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Downwind

Health & Fitness > Hospital Costs
 

Hospital Costs



IF
YOU READ
the recent healthcare exposé in Time magazine by Steven Brill, you know how ludicrous and
unreasonable hospital costs are.  Prices
for everything from OTC pain pills to bandages to diagnostic tests are inflated
to such an extent that it would shock most people.  Not only that, hospitals routinely turn
unpaid bills over to aggressive debt collectors or sue for full payment.  Surprisingly, it seems so-called non-profit
hospitals rake in huge profits but maintain their tax-exempt status while
paying administrators multi-million dollar salaries.  

In a recent piece for Reuters.com, Brill reflects on
a little-known provision of Obamacare, now a three year old law, that dictates
non-profit hospitals, in order to keep their tax-exempt status, must follow IRS
rules that would, among other things, prohibit them from going after patients
with bill collectors and lawyers in many instances.  Yet the Treasury Dept/IRS has promulgated no
rules to date.  Brill points out that the
IRS took 2 ½ years to even put out a draft of rules.  Then lobbyists for the American Hospital
Association began to whisper in their ears.  Since then, nothing has happened.

The upshot is that three years after the law passed
with great fanfare there remains no protection from hospital lawyers and debt
collectors for the patients least able to pay the ridiculous costs of their
hospital stays. 

So the hospital lobbyists blow smoke in the face of the IRS functionaries, and we're all downwind.

posted on Mar 28, 2013 6:49 AM ()

Comments:

In another post you wrote about law vs. facts. Which do you think would apply here? What about the spirit of the law? Is that a thing or just something I've heard about on TV?

Things won't change until those in power have to live by the same rules as the rest of us.

I learned that you can take home leftover meds after a hospital stay when my mom was in last year. Most of the pills come in bubble packs but eye drops, other liquids and creams and probably some other meds just get thrown out if you don't take them. It's a small way to delay the donut hole nonsense.

I had a hospitalist once and she was awful. On the other hand, one came to see my mother and solved a huge problem that her own doc had ignored. I didn't think they came unless your own doc wouldn't.
comment by catdancer on Apr 13, 2013 11:48 AM ()
The price of drugs is scandalously high in or out of the hospital. I have
a source for cheaper drugs. If you want it, message me and I will give it
to all who want it. Hospital costs are truly outrageous. I think if you
scream enough and ask for patient assistance you can get your bills revised.
comment by elderjane on Mar 29, 2013 5:38 AM ()
I think the prospect for requesting patient assistance is the key to the rule still unpromulgated by the IRS.
reply by steeve on Mar 29, 2013 7:10 AM ()
Well hear or shall I say reading where this is going.Yes,they do charge for everything.
Do not ask for a tissue to blow your nose,they will charge you one piece of tissue.Just wiped it on your sleeve like that little boy in the commercial.
comment by fredo on Mar 28, 2013 1:14 PM ()
Actually what will happen if you ask for a tissue, they will open a new box, give you one out of it, and charge you for the entire box, whether you use the rest of it or not.
reply by steeve on Mar 28, 2013 1:34 PM ()
I've heard people in this country make fun of the sacred cows in India that just do what they want and no threat of being eaten by the starving masses, but we've got our own sacred cows in the form of special interests.
comment by troutbend on Mar 28, 2013 12:56 PM ()
Hmmm...I guess special interests would be a good source of protein.
reply by steeve on Mar 28, 2013 1:34 PM ()
There is also tons of wasted food, clean towels used to "mop up" spills, everything is disposable, ... The price of pills I can understand--it's to offset expenses that hospitals can't directly charge for (waste). Then there are the charges by doctors who you never see for tests that you didn't know you had.... ugh...
comment by jjoohhnn on Mar 28, 2013 8:29 AM ()
I discovered the last time I was in the hospital that they have what is called a hospitalist, which is a doctor hired by the hospital to wander around and see whatever patients she wants. I wonder if she's paid by how many rooms she enters... the fact that the individual patients have their own doctors already doesn't seem to matter.
reply by steeve on Mar 28, 2013 1:36 PM ()

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