Preventive-care rules snare insured patients

During her colonoscopy, Carmen Hodges' doctor removed two noncancerous polyps, turning her so-called free screening into a costly diagnostic procedure, so Hodges' insurance company billed her and so did the hospital. Hodges and her husband, Dave, refused to pay the bill and fought it. The couple calls what happened to them a "bait and switch." Research reported Feb. 21 in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that removing precancerous polyps spotted during a colonoscopy dramatically cuts the chance of dying from the disease.