Woman Finds A Genius Way To Reduce ER Bills By Itemizing Them And People Are Saying That It Works

Fraud, that's all.

$30K to $0 can happen when someone uses the miraculous words, "An dI will call the TV news right after I all my lawyer". My mom's $257K bill was total BS for the issue in question (a cardiac test). Yep, a quarter-million.... B/c she's on Medicare, I suspect,t he hospital went nuts triple-charging etc. I just walked to the adminstrator's office, no appointment, and told his door dragon, "TV gets this story right after the lawyers do, have fun explaining this to the feds when they ask why Medicare got charged almsot 100 times the actual cost of the test." I didnt' even make it back to the elevator before that hospital administrator had me sitting down with a cup of tea, a hundred apologies, and an abject (written!) promise to "amend the issue" by the end of business that day.

Uh... because they are scamming us right into bankruptcy.

By requesting an itemized bill. You don't read very well do you? They like to bill insurance companies for as much as possible. And that bleeds over to the people with no insurance.

@DIppinDot, I agree, the scams are endless, which is why you get the itemized bill, know your rights, and have no fear telling the SOBs you WILL expose them to the public and the feds for their fraud.

What a lot of nonsense. Inform yourself with some unbiased information before defending a health care system that's based on greed and exploitation of people with medical conditions. If you're so scared about some institution making decisisions about your health, you should remember that at this time pharmaceutical companies have the freedom to raise the prices of their medications with 150% at any given time. You should also be aware that the costs of medicins in the US are the highest in the world. There's a reason why people in the US are dying because they can't afford the medication they need to stay alive. It's called greed.

@ElectricEd: 1. Itemized bills are not the norm. 2. There is no legal limit. I've seen $50 for four aspirin. 3. The lump sum is not totted up like a restaurant bill, more like a "well, let's see what the most is we can get for this if we code it this way in the system and hope nobody asks". (Medical coding is vital in how bills are calculated; the code determins the "cost", so messing with coding = messing wtih $.) SO, if you ask for itemized bills, you are suddenly seeing WHAT they charge for what ---- not a vague "$1200" for ER meds, but "$50 for aspirin, $500 for administration of aspirin (yes, that's separate if they're sneaky enough!), $150 for medication assistance (glass of water)"... And then you still don't get up to $1200, b/c that's the HIGHEST estimated cost by the "codes" entered for these "services", vs. actual estimate (usually about half as much) and all that vs. the REAL cost (aspirin: $0.50, cup of water $0.10, and $0.00 for administration of medication).

I will survive snow, especially in a country that’s accustomed to it and prepared for it. Being both liberal and outspoken I might not survive a dictatorship, regardless of the weather.

@ Mewton. Depends on where in Canada, compared to where in America. There are parts of Canada that have substantially better weather than Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, etc.