Jeanne Pinder
Headscratchers: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois refer their insured people to us to save money on health care. In a piece titled “Be the 1 in 5 who’s saving money,” the piece posted on these two sites explains how to save — by using, among other tools, […]
Jeanne Pinder
“In this report, we analyze transparency data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to examine claims denials and appeals among issuers offering individual market coverage on healthcare.gov from 2015-2017,” Karen Pollitz, Cynthia Cox and Rachel Fehr write for the Kaiser Family Foundation, in a startling analysis of federal data that reveals […]
Jeanne Pinder
By ERIN BRICKER (Editor’s note: Erin Bricker reached out to us via our interactive software to talk about health costs, and we struck up a conversation. I asked her to write about her experiences, and she agreed, in the hope that someone else would benefit from her knowledge.) In the last 20 years or so, […]
Jeanne Pinder
A friend writes: Re shopping for procedure costs, I have learned that one the hard way. I have a torn rotator cuff, which I went to Hospital for Special Surgery to have repaired. The surgeon insisted that, prior to surgery, he required that I get an “experimental” shot into my shoulder. He explained they take […]
Jeanne Pinder
By Morgan Gleason I am thinking that we might really need to just burn the healthcare system to the ground and completely start over. Although I am pretty experienced with healthcare, the financial piece is one that I haven’t really been as involved in since I am still on my parents’ insurance and they pay […]
Jeanne Pinder
“The modern era of medicine began in the 1960s. Health care coverage expanded with the passage of Medicare and Medicaid and the increasing availability of employee-based health insurance. Scientific and clinical advances began to occur at a far more rapid pace. Physicians became more specialized and began to focus on acute care dominated by cardiovascular […]
Jeanne Pinder
If you’re interested in health care, you must read Wendell Potter over at Tarbell.org. Potter is a former health care industry public relations executive; he left the industry and has started Tarbell.org, an investigative news site. Here’s one example of Wendell’s work: “How corporate health interests, nervous about their profits, are trying to scare you.” […]
Jeanne Pinder
A friend writes: Here is my situation. I have a high deductible health plan with Cigna that doesn’t pick up until I meet the deductible. That deductible in any year is $3,000. Right now none of my prenatal care is covered because I have not met my deductible. It’s all out of pocket but everything […]
Jeanne Pinder
We were featured on CBS Evening News on Jan. 21, 2019, talking about the new Medicare ruling that hospitals need to publicize their list prices starting Jan. 1, 2019. Here’s the CBS Evening News version, “Hospitals’ confusing online price lists give patients a headache,” with correspondent Anna Werner. Here’s the CBS This Morning version, “Are […]
Jeanne Pinder
Seema Verma, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, called on Twitter a few days ago to help her enforce a new rule on health price transparency. The rule requires hospitals to post their list prices online. It went into effect on Jan. 1, and there was scant information about how it […]
