Thread time!
On January 28, Scott Kohan was violently attacked and left unconscious in downtown Austin. He woke up in the ER with his jaw broken in two places. (1/10)pic.twitter.com/Jcqf9aDC9G
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This type of billing happens pretty frequently, especially where Scott lives in Texas. One study estimates that for his insurance, a staggering number of ER’s in Texas have *zero* in-network doctors: https://forabettertexas.org/surprisebills/img/2017_HW_SurpriseMedBill.pdf5 … (5/10)
After I called the oral surgeon’s office, Scott found out they planned to reverse the bill entirely. Which is great for him - but still leaves this really big problem of out-of-network providers at in-network facilities for a whole bunch of other patients. (6/10)
This is actually an area where the policy solutions are actually really clear and decently easy!
Like this one from @zackcooperYale:
https://twitter.com/zackcooperYale/status/999266641639862272 …
(7/10)
Or this one from @LorenAdler and co. At Brookings: https://www.brookings.edu/research/solving-surprise-medical-bills/ …
There are so many really hard to fix problems in health care. This just isn’t one of them.
(8/10)
This is another story from Vox’s ER billing database. We’ve received bills from over 1,300 patients at this point who live in all 50 states. (9/10)pic.twitter.com/vl08mW07dk
Want to help us further this reporting? Submit your bill. Or share the database with someone you know who has been to the ER recently. It would be a big help. http://erbills.vox.com (10/10)
Screwed up my first tweet! Should have been a photo credit there for @ilanaPL, who took the fantastic photos for this story! (11/10)
this happened in my unexpected c-section. Two random doctors apparently showed up at some point and did something; it took two tries to appeal the $1300 extra bill. Weirdly, we weren't quizzing everyone in the OR about their networks while our son was being born.
So it says that when Kohan's doctor resubmitted the claim, he increased the price by $2,300? Why was he allowed to do that?
That's not how that works. If he was seen at the ER, the IRS 501R rule requires all not for profit hospitals to provide the patient with a cap of his bill at their largest contract payer. Usually there is a crime victims fund to pay out of pocket costs also.
Another thing is that the claims may have been denied, but since it was a medical emergency he can appeal the decision of the insurance company or file a grievance with the attorney general of Texas. #somanyoptions
This happened to me when my daughter was born and taken to the NICU. I was hit with bill after bill because the NICU doctors weren’t in network even though the ob/hospital were. Emergency services and they expect you to ask/let alone do something about it??
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