Colorado Woman Expected to Pay $1,337 for Surgery. She Was Billed $303,709

[appalachiablue]

- The Washington Post, May 19, 2022. Ed.

After Lisa French’s doctors warned that she could be paralyzed if she tripped or fell on her back, the hospital told the Colo. resident that she’d have to pay an estimated $1,337 out of pocket for 2 procedures. Money was tight, which is why French & her husband used all the money in their emergency fund- $1,000- to help cover most of the cost expected after insurance for the back surgeries, according to her attorney. So when she got the bill from St. Anthony North Health Campus in 2014, French thought it was a mistake: The hospital had billed her for $303,70- & she owed more than $229,000 out of pocket. As part of the forms she filled out at the nonprofit hospital in Westminster, Colo., operated by Centura Health, French unknowingly had signed up to pay all charges related to the hospital’s then-secretive “chargemaster” price rates- a master list of prices that determined the sticker prices for everything the hospital did.

Years after French argued she was never informed of the chargemaster & engaged in a years-long legal battle with the hospital, the Colo. Supreme Court ruled in her favor this week, saying she is not liable to pay the rest of the massive bill because she did not agree to the hospital’s secret pricing schema. State Supreme Court Justice Richard Gabriel wrote in a Monday opinion that Centura Health’s argument that French was required to pay “all charges of the hospital” was rejected because the “long-settled principles of contract law” showed that the 60-year-old woman never agreed to pay the chargemaster rate. “She assuredly could not assent to terms about which she had no knowledge & which were never disclosed to her,” Gabriel wrote in the opinion.

State & federal laws have since been passed forcing hospitals to make their chargemaster prices public. None of the laws were in place when French had her surgeries in 2014, according to the Denver Post, the first to report the news. Gabriel blasted the health-care industry’s predatory billing practices in the opinion, noting that “hospital chargemasters have become increasingly arbitrary &, over time, have lost any direct connection to hospitals’ actual costs, reflecting, instead, inflated rates set to produce a targeted amount of profit for the hospitals after factoring in discounts negotiated with private & governmental insurers.”

Ted Lavender, French’s attorney, told The Wash. Post that her case reflects how some hospitals give “no effort to provide meaningful information to the patient & the cost of a procedure.” About $197,000 of the total $303,709 bill stemmed from 13 pieces of spinal hardware that were marked up significantly from their estimated cost of about $31,000, Lavender said. “It’s not unlike that of everyday Americans who go to hospitals with a medical need & sign paperwork placed in front of them to create contract about the medical treatment about to be rendered,” he said. “It was very telling in Ms. French’s case.” Most U.S. hospitals are still not complying with federal regulations requiring medical centers to post their prices online for patients to review, according to a 2021 report by patient advocates...

- More, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/19/colorado-hospital-surgery-cost-french/

[IcyPeas]

1. the hospital's then-secretive "chargemaster" price rates- a master list of prices that determined th

it's like MSRP for hospitals. THey charge astronomical rates they you're supposed to NEGOTIATE with them? fuck that. What the hell is wrong with the healthcare system in this country?

disgusting

[appalachiablue]

2. Negotiate, bargain & fight like a street corner vendor over

serious health issues. This nation is declining fast, how much more commercialized can it get.