General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Obama administration quietly approves new Obamacare loophole benefiting insurance companies. [View all]McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)nothing. I had a patient who got his brain tumor removed on a weekend and the insurance used that as an excuse to avoid paying for it for over a year. As if they were ever going to say "No, we don't think that tumor that is causing pressure on the brain and seizures needs to be taken out" (Note, I am not talking about a pituitary adenoma which is the straw man they usual bring up when talking about refusals to cover care for "brain tumors", this was a real though not malignant tumor that was doing real pressure damage).
Some of the "outrage" is over real stuff and some of it is over just ordinary stuff. This does not strike me as outrageous. For example. I took my son to an ER for a single albuterol updraft treatment because I was out of town and did not have his inhaler. The charge? $5000. The insurance would not pay. Of course they wouldn't pay. Who would pay that much? A whole nebulizer machine only costs about $150. Do you really want your ACA insurance to be required to pay $5000 for a single nebulizer treatment because some crazy hospital ER thinks it can get away with charging that much?
Story has a happy ending. I did my residency there. I called the billing office, reminded them I did my residency there, suggested $5000 for an updraft was too much and that they really wanted to write that one off for an alumnus. But imagine what they are doing to people who did not do a medical residency there? Eeks!