Doctor Bills

[HBalzer]

My wife gave birth to our son last October. My son had fluid in his lungs and was in the Nursery ICU for 3 days on oxygen. Since then we have received various bills from doctors I never met saying our insurance company only paid part and we are responsible for the rest $900+. On the bill it just has the doctors name for the day and a price one day $460 another $421 and the last day $685.

So my question is if I called and asked for an itemized list of expenses do you think they could give me one or do they just pull these prices out of the air?



By the way I'm not paying my insurance benefits say $250 copay and everything is covered %100 so i called them to deal with it.

 

[BriGy86]

you should be able to get an itemized list, if anything it should say a large amount for doctor fee or something (like labor on a computer or car)

some hospitals have charged people for certain proceedures that are only supposed to be done on new borns, yet they show up and bills for people in for broken bones and what not

 

[TwiceOver]

Going by the massive bill that I will be paying off over the next year or so... Yes, they just pull numbers out of their a$$ and send you a bill.

 

[mephiston5]

Generally, hospital rates are at least somewhat based on how much Medicare is willing to reimburse the hospital for said service.

Basically, Medicare will tell the hospital how much they are willing to pay for something, and then the hospital adds their mark up to it. Knowing that most private insurance programs are willing to cover about 120% (just guessing) of the Medicare price.

At least that is my somewhat limted understanding.

 

[Cooler]

Yes get an itemized list. I always do. I once did find service that they claimed to have performed which never happen and after few call I got it removed from my bill.

 

[Smartazz]

Know anyone that works in a hospital?