Thursday, June 9, 2011
Itemized Bill
Word of the day...SERIOUSLY??!! The bills have started rolling in. We are requesting itemized bills for everything because we are curious and we just feel that it is a good practice. We saw a charge that just made us laugh: $129 for "removal of impacted ear wax." Because I know that I clean my son's ears on a very regular basis and because I know that at least five people were looking in his ears with otoscopes prior to the procedure, I KNOW that my son's ears were not full of wax. So basically, our insurance was billed $129 for what was probably something you would get on the tip of your Q-tip in the morning. All I can say is that I am obviously in the wrong business if it costs THAT MUCH to get an itty bitty bit of wax out of an infant's ear. We're not talking clogged up Shrek goop here! No wonder insurance premiums are so expensive if this is the type of stuff we're paying for. I had once heard a story from a friend that they were billed $50 for a "surgical bandage" that was just a band-aid. I thought the story must have been greatly exaggerated until this experience. Can someone explain to me how charges like these are justified? What am I missing here?
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Just a late note. Hospitals and physicians offices have a *lot* of expenses for things that cannot be directly billed, such as the cost of keeping an OR ready even when it is not being used. Or the cost of maintaining resuscitation equipment and supplies at the ready at each nursing station, even when they are not being used. (Otherwise, if your child coded, you'd have to hope he lived long enough for the supplies and equipment to be brought up from the basement storage, and hope everything was in working order.) Even the cost of an administration and billing office to be sure things actually run smoothly (or at least partly so).
ReplyDeleteThese unbillable costs get "allocated" to billable items. That is why an aspirin will be billed out much more than the cost at Wal-Mart. The billed amount represents far more than just the aspirin.
I am not saying that this is the case here, since I do not know the details. However, most people know nothing, nor do they want to, about what it takes to keep a hospital or clinic open and operating.
David
Thank you David for this insight. I have friends in the medical community and am aware of such costs. I feel that it would be best to include those costs under a different line item rather than inflating the charge listed for simple items. I do not claim that the system is perfect for either the patient OR the physicians. I simply am pointing out that something is definitely "broken" in the way we currently handle things when there is a charge of $129 for using a Q-tip on my child (yes, I know for certain that he did not have impacted wax). This post was in no way meant to place blame on the medical staff.
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