Do folks have to pay a discretionary 10% service charge for a Hospital bill i.e. something like a tip in a restaurant for good service?

Sorry for sounding obtuse but I've never seen a hospital bill.

Behave or step off this topic. You know how things are here in the USA on this matter.

I despair when I think of EHR.

It's already nearly impossible to get one's credit records fixed. And there are only 3 agencies involved.

Now expand that to all the healthcare outfits who could put an error into your records wherever they may have propagated to.

I already have one specialist who thought I'd already had that part REMOVED because the referring office coded it so......


Hey! I just thought of the bright side of an EMP attack :-)

Ah...a fellow thinker.

And what about the mistakes they WILL make?

That little snip about being allergic to sulfa or other meds just disappeared?

"Hey, Doc, just how many times can you remove an appendix, anyway?"

Julia A. Smith records transferred to the records of Julia B. Smith, SS and all.

Right now they're advertising prescription drugs on TV, directly to possible consumers... WHY? The consumer shouldn't be making the decision that he/she needs it.

Marty's right, it would be a nightmare.

+1 on the benefits of an EMP!

Sue

In all fairness, a lot of billing errors stem from, I believe, an institutional lack of awareness and a lack of clarity on the part of those that actually bill.

Sure, there are the ICD-9 codes. For example, systolic hypertension, primary hypertension, and essential hypertension are all different diagnostic codes, but can be used fairly interchangably( esp primary and essential).

then there's the CPT codes, which are billing and procedure codes.

Then there are the HCPCS codes.

So, really, in addition to all the medical stuff, you expect doctors to be financial whizzes too? Have you actually tried to sit down and bill a regular office visit? There's all sorts of criteria, some vague, on how to bill even that. Do you add a -25 modifier? No? Was this simple, complex? Both? How much time was spent "counseling" versus "treating?" What counts as either, when so much of therapy is education?

You think it's tough to pay, try billing it. I seriously doubt many folks out there are trying to scam money, ESPECIALLY since so many folks can't pay for it anyway!

All this crap just because people have come to expect medical insurance to work miracles. It's like having car insurance that pays for oil changes and gas.

I could imagine pulling into the gas station...

Let me see you're gas gage. Hmmmmmm... interesting. Looks like you'll need a complete fillup. Don't worry, your insurance covers premium.

Two months later you get a bill from the gas station for $53,235.56 You call your car insurance company and find out that it only covers generic premium gas. Plus there's that oil change that was with regular oil that accidentally got coded for synthetic so it was rejected alltogether and charged to you at the non-group rate. A new oil filter cost $10 over the counter at the auto parts store, but they used your belts, hoses and filters prescription plan which covers it with a mere $20 copay.