Jeanne Pinder
2960129601
Wonk alert! Anyone who knows us knows how much we love price lists. Here’s a new one: It’s a site that gives access to a full workers comp price list for North Carolina, called the “N.C. Industrial Commission Medical Fee Schedule.” You can download a spreadsheet that has the prices for workers comp settlements for […]
Jeanne Pinder
2958429584
This share came in recently from an anonymous community member — for an ultrasound of the head and neck, medical billing code 76536, with a charge of $146.91 at Oaks Radiology in Phoenixville, Pa., The comment: “Paoli Hospital quoted about $1000 without insurance, 40% discount if you pay cash up front, $221.77 with [Independence Blue […]
Jeanne Pinder
2956729567
“The whole point of health insurance is protection from financial ruin in case of catastrophic, costly health problems,” Margot Sanger-Katz writes over at The New York Times. “But a recent survey of people facing such problems shows that it often fails in that basic function. The survey, of some of the country’s most seriously ill […]
Jeanne Pinder
2949029490
“A pharma executive has defended his decision to raise the price of an antibiotic mixture to more than $2,000 a bottle, arguing there was a ‘moral requirement to sell the product at the highest price,’” David Crow writes over at The Financial Times. “Last month, Nostrum Laboratories, a small Missouri-based drugmaker, more than quadrupled the […]
Jeanne Pinder
2947829478
“The latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds recent political events weighing heavy on the minds of voters when it comes to the 2018 midterm elections,” Bryan Wu, Cailey Muñana, and Mollyann Brodie write over at KFF.org. (The chart here shows who the respondents feel is to blame for high health costs.) “Three in ten voters […]
Jeanne Pinder
2946229462
“No, I’m not ovary-acting,” Leena Kulkarni writes over at Huffpost. “After an abnormal Pap smear recently, I found myself in need of a colposcopy ― a fairly routine procedure in which doctors use binoculars to search for abnormal cells in the cervix. After visually inspecting my goods, my OBGYN quelled my fears. Everything looked […]
Jeanne Pinder
2945829458
A community member shared with us the bare bones of a story: Two MRI bills at an imaging center in Scarborough, Maine, resulted in a bill for $2,380. “Doctor advised ‘spinal MRI’, no indication given that procedure would be expensive or be billed separately for thoracic and lumbar regions of the spine,” wrote the community […]
Jeanne Pinder
2941829418
“A recent report by Pennsylvania’s health care industry watchdog shows that most of the hospitals frequented by Lancaster County residents take in significantly more money than industry experts say is necessary to maintain stable operations,” The Lancaster Online editorial board wrote recently. “As staff writer Heather Stauffer reported in the Money section of the July […]
Jeanne Pinder
2943029430
How much does a hysterectomy cost? Depends on the kind of hysterectomy, of course, and where it takes place. A community member sent in the bill here from a procedure in a Pasadena hospital. Total charges weere $125,585.84, insurance company writedown of $107,674.84. The insurer paid $13,607.52, and the patient was responsible for $4,303.48. Here’s […]
Jeanne Pinder
2942329423
Is it a payment or an adjustment? Wait, it’s both! This bill for a colonoscopy clearly identifies the sum of $722.13 as both a payment and an adjustment. The vertical “payments” column is quite clear. Just as clearly, there was no payment at all, judging from the horizontal selection. We have seen a lot of insurance […]
