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Health Line Systems

Posted in Uncategorized | August 27th, 2011

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Question for Americans, How do you feel about your current health system?

Reason I ask is, I saw a report on television where people were lining up in showgrounds to receive basic health care, I was horrified. In Australia we have Medicare & Private Health Insurance, one being more comfortable than the other. Look forward to hearing your views.

By Bankrate.com

American hospitals are fleecing patients out of billions of dollars annually, and experts say that while some of the overcharges are honest errors, many are deliberate.

That’s because hospital bills are next to impossible for consumers to understand, which means hospitals can hide improper charges behind mysterious medical terminology and baffling codes.

That’s what Nora Johnson found when her 56-year-old husband, Bill, underwent hip-replacement surgery in 1999. The cost of the operation was $25,000.

Knowing that her family would have to pay a percentage of the costs, she requested an itemized bill.

$129 for a box of tissues
“What I got was five feet of single-spaced names and codes,” recalls Johnson. Written in “hospital-speak,” some of it made sense, she says, while some of it was absurd

“Like the charge for newborn blood tests and a crib mobile. That stopped me in my tracks,” recalls Johnson. “As far as I know, my husband never had a baby.”

Johnson, from Caldwell, W.Va., was so shocked by the overcharges she became a trained medical billing advocate. Today, she audits hospital bills for consumers and for state employees in West Virginia.

“More than 90% of the hospital bills I’ve audited have gross overcharges,” says Johnson.

Estimates on hospital overcharges run up to $10 billion a year, with an average of $1,300 per hospital stay. Other experts say overcharges make up approximately 5% of hospital bills.

“I’ve seen $90 charged for a 70-cent I.V. How about $129 for a mucous recovery system? That’s a box of Kleenex,” Johnson adds. She’s also seen charges for ordinary supplies, such as towels and sheets, that should be included in the room charges.

Johnson says some overcharges are mistakes, but many are deliberate. “Hospitals are huge moneymakers,” she explains. “Their executives enjoy big bonuses.”

As a result, “Hospitals have become highly innovative when it comes to billing, and ordinary citizens have no idea they’re being ripped off,” says Johnson, who is affiliated with Salem, Va.-based Medical Billing Advocates of America.

“The medical billing system is complicated and confusing,” admits Rick H. Wade, senior vice president of the American Hospital Association, which represents most of the hospitals in the United States. On Dec. 27, 2002, he told a “Dateline NBC” investigative team, “Trying to understand all the code words and jargon can turn your brain into oatmeal.”