Monterey, CA Hospitals Jacking Up Rates For Common Procedures

Despite our nation's health care reform laws which are, in part, designed to reduce the cost of health care for government programs like Medicare and Medi-Cal, a new study found that the cost of many common procedures surged in 2012 for Medicare patients.  Although Medicare has pre-arranged rates with hospitals, the "retail" cost has gone up dramatically.  Many believe that this is being done by hospitals in order to encourage poor people to buy insurance through exchanges rather than go to the hospital with no insurance and generate a huge bill.  Even those with regular insurance get hurt badly when these rate cards go up.  I have a 20% co-pay on both emergency room and inpatient hospital visits.  A hospital visit can easily rack up $10K to $50K which would result in a co-pay of $2K to $10K.  "You're seeing a lot more benefit packages out there with co-insurance amounts that require the holders to pay 20% of a lab test or 20% of an X-ray.  Well, twenty percent of what price," Glenn Melnick, a professor who holds a Blue Cross of California endowed chair at the University of Southern California, told The New York Times.  "Some hospitals will charge 20 percent of what Blue Cross Blue Shield will pay; others will play games," he said.  Sadly, the recent study found that hospitals charged more for every one of 98 common ailments which could be compared to the previous year and in all but seven cases, the increase exceeded 2%.  If you end up with a large out-of-pocket hospital expense, it's well worth arguing with them about it.

Please note that this blog reflects my personal opinion and may or may not reflect the opinion of Hands to Help Seniors and the individual members comprising the Board of Governors.