Monday, January 28, 2013

OUTRAGE of the Day: If you go to the office of a doctor affiliated with a hospital, WATCH YOUR WALLET!

Robert Reed’s visit to a suburban dermatologist’s office last year seemed ordinary: He was led into a small exam room with a scratchy paper-covered table, where the doctor inspected his skin and squirted liquid nitrogen onto three pre-cancerous spots. 
The statement he received a month later appeared anything but ordinary: It included $1,525 in “operating room’’ and hospital “facility’’ charges. Surely, Reed thought, it must be a mistake. There had been no hospital, no anesthesia, no surgical nurse. 
[...] 
This practice is common and has become more widespread in the past several years as hospitals across the United States buy up physician practices in the community. Now, facility fees for off-site care are drawing scrutiny from Medicare, some insurers, and consumers, who say that they are unfair and that hospitals are collecting more revenue and driving up health care costs.
Read the whole story HERE.

Bottom line... make sure you ask any doctor you need to make an appointment with if there is a 'Facility Fee' involved in the office visit...or you could get a BIG SURPRISE when the bill comes through the mail.

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