Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

GTAIVisbest t1_iy6lr4v wrote

Reply to comment by Chippopotanuse in NY ends home liens, wage garnishments in medical-debt collection. What you should know. by General-Wishbone-214

Wait so the average plan has like a $7,000 max yearly out-of-pocket or something. Max YOOPM is like $9k IIRC. If you have to go to the hospital and get a 100k bill, provided you chose to go to an in-network facility (or you were incapacitated), you just need to pay whatever balance was remaining on that ~$7,000 worst case scenario. Are these people illegally uninsured or something?

−12

DearMrsLeading t1_iy6nil7 wrote

I had a surgery and it turned out my anesthesiologist wasn’t covered by my insurance, I was responsible for the entire cost of his services despite never having a choice of who I got. Another one of my tests was deemed not medically necessary (it was) and I had to pay for that too. There are a lot of weird loopholes that result in bills.

22

GTAIVisbest t1_iy6yiv3 wrote

No Surprises Act :) they can't balance-bill you for anesthesiologists anymore

7

DearMrsLeading t1_iy6yl4r wrote

Oh, awesome! My surgery was years ago so my info is a bit old.

7

GTAIVisbest t1_iy6z4pj wrote

Yeah, the No Surprises Act was monumental and basically the pinnacle of the Biden administration imho. Before, like you said, an anesthesiologist would just walk in to your room and look at your chart, and you couldn't say anything at all or speak up in time, and BOOM- balance-billed. Nowadays, you'll still get balance-billed, but after spending a dozen hours on the phone or so it gets dropped. Still crappy unpaid work but at least you're not on the hook anymore

4

Fabulous-Ad6844 t1_iy8gu6k wrote

That shit needs to be legislated. If you have no choice then it should be automatically treated as in network. Only Doctors should decide what’s necessary, not insurers.

Well if we can’t have universal here then at least make the system a little fairer. Sigh.

3

Chippopotanuse t1_iy7uobl wrote

Go look into whether helicopters are covered by insurance when you are airlifted somewhere. It’s like $35k. Or ambulance rides. Easily $1k per ride.

Or an insane amount of other “non-covered” expenses.

5

the_eluder t1_iy7exso wrote

And don't forget the amount you spend on premiums. So for most you're actually spending more than 10k before you hit your deductible.

4

UrbanGhost114 t1_iy6sirs wrote

That's just for what the insurance company deems worthy enough to be covered.

3

GTAIVisbest t1_iy6yvk0 wrote

It's no secret that you have to take up a full-time job as your own advocate to coordinate between the provider and your insurance company. You have to untangle coding mistakes and do a bunch of stuff that usually requires about 3-4 full days of full time phone work, following up with people, escalating, etc. It always follows the path of least resistance and when the customer doesn't speak up the system crushes them. There are a lot of weird loopholes that result in bills, but a couple dozen hours of phone and coordination work will result in those bills getting dropped, or paid for, due to the No Surprises Act (as long as you went to an in-network facility)

7

littlebitsofspider t1_iy6z7ji wrote

This entire wall of text doesn't exist for 32 of 33 developed economies in the world. Not a shred. You might pay for parking; that's it.

10

Eizah t1_iy7brwt wrote

Yup. Gave birth a couple of years ago. 3-day hospital stay, everything included. Only had to pay parking, about $20. Sweden.

6