By Mish Shedlock of MishTalk
If you are in the hospital emergency room, and that’s where most people without insurance go, then you get treated. Otherwise, many hospitals are turning to pay in advance for services.
Please Pay in Advance
The Wall Street Journal reports Hospitals Are Refusing to Do Surgeries Unless You Pay in Full First
For years, hospitals and surgery centers waited to perform procedures before sending bills to patients. That often left them chasing after patients for payment, repeatedly sending invoices and enlisting debt collectors.
Now, more hospitals and surgery centers are demanding patients pay in advance.
Advance billing helps the facilities avoid hounding patients to settle up. Yet it is distressing patients who must come up with thousands of dollars while struggling with serious conditions.
Those who can’t come up with the sums have been forced to put off procedures. Some who paid up discovered later they were overcharged, then had to fight for refunds.
Among the procedures that hospitals and surgery centers are seeking prepayments for are knee replacements, CT scans and births.
Federal law requires hospitals to take care of people in an emergency. Hospitals say they don’t turn away patients who need medical care urgently for lack of prepayment.
They are seeking advance payment for nonemergencies, they say, because chasing unpaid bills is challenging and costly. Roughly half the debt hospitals wrote off last year was owed by patients with insurance, the Kodiak analysis found.
Finding money for treatment is a challenge for many American households. Half of adults say they can’t afford to spend more than $500 on medical care should they be suddenly sick or injured, a survey by health policy nonprofit KFF found. They would need to borrow.
No Skin in the Game
It’s interesting to note that hospitals want payment in advance for births. Most illegals just walk in and never pay for anything.
Nonpayment is one of the reasons costs are soaring for everyone who does pay. Medicare for all is not the answer. When consumers have no skin in the game, no one is interested in reducing costs.
Pets Treated Better Than Humans
Much money is wasted on keeping people alive who have less than a year to live.
We treat our pets in pain better than we treat humans. I just went through that myself. Our 15-year-old dog lost his eyesight due to ruptured eyes and was running into walls. He was in pain and could not see.
The total bill for that crying experience was only $232.
Right to Die
If what happened to our dog happened to me, I would want to go. Someone else might not.
But for those who cannot pay for services and don’t have insurance, I suggest they should be given painkillers only, or select a right to die.
We need to prioritize. And the only way for that to happen is for people to have some skin in the game.
Something Wrong Somewhere
Something is wrong somewhere when half of adults do not have $500 dollars to any emergency (auto repairs, medical, and home repairs).
Inflation is certainly a problem. Thank Biden, the Fed, and Congress (both parties) for that.
Ridiculous regulations are part of the cost. Medical malpractice insurance and lawsuits are a problem.
The minute someone tries to discuss these things, the Right starts screaming about “death squads”.
With millions of aging boomers, this problem is only going to get worse.
