Today’s health care system is a bully and you need to fight back, this expert says. This is why you should never pay the first medical bill you receive:
It wasn’t until 1993, at Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown University Hospital, that I began to fully appreciate the complexity of America’s health care system. Life magazine had devised a clever photo shoot to document all 100+ people who were reflected in some way in the bill for ONE heart surgery: a double bypass/heart valve replacement on a 64-year-old retired teacher. I was there as an ABC producer to capture the moment for a “Nightline” episode, “The Anatomy of a Hospital Bill.
Allen likens today’s health care system to a bully, squeezing and taunting the consumer. These days, he says, you don’t need to have a major surgical procedure to feel the way steep out-of-pocket health care costs and an epidemic of billing mistakes are draining your wallet. They’re why 1 in 6 Americans wind up in medical debt collection.
Next Avenue: What changed in American health care that convinced you it was time to write this guide on how to fight back? Yes. Especially if someone’s got a high [annual] deductible. It’s common now to have a $3,000, $5,000 or even $10,000 deductible. That means you’re functionally uninsured. As you were writing the book, the issue hit home with a series of mistakes in your father’s care at an assisted living facility — a medication error that worsened his dementia and the facility ignoring your mom’s directive that he only be treated by his primary care physician. Then, you and your brothers had to struggle to correct the bill. How typical is this story?In America, we say the customer is always right.
Yes, the average person may be intimidated to fight back. But let’s just say 5% — even 1% — of the people are courageous enough to sue in small claims court. That would be like an army. Baked into our market-based health care system is profit — for the hospitals, insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms. What can we do to change the equilibrium, so they put more emphasis on patients and less on profits?
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