Economy question ?

[Richard_D]

How many people have lost their health insurance due to the economy. How has it effected medical treatment in any way ? Any hospital experiences ?

[upflying]

You may get more responses if you run your questions as a poll.

Your topic could encroach on politics too.

[Richard_D]

I was more or less wondering how people are getting treated with insurance compared to without going to urgent care or ER's. No politics please.

[motoguy128]

In some states there are programs if you meet certain income requirements. In particular, there are programs available for children (minors). I know IL and IA have programs like this.

 

Otherwise, I think your only option are out of pocket or the ER. Unless you wualify for medicare or medicaide. I'm not sure how those work.

[vizhip]

I was more or less wondering how people are getting treated with insurance compared to without going to urgent care or ER's. No politics please.

 

I had the opportunity to go through a colonoscopy a few years ago without insurance to pay for it...

 

Easiest thing to do was let the doctor and administration office know up front the situation... They then look at their price charts and gave me several options...

 

Of course, I had to pay for the treatment... but if I paid cash up front, they quoted one price... credit card, another price... pay over time, yet another price...

 

Going to a regular doctor, they provided the various fees to me up front so that I could determine what I could afford in the way of tests... and would know what the standard fee for a regular office visit was... and there again, they would discount the price if I paid up front...

 

If you compare the prices that were quoted up front to those negotiated by the insurance companies... I found them very comparable... and thus the doctor was not making a ton of money, but he was able to pay his staff and his expenses... along with provide part of his own salary... which is much different if medicare or medicade are involved... there the doctor is lucky if he breaks even on his expendables...

 

I have heard of people making deals with doctors for service and paying the bill over time...

 

Not all doctors will work with you, but many will...

 

Also... look at some of the drugstores and walmarts and even a few supermarkets... They offer things like flu shots for $25... and many provide major discounts in essential prescriptions... some even being free to those in dire straights... In addition, some of the drug companies themselves offer programs to help those who can't afford the drugs required to live...

 

It isn't a free ride... but if you do the research, you can save a lot of money...

 

Regards -

-Bob

[EffBee]

You may get more responses if you run your questions as a poll.

Your topic could encroach on politics too.

Not to hijack this, but let me take advantage of your concerns to make something clear. Political discussions (discussions about things that are political or have a political aspect) are still fine. But the Moderators will no longer show any leniency toward those who use them to make political comments, to discuss politics, or to insult other members.

[ltljohn]

I was more or less wondering how people are getting treated with insurance compared to without going to urgent care or ER's. No politics please.

 

I had the opportunity to go through a colonoscopy a few years ago without insurance to pay for it...

 

Easiest thing to do was let the doctor and administration office know up front the situation... They then look at their price charts and gave me several options...

 

Of course, I had to pay for the treatment... but if I paid cash up front, they quoted one price... credit card, another price... pay over time, yet another price...

 

Going to a regular doctor, they provided the various fees to me up front so that I could determine what I could afford in the way of tests... and would know what the standard fee for a regular office visit was... and there again, they would discount the price if I paid up front...

 

If you compare the prices that were quoted up front to those negotiated by the insurance companies... I found them very comparable... and thus the doctor was not making a ton of money, but he was able to pay his staff and his expenses... along with provide part of his own salary... which is much different if medicare or medicade are involved... there the doctor is lucky if he breaks even on his expendables...

 

I have heard of people making deals with doctors for service and paying the bill over time...

 

Not all doctors will work with you, but many will...

 

Also... look at some of the drugstores and walmarts and even a few supermarkets... They offer things like flu shots for $25... and many provide major discounts in essential prescriptions... some even being free to those in dire straights... In addition, some of the drug companies themselves offer programs to help those who can't afford the drugs required to live...

 

It isn't a free ride... but if you do the research, you can save a lot of money...

 

Regards -

-Bob

 

I have had a similar experience with my eye doctor. At one point my employer changed plans and the new one did not cover my contact lenses any more. They are quite expensive and she worked with me so I only had to pay what the insurance would have paid. So ask you doctor and see what they are willing to do.

[Selden]

My daughter has been without health insurance coverage for 16 months, and has gradually figured out how to make such deals. I suspect that a physician's flexibility may be related to size of practice; a GP in a small town can be more flexible than a physician working in a large clinic.

 

I argued in another thread that using insurance for routine medical treatment is one of the driving factors for out-of-control costs. By way of example, I used a hypothetical of covering routine BMW maintenance costs through insurance. The insurance overhead alone would add 15%, and without the pressure of the customer knowing that the dollars were coming directly out of his pocket, maintenance costs would likely rise.

 

If this were an easy problem to solve, we would have solved it long ago. I would love to remove insurance for routine (not catastrophic) medical expenses from the system, but I can't see it happening -- there are too many entrenched interests. Another motorcycle analogy: new bikes come with warranties that cover certain problems (FD goes bad, covered; drop the bike and crack a cylinder cover, not covered), and customers have the option of buying an extended warranty (insurance).

 

Why shouldn't people be the same?

[smiller]

I argued in another thread that using insurance for routine medical treatment is one of the driving factors for out-of-control costs.

Even worse might be the use of no insurance. I had to visit the ER last week due to my almost cutting a chunk of my finger off (hint: work gloves exist for a reason.) The ER was jammed, multiple hour wait (not for anyone like me spurting blood of course, but I felt bad for all of the dire emergency cases who were casually watching TV or reading a magazine.) Someone even complained that I got immediate treatment while they had to wait.

 

In the end I left with seven stitches... and an $1,800 bill. I will only owe the deductible of that but no doubt the retail bill is so high because, as the PA who sewed me up cheerfully commented, 75% of the people out there waiting were both uninsured and never going to pay a dime. If that doesn't get fixed we are gonna have a problem...

 

[Quinn]

Seldon, what ever happened to the idea of the HMO--Health Maintanence Organization that was designed for total care? They were supposed to catch things early enough that there would be less expense than letting stuff build up (or break down) and require expensive and extensive treatment. I remember an emphasis on routine physicals, healthy lifestyle choices, flu and tetnes shots, etc. I always worried about getting hurt on a trip and not being able to crawl back to my primary, gateway physician for treatment and referrals within the network.

 

 

[motoguy128]

We had our daughters heart checked out at a specialist at a major hopital. Total bill with X-rays and lab wokr came out ot around $2800. I think we actually talked face ot face or were being "care for" for a total of maybe 90 minutes. The other 6 hours wre spent waiting.

 

Wen we got hte bills a few months later, I told my wife that I'd guess 1/3 of that is for the uninsured, anther 1/3 is for malpratice insurance, and the last is the actual cost of treatment.

 

OT make matters worse, I, an educated person, still don;t fully undertand how my insurance works. We've ong since hit our deductible and maximum out of pocket, but we still end up paying a sizeable portion of the bills. I get teh feeling I'm getting ripped off, but I may have found out the hard way, that my insurance coverage, while good, isn't as good as I thoguht it was. Of course, I've hardley used my insurance unitl I got married and had kids. I think I went a 4 year period without needing a single prescription or stepping foot in a Dr. office other than a dental check-up.

 

 

I tend to agree with one of the earlier posts, retoine procedure should not be covered. Ironically... with my insurnace, they are the ONLY things that are completely covered. Specialists, exams, lab work and other categories are varying levels of covereage.

 

 

It seems clear to me that the system is designed to be so complicated that you just bend over and hand thme your wallet because it's not worth the time and energy trying to understand how it works.

 

On more thing, overall I do miss my HMO at my last job. The PPO gives you flexibility, but there sure does seem to have pretty high co=pays, co-insurance and some things that aren;t even covered apparantly.

[Mike]

In the end I left with seven stitches... and an $1,800 bill. I will only owe the deductible of that but no doubt the retail bill is so high because, as the PA who sewed me up cheerfully commented, 75% of the people out there waiting were both uninsured and never going to pay a dime. If that doesn't get fixed we are gonna have a problem...

 

This is a pretty significant issue. I do volunteer work at our local hospital, and I've seen folks in the ER for something as minor as an ingrown toenail. You can rest assured that the hospitals don't just write off these charges . . . they're shifted to the rest of the patient population.

[smiller]

This is a pretty significant issue. I do volunteer work at our local hospital, and I've seen folks in the ER for something as minor as an ingrown toenail. You can rest assured that the hospitals don't just write off these charges . . . they're shifted to the rest of the patient population.

Yes, I think many who are concerned about being taxed to pay for other people's health care may not realize that they are already paying for it under the current system... in about the most inefficient way possible.

[Mike]

This is a pretty significant issue. I do volunteer work at our local hospital, and I've seen folks in the ER for something as minor as an ingrown toenail. You can rest assured that the hospitals don't just write off these charges . . . they're shifted to the rest of the patient population.

Yes, I think many who are concerned about being taxed to pay for other people's health care may not realize that they are already paying for it under the current system... in about the most inefficient way possible.

 

That's a fair point. My impression is this: there are probably a half-dozen or so issues like this, which, if addressed, would fix most of the system's woes, without "throwing the baby out with the bath water."

 

But, your point is very well taken--all these costs where the system breaks down are not just absorbed by the health care providers. The insured pay a "tax" provide these services, in the form of higher premiums and co-pays.

[motoguy128]

This is a pretty significant issue. I do volunteer work at our local hospital, and I've seen folks in the ER for something as minor as an ingrown toenail. You can rest assured that the hospitals don't just write off these charges . . . they're shifted to the rest of the patient population.

Yes, I think many who are concerned about being taxed to pay for other people's health care may not realize that they are already paying for it under the current system... in about the most inefficient way possible.

 

I second that.

 

Worse yet, the other largest expense the healthcare industry is litigation/malpractice insurance. When a surgeon makes a mistake, he doesn't pay, the hospital doesn't pay, we ALL pay and lawyers get a payday.

 

I also get a laugh when folks act like privatized healthcare works so well. Its' not like I can tell my employeer that I'd ratehr they use a different provider. Most people don't realize in many cases that large corporations are actually self insured, and their "provider" is just an administrator of the plan that the employeer has selected to reduce their costs. And we call this capitalism/free market? I guess I'm supposed to simply change jobs to change my insurance provider.

 

I think it's a simple matter of folks fearing change, everyone that makes money in the healthcare industry trying to protect their own self interests, and otherwise it's politics as usual making a big mess on of it all both sides.

[motoguy128]

I agree that we don't need to reinvent the wheel and throw out the current systems, jsut streamline, expand and improve what we have now.

 

Free markets are a good thing as long as there is real competition availalbe and rules are created to prevent greed, corruption and conflicts of interest.