Outrageous Medical Bills? Get Them Itemized First

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Outrageous Medical Bills? Get Them Itemized First

by Katie Herzog • May 14, 2018 at 11:11 am

If you happened to be listening to NPR this morning, you might have heard this story on outrageous medical bills sandwiched between reports of the new U.S. embassy in Israel and dozens of dead Palestinians (welcome to Infrastructure Week!). For months, NPR has been working with Kaiser Health News to collect stories of medical bills gone wrong, and today, they brought us the tale of Sherry Young, a retired librarian who underwent two relatively minor surgeries in one day, one for a shoulder injury and one for a bone spur in her foot. In total, she was in the hospital for three days. ... Her bill? Over $115,000.

Young had insurance, but because her hospital stay wasn't pre-approved, Young was on the hook for the whole thing, which was more than her home was worth and over five times her annual income. Young did the smart thing: She asked for an itemized bill, and what she found was shocking. According to the bill, Young was being charged $15,076 for four tiny screws made by a company called Arthrex that were placed in her foot.

"Unless the metal [was] mined on an asteroid, I do not know why it should cost that amount," Young told NPR. She tried to get to the bottom of it herself, but the University of Oklahoma, where she'd had her surgery, refused to tell her how much the screws and other things had cost the hospital, so Young did another smart thing: She got in touch with NPR, and NPR was able to get more answers than the patient herself.

John Schmieding, senior vice president and general counsel for Arthrex, declined to tell reporters exactly how much his company charges hospitals for those screws, but he did say that screws generally range from $300 per screw to $1,000 per screw, which means the hospital marked them up anywhere from 275 to 1,150 percent. Those screws, according to an expert NPR interviewed, likely cost around $30 to manufacture. ... And that was just the beginning of it. Young was also charged $4,265 for a drill bit, $5,047 for a tool that removes and cauterizes tissue, and $619 for a saw blade. And those tools are (or at least should be) reusable.

[BigmanPigman]

1. I believe I read a while ago that patients get charged

for a whole box of tissues, a plastic tub and pitcher, a cup, etc when you leave a hospital. I bet they charge for every band aid and probably would charge for flushing the toilet if they could. My mom had the time to go through all the medical bills for my dad's relatives and they double charged for the same stuff and charged for stuff they didn't do or use. Since my mom was in the medical profession she was able to nail them on some of their rip off charges. It takes a ton of time and patience to do this so most people don't.

[Volaris]

2. If they use a pair of gloves for u, they'll charge u for the box.

It's nuts.