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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jttmab who wrote (6846)	9/24/2001 1:23:03 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

I'm willing to bet [without knowing the odds] that the bills to insurance companies were higher than actual more than they were lower than actual. We can call them "billing errors" .... or we can call them "attempted theft". From personal experience, you could be right. I had an outrageous bill from a doctor last winter. I should have called the insurance company to go over the charges. One reason it might have been outrageous is that this doctor has virtually no waiting list for patients, and her office space is expensive so she may boost her rates to help with expenses. (Recently, I heard that there are consultants who advise doctors on how to charge insurance companies higher rates for their services. There was a spot on tv about this practice a month or so ago.) However, I was unhappy with the expensive doctor's help so I went to another doctor in the same field for an opinion. I had to wait over a month for an appointment. She performed an examination and a cancer screening. Her bill was half of what the other doctor charged. It turns out though that in her field, in the city, she is considered one of the top ten so unless it is a serious emergency, it is difficult to arrange an appointment, but I believe her advice is worth the wait. Most recently, I questioned a medical bill that I received. It was suppose to be for out-patient service at the hospital. I talked to the billing department and they referred me to the ER department. The bill that I queried indicated what my insurance paid its part, and I was accountable for the rest. After the initial inquiry, I let the bill sit for a month. And, I got a new statement. The hospital obviously rebilled the insurance company, and I ended up paying half or a little less than half of what I would have originally paid if I had not called about the original bill.