This maybe the answer. Request a Lab Order from your doctor for the Lab your insurance covers rather than going to the Lab at your Villages Health Care Center.

I get charged $20 just for the blood work where I am sent.

This is an important point. If your insurance plan has a preferred lab relationship and you use a different lab, there well could be a co-pay. And just as an FYI, hospital lab costs are almost always more than a commercial lab like Quest or Labcorp. The commercial labs have much higher volumes and can therefore do tests at a lower cost.

Health care billing
 

This happens everywhere now, including dentists. As others have said, study the details of your bills and raise questions.

On an initial new patient visit to Villages Health, I was asked if I had had a colonoscopy recently. I answered yes and said the results were fine. My bill said "colonoscopy evaluation: $200."

Medicare and insurance companies are continually reducing what they pay physicians. Medical practices are forced to play a coding game in order to eke out every nickle -- e.g. one charge for talking to you, another charge for poking you where it hurts, and other charge to apply a band aid. It's only going to get worse.

Watch out for the "up-selling," as well. For example, being asked if you want to update your tetanus shot while you're there. Sound like good advice , but also another charge and, depending on your insurance or your pocketbook, could be something to think about before saying yes.

I recently discovered my dentist routinely applies a fluoride treatment after doing a cleaning -- another dubious practice. I wasn't even being asked if I wanted it. The coating wears off in days, and many dentists believe fluoride does little good for adults.

Adding insult, my cardiologist is pushing vitamin supplements, which he stocks and sells, and also promotes his wife's electrotherapy practice as the answer to my back pains.

It is what is is. But I, like many of you, can remember going to the family doctor meant he or she treated everything from a cold to a broken bone in one visit, with one bill. And if father was laid off, you might be able to pay with a chicken dinner and homemade pie.

Wake up people, The Villages Hospital will cover there a..s, and charge higher prices than other hospitals, like Ocala and Leesburg. The refused to take me in an emergency situation, and charged me for an overnight stay, knowing I was a Vet, and did not notify them, never, never will i step foot in that hospital again. :rant-rave:

I went to a new doctor in TV (I am only here in TV since the end of June) and before he would treat anything he insisted on a full blood panel because I hadn't had it done since June. I said it's only been 3 months and you have the results. He said, "Well, things can change in 3 months". Everything was fine 3 months ago. I was pretty annoyed but felt I had no choice. All I wanted was a cortisone shot for arthritis which I have had before with my old doctors back home. I had to make a 2nd appt for this after the results were in. At my 2nd appt the results were in, all is the same as before, I got my shot and I was informed that I had to make an appt for 6 months out and have yet MORE bloodwork as a follow-up or they wouldn't see me again. I protested but they said it's office policy if I wanted to have them as my family doctor. I have never felt this medical blackmail before at any doctor's office ever. I am so disgusted by the doctors here. I also felt it at my vet after she made me come back for an unnecessary bandage check on my dog. I am limited to what practice I can use for myself because I have an insurance company that is not a common one and not many doctors take that kind. Overall, I am not a happy camper about the medical field in Florida so far. I think they are all ripoffs, and that includes the dentist who insisted on a full set of xrays before cleaning when I had them done only 3 months prior. Shame on ALL of them. Where are their ethics?

I also asked for an order for my next blood work after having received the letter from my provider saying they were going to be charging for an office visit for blood work. I also will go to Alliance where I can go without an appointment, at my convenience, and where they provide coffee and muffins if you want it.
The Doctor's office did not object to giving me the order.

Believe me, you'll pay for the coffee and muffins.

The receptionist at my dr's office gave me the stink eye recently when I asked for an order for my blood work instead of having it drawn at their office. They don't charge a co-pay (yet, but thanks for the heads-up!) but Quest is closer and more convenient, plus I can make an appointment there and not wait.

I've also refused to have those repeat, multiple X-rays at the dentist before. They don't like it but nobody's kicked me out.

Enough, already!

A Fraud?
 

But Gracie -- isn't it the doctors who have instituted these "rules" regarding blood pressure, etc.? It sounds bogus to me. I don't know what the Medicare laws say, but I smell a fish. It just doesn't make sense to me.

I would call Medicare to see if the simple act of a tech taking blood pressure and not seeing a doctor constitutes an office visit.[/SIZE][/FONT][/B]

I just dealt with them on this issue as well. I called to correct a bill I received for a copay for lab work. I told them I have never been charged a copay for any lab work and I have not received notice of changes to this policy from my insurance. Villages Health informed me it was my health insurance's policy. Of course, I will call my insurance but this forum just helped me clarify what is happening. Thank you! It is Villages Health's right to do business that way (which needs to be challenged) and my right to return to Quest when I need lab work. VH was convenient. I can't afford their convenience.

I noticed on both my husbands and my insurance statements that we are indeed being charged 35.00 for and office visit along with whatever blood tests the doctor ordered every time we have blood work done which is every 6 months. My question is, if we refuse to have our blood pressure taken do they still charge you for an "office visit?"

If you refuse, they won't bill you for a office visit. That's what I was told by the billing clerk.

The preceding testimonies support what I have explained for a number of years on this forum and one of the reasons I chose to align with Munroe.

You name it and you will find that its all up selling and squeezing every bit of profit that can be made in this community. Some will label it good business out of affinity or perhaps an unawareness. However, its clear to me that in this community the residents are thought to be a captive audience or perhaps low lying fruit. You know that characterization of rich retirees who can't wait to liquidate their savings and most having medicare and other forms of insurance.

Perhaps some may conclude that this is all being done to obtain the best medical care for residents. If you believe that then you may want to re-visit the standards set by Medicare, your health care supplement, etc.

Personally, I am my own health care advocate. When I first arrived here 8 years ago, The Villages Hospital wanted to charge me $1430 for a procedure I felt could be done in the doctors office and that was only my share and not the insurance company. The doctor did refer me. I was shocked at the price for a room where I would not occupy for more than 15 minutes. I called the surgeon and told him I walked out of the hospital pre-admitting area and that he could do this simple procedure in his office, despite his recommendation. He said it would hurt. I told him I would bite on a stick. He did do it and it didn't hurt. I have no love for insurance companies but I abhor this kind of nonsense more and won't be a part of it

I opine others can decide