HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

hospital rip off

Support Forums
>
Chronic Pain
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 6/19/2014 5:08 PM (GMT 0)
My little grandson smashed his finger in the heavy pool gate latch while mom was at work. (There's more to the latching system he can't do, but he was showing how he could lift the old part) I took him to the hospital where his mother met us. He was seen by some great nurses, but all he saw for diagnosis was a NP, no doctor. He got an x-ray showing a very smashed bone, including the growth plate.

Then he was referred to the children's hospital to see a pediatric specialist. On going there he again was seen only by another NP and referred to a doctor's office. I don't know how long he will have to wait to be seen.

This particular system is ripping off the patients! And it's not the first time or even the second time that one of these kids has had to have multiple visits to get treated for serious conditions (once it was a broken femur which was not caught on multiple visits until it had healed).

Part of the problem is there's nowhere else to go that treats children. To add insult to injury the family gets multiple bills for not getting treated. (The finger was wrapped nicely.)
Posted 6/19/2014 7:11 PM (GMT 0)
I agree whole heartedly with what your saying. Years ago we had to schedule appointments at the children's hospital to get our daughter, her yearly echocardiogram(she has a heart condition) The hospital always sent us a pre approval letter stating the charges would be between 800 to 1,600 for the echo cardiogram and we always ended up being billed the full $1,600 for a 15 minute echocardiogram which to me was a total rip off.
I still feel that hospital owes us monies back for charging us the max cost of a echo. We had a very hard time paying for this so a few years we did skipped getting the echo done because of this large sum.

Oh and wait it gets better, one time our daughter had an echocardiogram done in an office procedure and then the doctor read it right after it was done and we later got billed for a hospital charge for this, we never got informed at all during this visit that there would be any hospital charges, so we filed a compliant as insurance fraud as well as they sent it into the insurance as a hospital bill which came directly from the doctor office, clearly you do have to pay attention.

Doctors say they ain't in it for money, yeah right...I'll sell ya a bridge....
Posted 6/19/2014 8:19 PM (GMT 0)
Lol Char! I have to tell this one since it clearly floored so many especially the patient. We had a lady that was post-op something don't really recall, but she wouldn't drink the hospital water and would only drink distilled and I dont recall if it was something about the chlorine or whatever. Anyway they were giving her the plastic liter bottles we use for the machines, nebulizers, O2 tents, etc and she was pouring it over ice in her pitcher at bedside. She was inpatient about a week. She comes by the floor to say hi about a month later and said she was there trying to get a billing matter fixed and the hospital had charged her insurance company $480 for sterile water??!! I knew as soon as she said it what had happened. Everytime we got water out of the supply room for her she was getting billed for $41 a bottle, yes for a liter of sterile water! Thats been 25 years ago and I would sure hate to see what they charge today for a bottle. I know I got charged $13 for 2 excederin the last time I was inpatient so is it any wonder insurance is so high? Thats the most ridiculous mark up on things I've ever seen. The water was $2-3 a bottle and they're charging $40?
Posted 6/20/2014 4:51 PM (GMT 0)
More to the story -

So the parents finally got an appointment with a specialist through the hospital for next Friday. I said by that time the bone would be partly healed and to call my hand specialist. He saw the child as soon as they could get there and is scheduled for surgery soon.

It was a total waste of time and money to go to the children's hospital. When you're told you will see a specialist you should not be seeing a nurse. I hope the parents complain bitterly and loudly.
Posted 6/20/2014 5:51 PM (GMT 0)
It's understandable to see a nurse for common colds, minor ear infection, common childhood maladies but for Ortho, Neuro,any specialist really a Dr should be available.

The thing that irritates me with all the insurance, medicaid cut backs and NPs and PAs staffing so many offices, urgent care and even ERs is I'm paying to see someone that has the same medical education and degrees as me with generally a lot less years experience under the belt. Does that make any sense whatsoever?

Spending all that time going to this NP and that NP before getting the right care could be deadly in some instances.
Posted 6/20/2014 9:44 PM (GMT 0)
Vickie, that's exactly it.
Posted 6/20/2014 9:56 PM (GMT 0)
I understand and agree with your "rant" about today's medical system. Seeing one NP or PA at any given time for any given crisis is more than enough.

The problem though boils down to how much the specialists charge and how often patients insist on seeing the specialist for what turns out to be something minor. Between those two occurrences it ends up screwing the rest of us who truly need to see a doctor.

Then you have the 3rd piece of this puzzle and that is today's doctors are not taught how to deal with many of these problems anymore. They are told to make a preliminary diagnosis and ship the patient off to a specialist ASAP.

Odds are that even 20-25 years ago that finger/hand would have been taken care of in the ER or with a 2 day stay in a hospital.
Posted 6/21/2014 5:59 PM (GMT 0)
I broke my foot about 14 years ago. Even then they just wrapped it up in a soft cast and I didn't get the bones set for THREE days! I didn't even see the ortho doc, just his PA when they put the cast on. It healed crooked.
Posted 6/21/2014 11:53 PM (GMT 0)
Jim,

When you get old enough for Medicare you will get payment notices showing what the doctor charged, how much less was allowed and how little the insurance paid. It's not the doctors, it's the administrators of insurances, hospitals and Medicare/Medicaid who say what we pay, and the doctor gets a pittance for the work he does.

Then, on top, we are only "entitled" I guess, to see the NP or PA. That's OK for the first visit, but when you are referred to a specialty hospital to see a specialist and still don't see one, it's gone too far. That second visit was just a money grab, and no doctor was even a part of it.

ER docs are mostly trained in their field now that there are residencies for it as a specialty. You are right about what they are sometimes told though.

1 day - That was terrible!

This all makes the case for adding another expense for a patient advocate. But is an advocate under the thumb of the hospital or insurance administration?
Posted 6/22/2014 6:20 AM (GMT 0)
I am well aware of how little doctors and hospitals are reimbursed by medicare and medicaid. I am also aware of the fact that many times while you end up seeing a Pa or NP the "bill" will actually either show where you seen the doctor or the insurance company is billed at the same rate as if you seen the doctor.
Posted 6/22/2014 7:56 AM (GMT 0)
Sharing here,...(don't mean to hijack, just sympathize)

One of the (several) times I broke my foot,....landed in the ER and only got to see a PA who told me....(get this one), that I just sprained my ankle. Wrapped it up in an ACE bandage and sent me on my way.

If it wasn't that by the time I was a little more coherent and knew better and pursued it, I'd have never have known.

This was only a few years ago, too! This is truly getting ridiculous, the state of medical care.








M.
Posted 6/23/2014 1:29 AM (GMT 0)
Jim, I had no idea. That shouldn't be allowed. I've never seen a NP of PA except for when they make rounds on weekends in the hospital.

Merrida, yes, it's getting ridiculous. That's why I posted. I was hoping for these comments.

There's nothing wrong with seeing these practitioners when they are withing their range of expertise. They are often able to take more time, and they are usually very caring. Even with doctors, sometimes one needs to get a second opinion.

Best wishes, all.
Posted 6/23/2014 2:35 PM (GMT 0)
Very often it is an Us versus Them situation. Frankly I am so sick of the medical people...feel like they don't know what they are doing and could not care less.

I HATE IT WHEN THEY TELL ME about THEIR MEDICAL PROBLEMS. I GUESS THEY THINK I LOOK LIKE THEIR GRANDMOTHER!

Well keep smiling gang and I do feel sorry for the little ones and how they must suffer so much under our lousy medical system.

Peace
Posted 6/23/2014 4:32 PM (GMT 0)
Two of my last appointments, both times I got asked where's your husband? I just wanted to say "Why, is it his appointment or mine?" If they wanted to talk to him then I should be able to charge for my time...

It is a bad system, the United States of Health Care, is gone and replaced by Hello/Goodbye. Nothing in between...

My RA doctor wants me to be scheduled every two months, I'm lucky to get an appointment every 4th month...One year I made an appointment 6 months out and it got cancelled two day before the appointment only to have to wait another 2 months...
Posted 6/25/2014 2:05 PM (GMT 0)
Yes, I have had so many bad experiences and here is just one. Another horror story, I told them I was allergic to drugs. I went to a meeting where I spoke to the PA about my problem of being allergic to drugs.

After the surgery (I had total knee replacement), a nurse came by and asked me if I ever had morphine. ( They make you walk the next day after the replacement.) I told her I was allergic to codeine. She asked again if I ever had morphine and I said no … put a shunt in my arm and gave me the drug.

Next thing I knew I was on oxygen. Sent to a nasty place where they had a bed for physical therapy and oxygen combined. IT WAS HORRIBLE.

Glad and grateful we have a place to write about our situation.
Posted 7/23/2014 3:48 PM (GMT 0)
Want to bring this up again...doctors are making a fortune and not accountable for the mess. SAD situation.
Posted 7/23/2014 5:59 PM (GMT 0)

nvrthesame98 said...
"Everytime we got water out of the supply room for her she was getting billed for $41 a bottle, yes for a liter of sterile water! Thats been 25 years ago and I would sure hate to see what they charge today for a bottle.

Reminds me of my cousin who requested itemized bills from his hospital when his son was born.
Turns out he was circumcised three times !
He should become the next Seinfeld when he gets older.
Posted 7/24/2014 11:22 PM (GMT 0)
Later this year, there will be online data showing what drs & hospitals are paid by Medicare. It will have what they are paid for certain procedures also and how many of them are done.
Posted 7/25/2014 12:18 AM (GMT 0)

Joan M said...
Yes, I have had so many bad experiences and here is just one. Another horror story, I told them I was allergic to drugs. I went to a meeting where I spoke to the PA about my problem of being allergic to drugs.

After the surgery (I had total knee replacement), a nurse came by and asked me if I ever had morphine. ( They make you walk the next day after the replacement.) I told her I was allergic to codeine. She asked again if I ever had morphine and I said no … put a shunt in my arm and gave me the drug.

Next thing I knew I was on oxygen. Sent to a nasty place where they had a bed for physical therapy and oxygen combined. IT WAS HORRIBLE.

Glad and grateful we have a place to write about our situation.

This codeine-morphine nightmare happened to one of my best friends recently! With her it was reversed, she told her surgeon/nurses repeatedly that she was allergic to morphine but they still gave her a codeine script for post-op pain. And when her husband asked the pharmacy if that was really okay, even the pharmacist said the codeine was fine. It's disgraceful that medical professionals don't understand something as basic as the fact that codeine metabolizes into morphine
Posted 8/3/2014 5:14 PM (GMT 0)
It's the age of incompetence. HORRIBLE and I am very tired of it. If my work had been like theirs is...I would have been shown the door.
Posted 8/4/2014 4:52 AM (GMT 0)
at our hospital, if you ask to see a MD rather than a LNP, they make you wait HOURS longer and are not nice when the MD does come in. I had horrible abdominal pain last week went to ER. They said my labs were fine, gave me ibuprofen and sent me home. I asked to see the MD and requested a CT(which is my right) and he refused. Two days later I passed a huge kidney stone. When I saw my PCP he looked at my labs showed Blook in my urine they didn't tell me about, by PCP tried to order a CT at the same hospital and they told him "no, she doesn't need it"!!
I don't get it, really.
Posted 8/4/2014 5:00 AM (GMT 0)
AngMichelle, are you on Medicaid ? If you are or not, it is your insurance comany that said that you didn't need the CT, not the hospital, if your dr did order it. CT's need prior authorization before they will do them.

Post Edited (Mercy&Grace) : 8/3/2014 11:03:04 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 8/8/2014 9:58 AM (GMT 0)
yepp medicaid.
Posted 8/8/2014 2:47 PM (GMT 0)
The reason the dr refused to order the CT was because he knew medically it was nt indicated so Medicaid wouldn't pay for it. There needed to be other symptoms besides the pain alone. The symptoms, patients age & history will determine the diagnosis the dr writes on the orders and that will determne if Medicaid will pay for it or not.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply