deductibles. Layoffs are leaving more people without insurance at all. “As more and more of the burden has fallen to the patients, hospitals have become much more proactive about collecting that [the patient share] up front,” he said. Alan Zuckerman, president of Health Strategies & Solutions in Philadelphia, said hospitals have been increasing up-front collections for the last two or three years, with “more acceleration in the last six months.” Though it is routine to collect co-pays in many physicians’ offices, some hospitals still don’t ask for much cash. “There’s lots of places I go where they don’t collect much of anything,” he said. Abington started its push to increase collections at 2007’s end, said Betsy Seeber, director of patient accounts. It’s a two-pronged effort to make sure patients pay as much of their share as possible before leaving and to confirm that insurance information is up-to-date and accurate. “It takes a heck of a long time to collect from Aetna when really the insurance is Blue Cross,” Seeber said dryly. Even when the company is correct, getting a number wrong on the claims form can really slow down a payment. The hospital has rolled out its program in a wide variety of departments, including outpatient registration, radiology and emergency. No one is forced to pay up front, Seeber said, but even inpatients are asked to pay their parts of the bills before they go home. Walsh said he’s hearing about more “push-back” from patients as their share has risen and fears about the economy have grown more intense. It’s not unusual for patients to have a co-payment of $1,000 to $1,200 after several days in the hospital, he said. “Each year, we’ve seen the level of co-payments increase,” he said. “The economy being in the position it’s in, people are just scared.” Seeber said some staff members were initially uncomfortable asking patients for money. She encourages them to think of it as a chance to explain insurance benefits to patients and help them pay conveniently.
From July through February, Abington collected $2 million from patients up front, a big jump from $303,518 during those months in fiscal 2008.

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Medical Advocates Save Money on Medical Bills

admin

The error rate in medical bills is astoundingly high. Fully 8 out of 10 medical bills contain errors of various kinds. At Medical Cost Advocate we believe there is no better way to reduce your medical costs than to have a professional review your medical bill and then negotiate the final reviewed amount as well. We provide these services to all our negotiation customers. The below story appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America this morning, April 7th. You will find a description of some of the errors we typically encounter when reviewing your medical bills.

 

Fighting Mistakes in Muddled Medical Bills

Advocates Can Help Find Typical Medical Billing Errors

ABC News

 

Expensive mistakes on medical bills are hard for most of us to detect, because the bills are written in a mysterious language that we don’t speak.

 

But eight out of 10 medical bills have mistakes on them, according to Medical Billing Advocates of America.

 

What if you could hire somebody to translate your bills and then do battle for you?

 

Turns out, you can. And it might not even cost you anything.

 

Finding the Mistakes and Fighting Back

Artist Cynthia Kulp thought being diagnosed with breast cancer was the worst thing that could happen to her. But, then, the hospital where she received her breast cancer treatment overcharged her.

 

“To have to fight a hospital going through cancer treatment, overcharging me, they have to be the lowest of the low,” Kulp said.

 

Before her lumpectomy, she said, the hospital told her the operation would cost $5,000. Instead, she got a bill for $12,700, right in the middle of her course of chemotherapy.

 

“You can barely function, you can barely get out of bed,” she said. “How can you fight hospitals?”

 

So she hired Holly Wallack, a medical billing advocate, to help. Wallack found all kinds of errors on Kulp’s bill, such as:

 

 Mismatches. These are drugs that appeared on the medical bill, even though they weren’t listed in the medical records.

 

 Double charges.The hospital charged Kulp for two “first” hours in the recovery room. So Wallack asked, “How many ‘first’ hours do you get? Last I heard, there was only one, then he was very happy to take that charge off.”

 

 Inflated charges. The hospital billed $192 for a postoperative support bra that Wallack found on the Internet for $19 — a tenth of the cost.

 

“That was one morning in one operating room in one hospital in one little town in the country,” she said. “If you extrapolate that out to what’s going on every day, it’s mind boggling.”

  (more…)

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