Comments for Healthcare Horror: Care Denied Over $7 Debt for Insured Patient ...by Donna Smith »
Posted By jovial 5 months ago in Health & FitnessOK, if this wasn't personal enough just yet for me, it just got a whole lot more so. And if you think for one instant that in this nation at this point in history and with this popularly elected President and Democratic Congress you will be treated for a heart attack simply because you might die if you are not treated, think again. And if you think having insurance helps, think some more.
On Friday, my husband was denied a blood test because a computer record from some distant time past and some other state showed he had a $7 balance with LabCorp. I am not making this up.
Read Full Story at michaelmoore.com »
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libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned2 Replies
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Endoscopy5 months ago
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All I have to do is see the place where the story is placed. That tells me it is probably faked or extremely exaggerated. Moore is so biased he would thing that anything to promote his cause is just fine. He has had no problem telling lies before so why should this be any different.
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The whole rant is about insurance and Medicare while the real problem in this case is with the health care provider wanting a whole $7 to be paid first. My lab work is billed to the insurance company and then the rest if billed to me. I guess they ignored to pay it one time.
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tadair9195 months ago
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big deal. he can't get his blood work until he pays $7. give me a fsking break.
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obviously it wasn't life threatening, otherwise they would have treated him.
this person is so stupid, they even returned a second time sans the 7 bucks and still asked to be treated for free.
I think this sentence pretty much sums up how her mind is completely infested with the the idiotic socialistic mind-set:
"Did my husband return to the doctor's office to tell them what happened and ask for their help? Yes. And he said not one person, not one, would reach into their pockets and give him the $7..."
Who the heck should give these lunatics $7?
"We'll get the tests done somehow."
Gee, how about by bringing the $7 you owe. Maybe on your third visit?-
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libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned4 Replies
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willottica5 months ago
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Based on the article, I was sortof wondering the same thing. Why not just pay the $7? It really can't be a stand on principle, because there's no mention that he doesn't owe the money. So why doesn't he pay?
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On the other hand, it's freakin' $7, people. Do the tests and make him pay for it later - send him to collections if you have to over the $7. Kinda like when I have an overdue fine of (what would the equivalent be, 25 cents?) at Blockbuster, and though it's against official policy, they let me rent another movie anyway, and ask me to make sure I bring enough to pay the fine next time.
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tadair9195 months ago
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if you believe in karma, then you must also believe that "hoping bad karma gets me" will beget bad karma getting you. how about that, little one?
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I see you glazed over the post above where I said that it already happened to me. The government-operated Department of Motor Vehicle put me into an antagonizing bureaucratic loop over a late insurance payment rendering my car inoperable until I sent them a fax proving my insurance. And I don't even have a fax machine. I had to go to Kinkos costing me more time and money to go with the, arbitrary DMV fines.
It's how government works.
But I didn't show up to the DMV demanding somebody else pay for my fsking bill. Surely somebody should "make a call," or "pull out their wallets" for me. Poor, poor me. What am I to do if I don't have the government to do everything for me?-
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tadair9195 months ago
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callous? hardly. since you obviously didn't get the connection. please, allow me to cut this up and feed it to you in smaller chunks.
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this is a letter from a socialist damning the capitalistic system for its' "failure" to provide service to her husband because they still owed a measly $7.
this letter was posted on michael moore's website, who promotes a government-controlled heath-care system.
the intention was to fuel the government-must-control-our-health care fire.
my response was that of another example of how the a government-controlled institution can be just as bad, if not worse.
still with me?
in conclusion, my philosophy on life does not mandate that i would ever expect other people to pick up the slack for me. i would never expect somebody to pull their wallets out and give me $7 like this codependant socialist scum of the planet who kept showing up to the doctors office without the money.-
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jovial5 months ago
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Don't cut any thing up for me. If you had something worth a damn saying then you should have spelled it out clearly from the git. You purposely framed your fetid comment that way realizing the ambiguity. You can have the last word, because frankly, I don't want to talk to you anymore.
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oneironaut4205 months ago
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'if you believe in karma, then you must also believe that "hoping bad karma gets me" will beget bad karma getting you.'
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And actually, even telling him that would be considered bad karma to you, as well. 8)
Ah, the never-ending wheel of Universal Justice... 8P
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sonofreasonComment removed: Hard Banned
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Newenglander5 months ago
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You must be a good conservative Christian you fricken turd ball. I try and understand the conservative mind but it is so foreign and completely void of any consideration of other human beings. If there were a hell you and your fellow cons would burn in it for all eternity 8-P
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libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned5 Replies
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sonofreasonComment removed: Hard Banned14 Replies
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tadair9195 months ago
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doppich5 months ago
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Brad Delong correctly described the problems with a public plan:
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"It would be able to provide people with better health care more cheaply, and would drive the private-insurance companies out of business, and their executives would lose their jobs and be sad, and their shareholders would lose their money and be sad, and their lobbyists would lose their jobs and be sad, and their tame legislators would lose their campaign contributions and be sad."-
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tadair9195 months ago
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there's a simple solution. stop treating corporations like people and eliminate fictitious entity "corporation rights." that way, if you want to lobby, then you have to hire them yourself, where you are under the same laws as everyone else.
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flyonthewallzz5 months ago
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http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/06co06ccr.xls
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“Table 6--Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Tax, and Selected Other Items, by Major Industry” FY2006
This is an interesting spread sheet from the IRS:
Total receipts….(in thousands)
Offices of health practitioners and outpatient care centers..380,719,396
Miscellaneous health care and social assistance…………….85,574,284
Hospitals, nursing, and residential care facilities…..112,644,399
Total for Health care and social assistance…………578,938,079
Credit intermediation………………………………… 598,137,435
Securities, commodity contracts, other financial
investments, and related activities…………………… 625,136,870
Insurance carriers and related activities…………….. 1,948,421,156
Funds, trusts, and other financial vehicles……………. 575,806,181
Total for Finance and insurance…………………… 3,747,501,642
Chemical manufacturing………………………….. 874,118,578
All active corporation receipts……….. 27,401,873,714
Well: this may appear to be apples to oranges but it is the closest to perspective I can find. Health care costs about $2 trillion. I think it would be conservative and fair to say that providers only realize about ½ of those costs.
These numbers give me hope, and it appears to me that the inefficiencies are not as dramatic with the providers as much as with the vestigial vendors.
tadair: I did not mean to hit the pos on your comment, but did not want to leave it a neg.
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jovial5 months ago
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Kind of reminds me of the that part in the "Sicko" movie where a woman was billed for her emergency room visit. They said she didn't have pre-authorization. The details show that she was involved in a head-on collision and was unconscious when she arrived for treatment. When exactly was the time she was supposed to get pre-authorization? Before she had the accident or after?
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injest5 months ago
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Who T/F is Donna Smith
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Donna Smith
"Donna Smith is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Colorado College with a degree in history. Her journalism career includes work as a stringer for NEWSWEEK magazine."
And she can’t pay a $7 dollar bill?
"She has been honored by the Associated Press Managing Editors with 15 regional awards from 2004-2006 and by the Inland Press Association's top honor in 2006 for community-based journalism. Since 2007, she has co-chaired the Progressive Democrats of America's national "Healthcare Not Warfare" campaign, and she has so far spoken in 41 states and the District of Columbia about single-payer healthcare reform."
And she can’t pay a $7 dollar bill? Oh “single-payer healthcare activist” that explains why her husband was begging for “other people to pay his bill!
And on May 22, 2009 Donna Smith. On PBS Bill Moyer show, hawking her as a
“community organizer and legislative advocate for the California Nurses Association, whose 85,000 members across the country were early champions of a single-payer”
"But she is best know her major role in Michael Moore's 2007 “SiCKO”
So lets recap, okay!
Donna Smith is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate.
And she can’t pay a $7 dollar bill?
legislative advocate for the California Nurses Association
And she can’t pay a $7 dollar bill?
Journalist for NEWSWEEK magazine.
And she can’t pay a $7 dollar bill?
Since 2007, she has co-chaired the Progressive Democrats of America's national "Healthcare Not Warfare".
And she can’t pay a $7 dollar bill?
Donna Smith is best known for her major role in Michael Moore's 2007. “SiCKO”
And she can’t pay a $7 dollar bill? (okay that’s not fair cuz we all know MM won’t pay anyone)
Seriously, nothing will fix this, You can’t fix stupid and this woman is an idiot!-
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jovial5 months ago
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She shouldn't be denied the healthcare for 7 dollars. While you're digging for info don't pass this up.
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http://www.g2reports.com/issues/LIR/2009_4/1620164...
California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown has joined a civil suit against seven clinical laboratories—including national leaders Quest Diagnostics (Madison, N.J.) and LabCorp (Burlington, N.C.)—alleging that the defendants charged the state’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, up to six times more for tests compared to other clients over the past 15 years.-
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Endoscopy5 months ago
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You are saying thqat the fee of $7 dollars is to be ignored. That the service provider is not to be paid. Did this person tell the provider they had financial problems? I assume that they have credit cards if not cash on their persons. What is the big deal over paying the money owed. Is the request unreasonable to have with people of means? I guess you think everything should be free for people like them who have the means to pay. You are being very silly.
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jovial5 months ago
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Here's some typical compalints...
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"For quite some time I have been going to LabCorp in EastLake Fla. Because they are a PPO Provider on my insurance plan. As they did every other time they took my insurance card that has PPO provider right on the front – did a full blood panel etc. Then came the bill over $400 … nothing had been PPO’d – my insurance covered -0- -- ok I call their billing was told they needed to submit it through their North Carolina offices not Florida. They resubmit it and again nothing but a $400+ bill. I call my carrier BCBC – PPO – they tell me LabCorp pulled out and did not renew their PPO agreement therefore No PPO deductions ! but since there have been so many people making the same complaint they would review the bill and get back to me, well needless to say – their answer .. no coverage. This is crazy ! LabCorp photocopied my card – submitted the bill and they have not been notifying patients they are no longer in the PPO network and sticking us with a bill 4 times what it normally would be .. this is crazy and I feel like I have been taken advantage of knowing fully there isn’t anything I can do about it – because no one will help. Now I am stuck with a bill for services I would have had done somewhere else had they been honest enough to advise they were no longer associated with the carrier."-
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willottica5 months ago
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Not really. I mean, it seems outrageous that they would refuse service based on a $7 outstanding charge... but there's nothing in the story to indicate why the guy couldn't just pay the $7 and solve the problem. Why should I feel sorry for a guy with a problem, if the solution to said problem is easily within his reach and he refuses to solve it?
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If there's some bizarre reason this guy can't raise the $7 required, then why isn't it in the story? I'd give the guy the money myself if his reason were good. I'm happy to do a guy a favor, and would hope other people would do the same... but you can't expect or require exceptions and charity or they wouldn't be exceptional nor charitable.-
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jovial5 months ago
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There's nothing in the story that says the lab shouldn't provide the service and talk about billing later. I don't know about Canada, but here in America they have a bunch of "for hire" bulldog agencies called collections that will harass you day and night until you pay. They should have provided the service, got his billing address and phone number, and sent it to collections. This company is not new to this procedure. Not providing service is criminal. If this person were to die due to a denial of service, it would be devastating.
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Candida5 months ago
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I agree with you. I can't see why the lab couldn't just add the $7 to the current bill.
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I assume there are collection agencies in Canada too, but I don't think they get much business from health care because patients are not billed for medical services. It's between the doctor/lab and the government. No preauthorization, no limits on which doctors or labs the patient can see, and no bills. The only bill I paid in the past 30 years or so was a $7.20 telephone bill after a two-day stay at a hospital.-
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Endoscopy5 months ago
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Read this and tell me I am wrong.
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http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_hea...
Or how about this one.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/canada.asp-
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willottica5 months ago
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Read them both.
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You're wrong.
Try reading the Snopes one again. The letter is quite thoroughly debunked.
The first one is from an New York magazine. It contains several misleading statements:
- Approval of drugs is done separately from the US approval, we have our own organization, and not all drugs approved by the FDA are approved by the Canadian Drug Association (and vice versa).
- Dirty hospitals. Never seen one in Canada. Oh right, the author decided to switch to an isolated case in England for that one.
- The trend to privatization: yes, some doctors realize there's money to be made by letting people jump the lines and get priority service. But this usually just takes a doctor out of the public system and makes the burden that much worse for everyone else. The same doctors working in a private system would be able to treat the same number of patients as now. Only difference is, those patients would consistently be the rich, and the poor would consistently lack treatment.
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doppich5 months ago
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I had a similar problem with an anesthesiology practice, whose agreement with BCBS had lapsed for a few weeks - and that included the day of my surgery. I ended up negotiating and agreeing to pay the BCBS allowance. (As you probably know, the bill sent to me was considerably more than the allowance.) The next time I had surgery, I asked the anesthesiologist (before he connected me) whether he was participating with BCBS and he said he wasn't involved with that process and didn't know anything about it.
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jovial5 months ago
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They practice something called delayed billing. In other words they come up with some extra charges after the services have already been settled with the insurance company. They go after you because they aren't about to take on the insurance companies. They know you have little recourse but to pay the bill or pay costly legal fees to fight it.
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http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/339/RipOff03...
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tchef5 months ago
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It's not the matter that he couldn't pay the $7, He didn't have it with him. He had been covered constantly by his insurance, he shouldn't have owed anything. Once again the insurance company is ducking their responsibility to pay the bills on time. You miss one premium and your gone. Health insurance should not be for profit.
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ssfahrer5 months ago
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I guess you have no concept of a "co-payment". Most times a sample of blood, urine, etc. is taken by a doctor and sent to the lab. The doctor does NOT bill the patient; instead the lab bills the patient AFTER the test is done (the co-payment). Obviously, the patient in question "neglected" to pay such a bill when it was sent to him way back when.
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(Actually, he was getting off easy: a bill of $ 7.00 at even 3% interest per year for late payment can add up to far more than $ 7.00 owed. He should have paid up or else the fact of compound interest would have made him shut up permanently.....) -
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injest5 months ago
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jovial
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“Kind of reminds me of the that part in the "Sicko" movie where a woman was billed for her emergency room visit. They said she didn't have pre-authorization. The details show that she was involved in a head-on collision and was unconscious when she arrived for treatment.”
Amazing coincidence Donna Smith was in that movie as well!
donna Says: June 16th, 2007 at 3:35 pm ... Then Aetna claimed it was a “pre-existing condition” for which I had not gotten proper pre-authorization-
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jovial5 months ago
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And..what is the point? I know, just pay the 7 dollars and shut up. If you want to live pay, or else you will die for that 7 dollars. The reason she is such an advocate for universal healthcare is because of her own experiences. She took up the cause after being screwed by the insurance companies.
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CHAM5 months ago
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I never cease to have problems with LabCorp. And this has been going on for the last ten years. They never pay for any lab work that is sent in by my clinic without sending me a bill stating that my Insurance Company has denied payment.
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When I call my Insurance Company, they always tell me they haven't received a claim from LabCorp. I always find the problem to be that they - LabCorp, have made an error in their claim, the policy number, or the clinical number for the procedure. It always gets straightened out after several calls etc, but it never stops happening. I think they do it so that some people will pay never knowing that their Insurance Company might have already paid. Something that I have also had occur, "they made a mistake", they had already been paid.
I hate the fact that my Doctor uses LabCorp. I feel for the woman. I've been there with LabCorp. -
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canadianrancher575 months ago
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I really don't know much about your medical insurance system down there so I have a very simple question, when one visits a doctor or has to have tests done is there a deductible that has to be paid. I'm just curious how someone would only owe $7 for anything that is related to medical services.
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tchef5 months ago
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This is the problem with our health care. Insurance companies change the rules without proper notice. Anyone who tries to tell you that if the government gets into the health care business it will become a bureaucratic mess obviously hasn't dealt with an insurance company. It already is a bureaucratic mess. When my Wife had our last child it took 8 months to get the hospital bill. That's how long it took the insurance company to settle their end of the bill. When my other daughter was born under medical assistance it was paid right away. We knew what we owned and settled before leaving the hospital.
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CHAM5 months ago
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That's right Tchef. A couple of those LabCorp instances that I referred to took around 8 months to get settled. And I would say that about half the time they sent my insurance claim to the wrong Insurance Company.
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I had Empire State Blue Cross before retiring. After retiring I had a different Insurance Company for MediPak. Invariably Lab Corp would sent the claim to Empire and after the second time that happened, I called the LabCorp Home Office and told them to pay attention that the clinic copied my Insurance Cards and if they would look they would see it wasn't Empire. They thanked me and said it was corrected. The next claim they did it again, and the next claim, and the next.
I don't have any problem with my Medicare. Makes me feel good about a Government Option if available.
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CHAM5 months ago
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Wolfie and all the rest of you who take the position that Wolfie did:
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I said LabCorp was notorious about billing and mistakes. They have also been sued for fraud.
My question was - did Ms. Smith owe the $7? Or did she even know that there was a claim that she owed $7 prior to the denial?
I've dealt with LabCorp for 10 years and nothing from that company would surprise me.
They should be banned from doing business. They have been known to try to double and even triple bill a patient, for example, ME!
Are you people listening?
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