Comments on: California’s balance billing ban, are hospitals about to give patients refunds? http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/02/californias-balance-billing-ban-are.html medical blog Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:59:44 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Anonymous http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/02/californias-balance-billing-ban-are.html/comment-page-1#comment-90430 Anonymous Mon, 23 Mar 2009 05:28:00 +0000 http://clients.emmense.com/kevinmd/2009/02/californias-balance-billing-ban-are-hospitals-about-to-give-patients-refunds.html#comment-90430 Does anyone know any other arena where the customer is not entitled to know even a hint of what the charges will be until they see the bill a month after the fact? Or where the batting average tends to be so extremely low? If my auto mechanic tried to bill me this way or failed so miserably in coming to an accurate diagnosis he'd be liable for civil charges and would lose his license. Yet an ER contracting outfit can illegally balance bill my wife after stating TWICE in the newspaper that this is not their practice to balance bill- and now we are threatened to be taken to collections for what we do not owe? As it is, the doctor who spent ten minutes on my wife (and had no answers for her stroke-like symptoms) has been paid a few hundred dollars for those ten minutes- and this is NOT enough? What is wrong with this picture??? Does anyone know any other arena where the customer is not entitled to know even a hint of what the charges will be until they see the bill a month after the fact? Or where the batting average tends to be so extremely low? If my auto mechanic tried to bill me this way or failed so miserably in coming to an accurate diagnosis he’d be liable for civil charges and would lose his license. Yet an ER contracting outfit can illegally balance bill my wife after stating TWICE in the newspaper that this is not their practice to balance bill- and now we are threatened to be taken to collections for what we do not owe? As it is, the doctor who spent ten minutes on my wife (and had no answers for her stroke-like symptoms) has been paid a few hundred dollars for those ten minutes- and this is NOT enough? What is wrong with this picture???

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/02/californias-balance-billing-ban-are.html/comment-page-1#comment-89962 Anonymous Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:41:00 +0000 http://clients.emmense.com/kevinmd/2009/02/californias-balance-billing-ban-are-hospitals-about-to-give-patients-refunds.html#comment-89962 Spell it out for me. At an extreme, would it be possible for an insurance company to write policies setting a ER fee schedule of, say, one dollar for the ER doc fee?<br/><br/>And then use the California law to force the ER doc to accept that dollar as payment in full for the service rendered in the ER? Spell it out for me. At an extreme, would it be possible for an insurance company to write policies setting a ER fee schedule of, say, one dollar for the ER doc fee?

And then use the California law to force the ER doc to accept that dollar as payment in full for the service rendered in the ER?

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