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A nessage to bruja, I am not trying to get in a pissing match with you. I have literally walked in thousands of patient shoes that had worst problems then you could every think of. I could spend 15 minutes talking to you and solve almost every one of your complaints. You did have an aggressive hospital, but that does not mean they were out to get you or only wanted your money. If you owned a garage and spent $2,000 fixing a car, you would not even release the car without payment of the bill. I have seen $500,000 bills that we knew we would never collect. The better hospitals will end up writing off 40% of their revenues - the worst hospital I ever worked at we wrote off 75% and only received 25 cents for every dollar billed. Try to keep a business afloat with those numbers. I did tell them that their charges were to high, but they were in line with other hospitals in the area. I am not sure of the current laws as I have not worked in a hospital since 2000. If an employer offers more than one health insurance plans than one of the plans has to be an HMO. Since you work for the county or city, I am sure you have a choice of health care insurance plans. One is probably an HMO - HMO do require you to use their doc, their hospitals, and must be referred by your primary care doc to see a specialist. Your deductidles are very high so you may have chosen a cheaper plan that pays less and will cost you less. An HMO may cost you a higher premimums, but the copays will be around $25 a visit. You can even get a free yearly physical which you might want to consider. You should have an open enrollment period at least once a year where you can select a different plan. Take a closer look at your health insurance plans. You may have a higher monthly cost, but would save you thousands when you need to use a hospital Next you need to call the billing office at several hospitals. Find out which ones are willing to offer you payment plans for your deductible. Some are charging interest. You might want to use a credit card to pay off the balance - that will cost you interest, but will get the hospital off your back. We use to accept $50 to $100 a month payments for a $2,000 bill and we never charged interest. In order to keep our AR days down, we did write off balances after 90 days. These were always reserved at 100%- if we could not collect - we had already taken the hit on our bad debts. Our auditors and medicare auditors always reviewed our bad debts write offs. I will relate a story that always makes me cry. We had a gentleman that lost his wife to cancer, lost his a few months later in a car accident, his had aids a few months later - ended up with a $55,000 hospital total. My A/R ladies had him sign an agreement to pay $50 a month. He could never pay off that at $50 a month - would not live long enough. One of the girls came to me and ask me if there was something that I could do to help - I told her to write the whole balance off. The next month went he came in to pay his $50 payment, the girl told him he owed us nothing - he immediatedly starte crying and ask to talk to the person that had done that - when he came in to see me with tears streaming down his face, I immediately started to cry harder than he did. He could not believe that anyone would ever help him. He kept telling me he would continue to make the $50 payment. I told him the $50 would not break or make the hospital, but I was sure he could use the money. He said he would pay more when he got some of his other bills paid. I only asked him to not tell his family or friends that the hospital had wrote off his bill and we both laugh for many minutes. He came to see me every month and at holidays - he was still amazed that I would do that for him. Each month, I sat down with my A/R folks and I reviewed every write off. The girls knew if they had a difficult case they could ask me if I could help. Always agreed to write off the bills I am sorry that you and Mac went trough a difficult time. There are many ways to have saved money. If I did not have my military retirement, I would be in an advantage plan - one with most likely the highest monthly premium or at least one that covered almost everything. Many advantage plans have no copay or low copays- will cover Part A and B deductibles and even prescriptions. I know there are several nice plans without additional monthly payments - advantage plans are competing with medicare for your insurance - they have to give you more plan coverage or lower premiums than medicare - you would never pay for a plan that costs more and pays out less. I could have saved you and Mac many dollars and maybe have helped to make his final days a little easier. You just have to spend some time and some knowledge of where to look. I do know what I am talking about and have helped many families through there times of need and have walked in their shoes and tried to make sure the hospital would still be open for other patients that needed our service.. I probably get more upset than you did when people try to tell me I do not know what I am talking about when it comes to healthcare. I lived it every day for 28 years. I always enjoyed Mac and his cave stories. I know he truly loved you and was very grateful to have you in his life. I am glad that you were there to help him when he needed you most. And I can fix Sarah medicare problems |
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9/3/2012 3:09 pm |
lol @ the laying hens. Teddy-ess and hairee, We need (An update on the situation here.) ROTFLMFAO
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9/3/2012 6:33 pm |
It's obvious, tranq, that you don't know what's in obamacare or you wouldn't have made your last post. It is nothing like tri-care. There is only one thing standing between nobama and Marxist tyranny: We, the People!!
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Rusty: Your story is nothing but a nice story. I have only one health plan available to me. PPO. I can choose my doctors. My copays for basic services for doctor visits are not terribly bad but when you start getting into specialists it gets quite expensive. You could have not done a damn thing for Mac. Every avenue I researched ended up with the same results. So don't tell me you understand my situation!! I have done everything by the book. I have done my research. The questions you've presented are valid questions but most hospitals refuse to work with a person. They will discount debt to insurance companies but not to a family unless you are destitute. I've never said anything about Obamacare, Romney care, etc. What this country deserves is some healthcare system that will be fair. Is affordable healthcare to much to ask? I agree with Roselady - we need a healthcare system that works. I've seen much poorer countries that provide this for their citizens. Too many people are getting rich on current system so why change it. Lobbyist and those that profit from current system will fight any national healthcare tooth and nail. You and many others here have retired military insurance. Most of us do not. Again - you know nothing about my situation. I had to watch the LOVE of my life wither away because of current healthcare options. You have no idea what pain Mac experienced so don't go telling me what you know and what you could have done. Mac was a very proud man. I'm the same way. I ask no one for anything. I do for myself by myself. I surely don't want any handouts. I only want what is fair and reasonable. Bruja Yeah Right – you coulda, woulda, helped. Don’t be trying to blow smoke up my backside. I’ve lived it!! The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its poverty by how little. W. R. Inge
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BTW. You've lived in on the financial end and definitely not the patient end. HUGE DIFFERENCE!!! When I moved to Arizona Mac was on an Advantage plan. Shortly after we married he was in hospital with mini stroke. Our portion was still a few thousand. Most retired cannot afford more than the basic Advantage plan. You say people should have planned better. Well mister life does happen and often times events are out of our control. Mac's late wife was very ill. He took care of her and watched her wither away. I'm sure if he had known how expensive that would be maybe he would have planned differently. But the fact is one illness can wipe out an entire lifetime of saving - with our without insurance. Again.... You talk the talk but you have not walked in my shoes. The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its poverty by how little. W. R. Inge
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