I read a very interesting article the other day about inflated medical bills that many patients end up receiving, and the overall skyrocketing costs of medical care in the last several years. This reminded me of my recent visit to the doctor. A few weeks ago, I went to see my dermatologist at UCLA, and when I got the bill, I noticed that there were a few hundred dollars extra added to the total! I could not, for the life of me, figure out what these additional charges were for, so I finally decided to call the billing department.
Well, it turned out that all of a sudden, because the dermatology office is in the UCLA building in Westwood, Los Angeles, that they are now charging a minimum of $150 just for “facility usage!” ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? As if the bills are not high enough! Do they pay me when I have to sit there forever in the waiting room? How about a “slow service” credit? Or how about “The doctor couldn’t give me the right diagnosis, so I shouldn’t have to pay” credit? How come we never see any of those show up on our bills!? And I know I’m not the only one who is super annoyed with these kinds of things. I’ve had lots of clients regularly complain about unexplainably high costs of medical care.
So I decided to do a little digging and came across an article that I think everyone should read. It basically explains that because Medicare and private insurance companies won’t pay more than what their contract agreement with the medical facilities stipulates, the medical facilities just jack up the prices so that they can get more money from somewhere. That “somewhere” is usually our wallets! They’ll do this by lying about the charges on the bills, like charging multiple times for the same service or item, or by concealing low cost items behind high-tech names, such as $12 for a “mucus recovery system” — commonly referred to as a “tissue!” But the reason why this just continues is that most of us don’t even question the charges on the bill, and we just pay what we’re asked.
This is especially upsetting because it has a disproportionate effect on older consumers because they simply go to the hospital more often. So they already have a limited income, and because Medicare doesn’t cover everything, they end up having to waste their retirement savings on completely ridiculous charges!
If you’re interested in reading more, click here to download the article. Read it, pass it on to your friends and family, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, start questioning your bills so you won’t pay your hard-earned dollars for fake or inflated charges!