Jeanne Pinder
A community member shared several prices for kidney stone treatment via our site. I asked him what was up, and we started a conversation. This is what resulted. Let’s call him Michael from the Louisville, Ky., area. Before we start, though, I want to note that a system requiring someone like Michael to go to […]
Jeanne Pinder
We have heard a lot of questions and a lot of anguish lately about facility fees, which are charged by hospitals and other institutions for the use of their, well, facilities. Here’s a roundup of what we know about this topic. What is a facility fee? Hospitals often charge a facility fee on top of […]
Jeanne Pinder
“When Nancy DuBois began experiencing shoulder pain early last year, she worried she might need rotator cuff surgery. She saw a specialist at Tulane Institute of Sports Medicine, near the Tulane football stadium, who diagnosed her instead with a frozen shoulder, a common condition caused by injury or over-use. The visit, including an x-ray and […]
Jeanne Pinder
Summary: “Hospital-based clinics tack on ‘facility fee’ charges, which are separate from the bill for the doctors’ services, for the use of the room in which the patient was seen,” Niran Al-Agba writes over at The Health Care Blog. “One hospital administrator told me to think of it as ‘room rental.’ Facility fees bring in […]
Jeanne Pinder
High emergency-room bill? Blame that mysterious facility fee. Well, now the Government is trying to hold down fees by imposing a flat rate, a change that will apply only to Medicare patients. “Federal officials for more than a decade have let hospitals decide on their own how much to charge Medicare for certain emergency room […]
