This hospital bill may shed a lot of light on why the cost of health care is so high. I dunno, you tell me.

Shortly after my outpatient surgery,  I received one bill for anesthesiology in the amount of $4350.   I sent them the bill back with a letter saying I couldn't pay the high amount because I was also having to pay $16,000 in other bills related to the surgery.
The only response to that was to send me another $4350 bill two weeks later.
And then another several weeks after that.

And then last week out of the blue I received this bill.   As you can see,  the $4350 charge has been reduced to $495.  And as you can also see,  that has happened because they've applied a "UCR adjustment".
I googled and "UCR" stands for "Usual,  Customary and Reasonable".

So basically what this is telling me is the usual customary and reasonable charge for this service is $495.  But they billed it at almost ten times that amount to start with.   And they wouldn't do that unless somebody somewhere is paying ten times what is usual,  customary and reasonable.

TEOTWAWKI wrote:that actually looks like good news...whats wrong with an adjustment in your favor ?...maybe I am reading it wrong..

It's the best news for me that I have ever received.  Don't get me wrong,  I am very happy to pay one-tenth of the original amount.

But the point is that this is an admission that ten times the original amount was a crock of shit and as I said they would not bother with billing that amount unless somebody is paying it under some circumstances.
If I had been rich I could easily have just paid ten times the "usual,  customary and reasonable" amount.  And I would have been ripped off worse than dealing with crooks.  But these are not supposed to be crooks.  These are supposed to be a non-profit hospital which is associated with Jesus.

Did you negotiate a cash price w/ these folks? You should not have had to pay anymore than what your health provider would have paid. They screwed you again.

Well a while back some other enterprising soul posting here said they haggled the price down by going right to the Hospitals upper management. Really if you will pay it without protest ...who's fault is it ?

This is like if I went to Sandy Sansing and Sandy told me he couldn't tell me the price before I bought his new Chevrolet car, and then after I agreed to buy it he told me I owed him $250,000. And he sends me three bills for $250,000. And then after he realizes I aint gonna pay that he sends me another bill for $25,000 saying he's adjusted the bill to the "usual, customary reasonable" price.

Dreamsglore wrote:Did you negotiate a cash price w/ these folks? You should not have had to pay anymore than what your health provider would have paid. They screwed you again.

No. As I said I told them I didn't have the money to pay the bill and I was expecting them to offer me time payments. But instead they offered me the "usual, customary, reasonable" price. lol

Somebodies got to pay for all the illegal immigrants popping out anchor babies ..why not Bob ?

I have no idea why but this Sacred Heart bill was separate from everything else and came from Orlando.

So here's my next strategy. I'm going to show this to the hospital billing department and tell them "if this part of your outfit is admitting that it charged me ten times more than what is "usual, customary and reasonable, then I demand that you give me the usual customary and reasonable price on every other part of the hospital bill".

Homey don't play this game. lol

TEOTWAWKI wrote:Somebodies got to pay for all the illegal immigrants popping out anchor babies ..why not Bob ?

The day I pop out an illegal immigrant is the day I'll agree to  pay ten times what is "usual,  customary and reasonable".  Not before that.  
But they better not be holding their breath because my tubes are tied. lol

well looks like Obamacare is working wonders for you Bob ....LOL.

TEOTWAWKI wrote:well looks like Obamacare is working wonders for you Bob ....LOL.

Obamacare did not come into play here. I don't have obamacare until Jan 1.

Bob wrote:

TEOTWAWKI wrote:well looks like Obamacare is working wonders for you Bob ....LOL.

Obamacare did not come into play here.  I don't have obamacare until Jan 1.

That is what I mean ..I am sure Obamacare will close this loophole...better stay well from Jan on....

Cash has always worked best. I'd read that carefully tho... maybe even do it in person.

private insurance has ALWAYS carried the weight of paying for the uninsured.

years and years ago we all had a discussion about this. I think I called it the devastating cycle or something like that.

goes like this.

hospitals raise their "LIST PRICE" because in reality they only get a % from the insurance companies and they plan by that.so list is $1000 but they know BCBS will only pay them $200. This is the way it works.

do you really think hospitals can take all those people on Medicaid and self pays and survive?

^so private insurances raise their rates, and wha la, the people paying for their own insurance pay for the uninsured anyway.

either way, you got your discount just as I suspected. be happy.

you people got your obamacare, you got your discount and your still not happy.

seems to me you people just want to kill off the evil hospitals all at the same time you demand they service you. what a joke. in the end youll get what you deserve. and what you pay for;) 

"you people" this and "you people that", blah blah blah.

All I am is somebody who wants to pay the "usual customary reasonable" price and she's making me out to be somebody evil.  Jesus what a fucked up world we're in.  lol

And speaking of Jesus,  he threw the moneychangers out of the temple.  And he would throw this greedy hospital moneychanger out of town if he was here today.  Even if it does have a church name on it.  lol

hospitals are evil.....

dear god, let us pray that all hospitals close and those evil people working in hospitals can all become yard sale tenants. yeah!!!!!!!!!!

Chrissy wrote:hospitals are evil.....

dear god, let us pray that all hospitals close and those evil people working in hospitals can all become yard sale tenants. yeah!!!!!!!!!!

That's actually not as farfetched as you think it is. If the prices they charge keep getting higher and higher, then only the rich people will be able to afford health care. Obama won't be able to borrow or print enough money to subsidize the rest of us. And that's when the rest of us will have to depend on witch doctors and whatever supplies they use coming from fucking yard sales.

Bob wrote:

Chrissy wrote:hospitals are evil.....

dear god, let us pray that all hospitals close and those evil people working in hospitals can all become yard sale tenants. yeah!!!!!!!!!!

That's actually not as farfetched as you think it is.  If the prices they charge keep getting higher and higher,  then only the rich people will be able to afford health care.  Obama won't be able to borrow or print enough money to subsidize the rest of us.  And that's when the rest of us will have to depend on witch doctors and whatever supplies they use coming from fucking yard sales.  

well you know your man Obama has already fixed that right? his obamacare is going to give subsidies paid by the tax payers to people.

so really all you need to worry about is who's going to get the "good" care. but then again according to all of yall, the care you get here in this country sucks anyway, so you got it made.

Chrissy wrote:  
well you know your man Obama has already fixed that right? his obamacare is going to give subsidies paid by the tax payers to people.
so really all you need to worry about is who's going to get the "good" care. but then again according to all of yall, the care you get here in this country sucks anyway, so you got it made.

Obama and the democrats in congress engineered a rube goldberg plan that was only adopted because they bribed a lot of members of congress with a fat pork barrel.  
And now that clusterfuck of a plan is discovering that young people aren't buying into it which was necessary for the plan to be feasible.  
As a result,  only us sick old farts are going for it which will almost certainly mean the premiums are going to go through the wazoo because as I said in my last post because of the unaffordable costs of health care obama can't borrow or print enough money to keep subsidizing it.

But that's not what causes a hospital to charge almost ten times the "usual,  customary and reasonable" price (to use their own words).

It's what I've said in post after post now.  WITH OR WITHOUT obamacare our health care system is broken.  And until somebody starts getting those costs under control it's gonna get worse broken.

Mr Ichi wrote:If the new economy is to be based on things to sell at yard sales, Bob will be the new Bill Gates, or Rockefeller.

My friend Ken will be the kahuna. I'm minor league compared to him.
He just figured out that he could get a Christmas Tree at Lowes for $2.99.
He has a friend that works at the one on 9 Mile and the friend told him if he could find a tall one that has a crack at the base of the trunk the manager was marking them down to that. He bought a tall one, cut off the bottom, and now has a perfectly good Christmas tree for $2.99.
But don't try to duplicate it because he was told they were getting in a new shipment of trees tomorrow which don't have cracks in the trunks and then the deal with be off. lol

I could write a book about his exploits called "The Cheapest Human Being on Earth's Guide To How To Live Dirt Cheap and Good". lol

Can't remember ever knowing anyone who whined as much as my far left Progressive friend Bob.

They made a mistake, they corrected the mistake...and Bob whines.

"A mistake".  lol

So now an attempt to gouge somebody by 850% is "a mistake".  
You call it a mistake.  I call it what it is.  An attempt to gouge me to the tune of 850%.  
And this is only a part of the overall bill.  They aint corrected their "mistake" on the big part yet.  lol

And if I'm a "left-wing progressive" why did I just say obamacare is an unworkable rube goldberg thing?  lol
I guess you would say a "right-wing conservative" is somebody who says fox news is biased.  lol
Markle is obviously living in some weird alternate universe. lol

But he's a good bowler. I give him that. lol