Seniors have to question hospital costs???

[hockeypuck]

Today it took 2.5 hours and 5 different [phone calls to finally come up with a realistic costs for my wife's upcoming surgery??Hospital called yesterday and said we need 1200,00 so you can enter the hospital and have your hand surgery? Why? Why so much? She has insurance and it pays 80-20 and her deductible has been met.She had options of going to the OP surgery center in Lady Lake si I called them and they told me to get a CPT code and no one either knew what that was or did not want to provide it too me? Finally with the threat of contacting the President of the hospital, it was instantly located in paperwork? SURPRISE!!!!--After acquiring this information I contacted the office manager and provided her the code and she called me back and said the surgery would costs 75.00!!!! So question anything to do with money PLEASE

[Bogie Shooter]

Today it took 2.5 hours and 5 different [phone calls to finally come up with a realistic costs for my wife's upcoming surgery??Hospital called yesterday and said we need 1200,00 so you can enter the hospital and have your hand surgery? Why? Why so much? She has insurance and it pays 80-20 and her deductible has been met.She had options of going to the OP surgery center in Lady Lake si I called them and they told me to get a CPT code and no one either knew what that was or did not want to provide it too me? Finally with the threat of contacting the President of the hospital, it was instantly located in paperwork? SURPRISE!!!!--After acquiring this information I contacted the office manager and provided her the code and she called me back and said the surgery would costs 75.00!!!! So question anything to do with money PLEASE

Yep, always question when money is involved,,,,in any transaction,,,,,not just medical.

[gomoho]

In my mind taking the mystery out of this medical coding would go along way towards understanding our health care system.

[tucson]

Today it took 2.5 hours and 5 different [phone calls to finally come up with a realistic costs for my wife's upcoming surgery??Hospital called yesterday and said we need 1200,00 so you can enter the hospital and have your hand surgery? Why? Why so much? She has insurance and it pays 80-20 and her deductible has been met.She had options of going to the OP surgery center in Lady Lake si I called them and they told me to get a CPT code and no one either knew what that was or did not want to provide it too me? Finally with the threat of contacting the President of the hospital, it was instantly located in paperwork? SURPRISE!!!!--After acquiring this information I contacted the office manager and provided her the code and she called me back and said the surgery would costs 75.00!!!! So question anything to do with money PLEASE

I'm thinking after reading about your problem that it could've been a potential fraud event. I've had similar problems in the past and when I'm having the conversation via phone call, I always ask the name of the person I'm speaking to and also for the name and ph.# of the supervisor in charge. After that ,it's so weird, that things change pretty quickly.

[Mikitv]

CPT codes are nothing more than a diagnostic and procedure code they use for billing purposes. Seems like when you call these offices their staffs are too lazy to provide customer service unless you get tough with them. Just my opinion.

[Bryan]

CPT stands for Current Procedural Terminology and is just a common way of coding various medical procedures for billing and insurance purposes. It is easy to Google a code to find out what it means. much harder to know how to code a broken arm or something like that. To complicate that (no one in government believes in KISS) one 'medical condition' can lead to multiple billings - different code for the office visit, the x-ray, the diagnosis of the x-ray, the actual 'procedure' to fix the medical condition, the consulting doctor who took a look also, and on and on and on. Some people (usually working for clinics, hospitals, etc.) make a decent living because they are whizzes at CPT coding. There are courses just to train people to code CPT coding on bills to "maximize" the medical community bill/insurance reimbursement.

[asianthree]

no one is perfect...always look at the statement...saved my parents few thousand each hospital visit