Patients often assume that their health insurance will cover emergency care or major procedures. They're caught by surprise when they find out that they’re not fully covered. Of all the euphemisms in U.S. healthcare billing practices, so-called "balance billing" may take the cake.
Drugmaker Insys Therapeutics Inc filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday, about a week after agreeing to pay $225 million to settle a U.S. probe into bribes it paid to doctors for prescribing a powerful opioid medication.
After a year of trying to correct a colonoscopy bill from Crozer-Keystone Health System Judy Politzer caved, accepted a 15 percent discount and in October paid off her $1,699 debt. In May, Politzer, 66, of Swarthmore, got a notice from a debt collector for $300 — the amount of the discount she’d gotten.
Wendy Matney hesitated to tell her family not to call 911. “It seemed almost selfish to say, ‘Please don’t call because we can’t afford this,’” said the 39-year-old home health aide, who has a form of epilepsy that causes frequent, sometimes violent, seizures.
The plan would have required those members to pay in full for out-of-network visits to UPMC hospitals and physician offices. Highmark Medicare Advantage members will not have to pay in advance for medical services at UPMC hospitals and physician offices that will be out of network if the UPMC-Highmark consent decrees are allowed to expire June 30.
As hearings are held today on the Patient Access Protection Act (H.R. 3022) – a bill to delay cuts to the Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) program – data from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) shows just how critical the program’s funding is for hospitals in Alaska and across the country.