UPDATE: UnitedHealth Will Cover Teen’s Bone Cancer Procedure
Pacificare, owned by UnitedHeatlh, has decided to deny coverage for Nick Columbo, a 17-year-old dying from bone cancer. Nick has been unresponsive to chemo and his doctors recommend the “CyberKnife” treatment (read their letters here). Nick’s family is holding a protest outside the Pacificare today to try to get the insurance company to change its mind. UnitedHealth is ranked as the worst insurance company in the nation, is being investigated by the state of California, and has been fined over $3.5 million for negligent claims practices. Inside, a plea for help from Nick’s brother.
Pacificare denies 17-year-old cancer patient lifesaving treatment [DailyKos] (Thanks to Evan!)
This is Nick’s older brother, Ricky, and I want to ask all of you for a huge favor. Our insurance company, PacifiCare, denied Nick to go to Kansas City for a special treatment of radiation for his cancer (this could save his life). Nick has suffered with cancer for 4 years of his life and he has exhausted every avenue to get better, but nothing worked. This is our last effort and this procedure has worked before with people in Nick’s situation. I think it is our duty to stand up for Nick and tell PacifiCare that what they are doing is wrong.
I am putting together a demonstration in front of the PacifiCare building at 5701 Katella Ave Cypress, CA 90630. Tuesday, March 25th, at 10:00 a.m. We are getting the media to step in and put pressure on (kcal9 and newspapers).
If we can at least get 300 people there I know they will have to say something about it. I know that my brother isn’t the only one suffering because of America’s poor healthcare system.
If you guys know anyone else that is suffering because of this, have him or her come out too. We need to let not only PacifiCare but America know that what they are doing is wrong and we need change.
Thank all of you so much.
Ricky Colombo
More From Consumerist
-
UnitedHealth Pledges To Keep Reform Provisions Even If Supreme Court Says It Doesn’t Have To
-
Getting Kids Out Of The House Just Got Easier: Summer Jobs For Teens Hit 6-Year High
-
Perhaps The Only Good Thing About Expensive Gas Is The Decrease In Teens Driving Drunk
-
Sears & Olive Garden To Give Workers Money To Go Choose Their Own Health Insurance
-
One In Three Teens Admits To Texting Or E-Mailing While Driving
@mikelotus. Government run health care is “Socialized”. They can socialize medicine after they socialize food and shelter. Oh that sounds unreasonable now doesn’t it but those are more basic needs.
I do have something better to offer: Not-for-profit regulated but PRIVATE health care plans(not insurance). But remember if you want everything done regardless of cost or benefit your health care should cost more than your mortgage.
Subby, I’m very sorry about your brother. I hope you get this resolved somehow.
Just thought you should know that my employer (200,000+ employee company) just dumped UnitedHealth for these very reasons. On one case my employer actually went ahead and paid for the cancer treatment that was denied by UnitedHealth, but that was for an employee though. (Sorry I can’t reveal my employer.)
Fight this tooth and nail though. UnitedHealth is SCUM. They need some chopping at the knees.
@DoctorMD: Interesting that their system seems to be causing a shortage of radiologists while ours causes a shortage of primary care physicians. Or maybe that is not the reason for the shortage and we are about to experience the same thing: [findarticles.com]
Now what is also interesting is we provide more radition treatments when it appears that there is no reason to do this, [www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov]
@Orngbliss: and the answer is? they pay less and they live longer. what is failing about that compared to ours? so what is the answer? I tend to go with what works, which is what, well Europe has. You got something better or is it just knee jerk reaction against single payer?
@Tux the Penguin:” In a public system (socialized/universal/etc), the individual-level rationing is removed since your paying for your care via tax dollars (and taxes, unfortunately, aren’t optional).”
But just like your taxes aren’t optional your healthcare ( at least basic ) in that system would be guaranteed. You could walk in to a hospital and be given treatment without worry. Unlike now where even if you have Healthcare insurance you aren’t guaranteed anything. Your HMO can deny even the most basic of care for seemingly any reason they want. These people have been paying for care they hardly ( if they are average people ) used. Now when they need to full power of the insurance they pay for they are told to take a hike..
How kind of the company to take years worth of his cash and then leave him to die when he needs his HEALTH INSURANCE. I have no problem with the company making money but this is too much. For every case like his ( high cost potentially life-saving treatment ) there are tens of thousands of people paying into the system that don’t need to ( and probably never have to ) collect on the full benefits. The point of insurance is to have a buffer if anything major happens and to be able to get basic care for when you don’t have anything major…
or am I wrong on that?
@DoctorMD: Then many things are socialized, such as Defense. So what? We intervened and got JP Morgan Chase to buy Bear Stearns and guaranteed the loans. Socialized market intervention. So what? You label but offer no proven alternatives. It works much better in Europe. They pay less, they live longer. Show many another system that works better than this mess we have besides that and I’m all for it.
They need to hire Matt Damon…
We are fooling ourselves to think that even in a fantasy world of free and unlimited healthier that our healthiness as a nation would mirror or exceed other countries. If we want the longer longevity and lower healthcare costs of Europe, we must emulate more than their healthcare system.
We also must lower stress (shorter work weeks, longer vacation, more generous leave policies), shorter commute times, less fragmented families, more exercise, bigger emphasis on holistic medicine and natural cures, no fluoridation in water, reduced use of antibiotics, reduced use of immunizations and vaccines, less processed foods, (most foods in the US contain genetically modified organisms, canola oil was originally called rapeseed oil and developed as an industrial lubricant), etc. etc. etc.
Sadly, it is virtually impossible for the average American to live this way.
@SkokieGuy: ” canola oil was originally called rapeseed oil and developed as an industrial lubricant)”
Really? ( not being sarcastic ) Where did you read that.
oh god i think im gonna puke.
this is horrible.
@Tux the Penguin:
Yeah, it’s weird how people get outraged with insurance companies but not the employers who provide these crappy plans. Just because your job gives you “health insurance” doesn’t mean you have Cadillac Care. Read the terms of your plan, understand what’s covered and what’s not, and if you aren’t comfortable with the risk, either buy more coverage or pressure your employer to pick a better plan. In these situations, I think insurance companies trying to enforce a contract and make sure there’s money left to pay for the procedures they actually agreed to cover are the least culpable in sad stories like these.
@slapBOXmaster: [en.wikipedia.org]
@mikelotus: Have you spent time in England? The National Health Service, as it is called in England,is not superior to that of the health care system in America. NHS is an uncaring, and unresponsive form of health care. Yes, treatment is free, but have you ever heard, you get what you pay for? Patients wait months for treatment and sometimes are poorly treated. Many people in England have opted for private Health Care, which is an alternative to the National Health Service.
Before you opt for a national health system, maybe you should do some research on it. There is a waiting list for patients that need hospital treatment, not treatment like a kidney transplant, but minor procedures as well as major. Read this article before you stand up for a national health care:
[www.burtonreport.com]
What I suggest, and I know several people already do this, are health savings accounts, HSA, also known as medical savings accounts, MSA. I believe these types of accounts are tax free. The MSAs allow the individual to be in control of their own health care decisions, rather than a third party. Here is some info on HSAs:
[en.wikipedia.org]
So, as you can see, I have given a lot of thought into the health care system, it is not just a “knee jerk reaction.”
America’s Health care system is not the greatest and does need to be revised. However, national health care is not the answer, IMHO.
@pagancollective: Agreed.
My grandmother had cancer, chances are it may have been treatable, but she decided to pass gracefully rather than spend her last years sicker from the treatments. This, however, is a kid, and if anyone should have a fighting chance it should be him. If there’s a treatment that worked from someone else, like the letter says, the insurance company should pay for it. That’s why you pay for insurance in the first place!
This is my first look at this website, and I’m constantly amazed at stories I’ve read here, and heard about on the news, on health and insurance practices in the U.S. Unfortunately, Americans are misinformed (big time) about health care in Canada. If I had had the misfortune of having to rely on U.S. health care, I would have died numerous times since 1988. Why is it that the most powerful nation on earth doesn’t understand that a nation is judged on how it cares for those who cannot care for themselves? And Americans wonder why they are so disliked in most of the world?
@slapBOXmaster:
In fairness, in a single-payer system, you’re not “guaranteed anything” either. I don’t know the details of the case, none of us do, but it’s entirely possible that, if Nick were English, the NHS would say “sorry, not going to do that, it’s just too expensive given the potential benefit.”
I happen to think that single payer is likely a better solution, but we shouldn’t pretend that it means that everyone gets everything they want. Health care, like all products, will still be rationed.
there are so many contradictory arguments here it’s amazing. I mean i think it’s interesting.
we have the people who are anti-UHC saying:
“We have the best medicine IF you have something serious and or difficult”
but then I get the vibe from the same side that:
“We have to make the hard fiscal choice to let people die, because our experimental awesome technology is too iffy – aka they will probably die, so why lay out the dough.”
Well, for one, we can’t be cutting edge without taking some treatment risks now can we? Regardless, most people, i feel, are playing devils advocate to a set of circumstances that they know very little about. Like the way in which actual doctors make actual life or death treatment decisions.
also – can we ease up on the absolutely stupid scenario of the old:
“We can’t pay for a 98 year old to live for a few months…” bullshit.
You show me where that happens. ever. while you’re at it, find me a 98 year old person who says: “Yeah shove that thing through my chest or dose me with some experimental drug so I can live 3 more months.”
Good luck with that.
Ill logic…
It makes no sense to say that money matters more than human life — i.e. a decision will always have to be made regarding the validity of doing yet another test or procedure when we can’t be sure of its success rate in advance — and then in the next breath to recommend a fund raiser. Clearly, there are those of you out there who think 1. that there is a point at which money becomes more important than trying to save a person’s life, and 2. you don’t want to be the one funding it. What good is a fundraiser when such a large portion of commentators here honestly believe in keeping their money in their wallets — even when it’s not their own wallet — over the possible benefit of trying to save this boy’s life?
This is why we create systems in our society like insurance. The idea is you pay, you get coverage. It’s insurance because not everyone needs it. It’s a social safety net, and it makes a damn good bit of sense. And no, it wasn’t based on the primary notion of making grand amounts of money. The idea was based on a need for health care that can be an unexpected and high cost.
As to the argument that if UHC approves the procedure, then everyone else will want it, and UHC will go bankrupt — well, that’s just uneducated silliness. There are plenty of insurance companies out there who approve these procedures under these exact circumstances. And trust me, they make a LOT of money to boot.
UPDATE: UnitedHealth Will Cover Teen’s Bone Cancer Procedure
@johnva:
What you’re missing is that “individual responsibility” is not what drives healthcare costs. I can’t “be more responsible” and avoid getting cancer or a genetic disease. By allowing insurance to cost a variable amount for different people, you are shifting more of the cost burden onto the UNLUCKY, not just the irresponsible . . . If you’re going to make people pay more for things outside of their control, you may as well just abolish health insurance and start making everyone pay out of pocket for all health costs.
This is different topic, but a large portion of healthcare costs result from self-inflicted harm such as (s) smoking, (b) poor eating habits, (c) poor weight management/failure to keep physically fit, and(d) alchohol and drug related illness and injury (drunk drivers anyone?). There is also a chunk that can be attributed to people using emergency rooms in place of primary care physicians (i.e., broken bones are not emergencies . . . they go to primary car phsycians or urgent care centers. Teh cost there is lower, and it allows ER docs to tak care of true emergencies . . . like people who may die absent immediate care).
I’m not arging that these healthcare costs should be re-allocated, just that the premise of your post is flawed. “Individual responsbility,” or a lack thereof, is a factor driving healthcare costs.
@deedrit: So?! They want it and no one’s gonna take it from them!
This poor boy isn’t alone, plenty of people have died so big health insurance can allow their higher ups live in mansions and go to the tropics for vacation.
@mikelotus: You are over simplifying things when you state Europe and Canada provide better care at lower cost. Better care is quite subjective– I personally don’t find being put on a waiting list for 6 months to be better care. I don’t find the government telling me I’m too fat to get a hip transplant better care. These are realities of life in many of the socialized medicine states.
I believe it was you who talked about Dr’s moving into cosmetic surgery and the like because they didn’t have to also deal with Insurance companies. They also don’t have to deal with Medicare, who is actually most responsible for setting medical costs in the country.
Isn’t it also interesting that over the last 15 years the price for cosmetic surgery has dropped significantly, in some cases as much as 300-400% (Lasic eye surgery for example), while the cost for standard medical services has increased by the same amount. How could that be? Why would one type of medicine get cheaper, while the other got more expensive. It’s simple, when the steak is free people keep eating until they are stuffed. When they have to pay, they settle for the 6 oz. sirloin. The current system (and a socialized one) gives no incentive for people to manage the cost of the health care. When you suspect you have strep throat do you check with 3 clinics to see who offers the best combination of rates/service for your strep test? Of course not, consumers have no idea about the cost. But when they want laser surgery they check for the best combination, and cost IS a factor. Dr’s have learned that they have to compete on cost, not simply charge a fixed price based upon what the government says they can charge.
Socialized medicine would only make the problem worse. To flat out say socialized medicine is better without looking at underlying factors — how many immigrants does Sweden accept every year that abuse or use the system? — is incorrect.
I wish we could wave a magic wand and say one system is the best, but there are too many examples of rationing of care in countries that have socialized this to think that in itself is the only solution. Just as we have too many examples of people being abused by the current system. I for one don’t trust the government to be more efficient at this than private enterprise is. There is nothing in our government’s past to suggest that any service the national government provides is a model of efficiency.
I have to put my two Canadian cents in on this.
Sorry Americans, but your health care system sucks. Its a pity that you guys have been brain washed by your HMO things. Listen guys just face it your system sucks. It really does.
In Canada we use our money to save peoples lives. Not to make some CEO and shareholders rich. Our system kicks the shit out of your system, it provides better care and is more efficient then yours.
When someone goes to the hospital with a emergency here, they start treatment and help you. In the states they wont look at you unless you have insurance and even if you do they have to call for permission. Thats F’ed up. Canadians get whatever treatment or test that the doctor thinks you need.
My father was seriously ill when I was a teen and almost died. Spent like four months in the hospital. Amd was back and forth for years untill he passed away.
Mom had a tumor removed 6 months ago. Cat scans, X-Rays, exploratory surgery, emergency surgery, drugs, biopsy’s, specialists etc etc etc. She is cured, no trace of cancer anymore thank god, but is having chemo and radiation as a precaution now and been in hospital an average of 1 week per month since due to a weakened immune system from the treatments.
She has $12,000 worth of drugs in the fridge up stairs that is boosting her immune system during the chemo. She is currently in hospital again from a burn from the radiation that got infected. The doctors were getting ready to do surgery if she needed it, but she doesnt need it now.
You know how many treatments had to be approved ??? none…. the doctor signed his name and it was a done deal.
Would she be alive in the states even if she had insurance….. I doubt it.
/did not have to sell the house to pay the co-pay as it does not exist up here.
//Did have to pay $20 for a cast once.
///I feel sorry for you guys in the states. I really do.
@kable2: “When someone goes to the hospital with a emergency here, they start treatment and help you. In the states they wont look at you unless you have insurance and even if you do they have to call for permission. Thats F’ed up.”
I do not know where you get your information, but it is against the law for the emergency room to require you to show your insurance card in order to receive care. In fact, one of the reasons for rising health care costs is due to that fact that many hospitals treat patients that do not have health insurance and can’t afford to pay the services that they received. Therefore, the hospitals have to recoup their losses by raising the prices of treating patients. Maybe you should do a little more research and back up your claims before spouting out complete fallacies.
@kable2: Hmm,then why did the Canadian Supreme court write the following: “The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public health care system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care.” This was just 3 years ago, BTW.
This was in a case where the Government was being sued to allow privatized medicine. The person suing was a LONG waiting list and did not want to wait longer for a hip replacement.
Sorry, but there are too many stories like this to allow you carte blanche on false statements as you posted.
Thankfully, the case in the original story has a happy ending as the Insurance company has relented and agreed to provide the service. For all you socialists in the crowd — what are the odds a government agency would have changed their mind due to public pressure, without some sort of legal action. I seriously doubt it since they answer to no one.
@DoctorMD:
are you an idiot or just ignorant on how crappy the american health care really is. Go stick your head back in the sand.
If its so bad why is it that canadians love it so much?
@SkokieGuy: reduced vaccinations? No fluoride? Like the nut cases in New England that are worried about the purity of their vital fluids and essence?
@Orngbliss: you have complaints about systems that a cheaper and deliver superior results but you only offer that mysterious “something else.” Great.
@whydidnt: make the problem worse? we are the worse without it. how can you possibly say that something that works in Italy and Greece, two countries that know how to have bad governments, is worse that what we have now? The bottom line — we pay more, we get less. And unless you have something besides single payer that can provably change that, you and everyone else are not contributing to a solution. You just feed and fan fears like those insurance commercials did during Clinton’s attempt at universal health care. If Bismark, no socialist, can put a system in Germany that has worked since the 1880′s, even under Hitler, then I think perhaps we should try something like that unless you can point me to something else that works better. I have laid the challenge out to find something better out here for months. So far its been goose eggs from the “we can’t have socialized medicine” crowd. That is why the Republicans offer nothing but “tax breaks.” And by the way, using the tax system for social planning is the worse possible thing that can occur unless you like our current convoluted tax system now that requires an expert to figure out and tax breaks that never die.
@whydidnt: Canadians pay less and still end up with better results. That is the fact.
mikeloutus:
universal health care is fine, but having the government run it is the worst idea ever. I dont care what happens in Europe. We are not in Europe. We have a different system of government, different politics, and different society. try telling someone their taxes wont cover a procedure for grandma, that they shouldnt be obese, or no more MRIs for lower back pain.
Also, you cite this current administration as not being relevant. Well, if they were in charge, the healthcare system would have been gutted…and taken years to fix. You are proposing a radical change in our country without even understanding what it would do here. Rather you look at projections that only take facts and ideals into account…and never explain why the best healthcare is available in the US, even though the other countries have the “best system”
Our healthcare system works great, IF you have money. So why ruin the whole basis of its funding, and basically start over, when all you have to do is “trim the fat” and regulate the insurance companies? Regulate their profits, and their policies. Get a unversal billing form. Tax them for uninsured people. Cap profits. Cap rates. Review their policies. Take their hand out of the cookie jar. Instead there are a bunch of people too lazy to do REAL policy work and just go with the solution that sounds great and is easiest to justify. hm a problem…just give everyone healthcare and make everyone pay for it! should work no problem! and the person setting the policies should be a politician or social service worker! Try changing the laws so that providing healthcare is profitable and required.
I am not joining further in this discussion since you have already had several people, including at least one physician, and two medical students (counting myself), as well as people on consumerist, a Pro-Consumer website I might add, tell you that you are wrong. I wouldnt be surprised if you are a med student too, we have plenty of your viewpoint at my school…and none of them know anything about govt or econ, just dreams and plans about how the government would really have the public interest, and not kickbacks, profit, and power, as their priority.
So:
1. please look at things objectively and not as in “no healthcare for everyone=murder”
2. take an economics course, or at least read a book about it.
3. talk to some doctors with different points of view
4. go to some city council meetings and see how decisions are made.
5. take sicko out of your DVD player for a few days while you are at it.
6. sit down with a blank piece of paper, all you have learned and draw a way for everyone to have healthcare and have in interest in keeping costs down too rather than getting wasteful treatments.
mike I left my healthcare plan on your profile, its my solution. I didnt write it just for you, ive been working on it for a while, hopefully it helps.
@mikelotus: I don’t really know what was mysterious about my post. I offered a link to HSA and how it works. But, in case that wasn’t clear enough for you, here is another link that gives a little more info on MSAs: [www.forhealthfreedom.org]
@Orngbliss: Tax exemptions are a terrible way of social policy. First you need a job that you can afford to contribute. Second, what the hell does this do to lower costs and improve outcomes? Nothing.
@redkamel: We die sooner and have higher infant mortality. The only outcome this is useful is do we live longer and better lives. We do not by any measure. And we pay much more for this benefit. Is your system something that has been proven to work some place? Yes, the German system might not map perfectly to us, but you start with something like that since it works and you measure and adjust. TQM process. But as long as people pick at this is bad or this is bad, nothing happens. It just gets worse. I pay more for less every year.
This should add fuel to the fire: [www.cnn.com]
@redkamel: Your ideas are great except the usefulness of tax policy to encourage social policy. That is just another middle class entitlement. Your ideas are good, when mapped onto a system that works. Alone they are just one off fixes that don’t guarantee any improvement in quality or costs. Health care costs are lower in every single payer system. We are twice the cost of Canada and France (well maybe not so with France due to declining dollar but still much higher) and everyone else’s is even lower. The power of one system, economies of scale, is hard to beat. Administrative costs alone would cause a 25% drop in costs.
@Fait Accompli: I never said that there are not some elements of healthcare costs that ARE due to personal responsibility. But those things are not the dominant part of the cost (and anyway, our system is obviously not doing well at convincing people to change unhealthy behavior). And anyway, our current for-profit insurance system doesn’t differentiate between conditions that are due to “irresponsibility” and conditions that are due to bad luck, like genetics. Either way, you’re going to end up paying more for insurance under our current system. Period. They don’t care why you cost them more; they only care that you do. So if your goal is to punish people for being “irresponsible” with their health our system is a pretty poor and unfair way to do that, since it doesn’t care if your bad health is due to something within your control or not. If you really want healthcare insurers to engage in social engineering to encourage people to lead healthier lives, then at least prevent them from doing the same thing to people who have no control over their conditions.
@Orngbliss: Perhaps you are unaware that in side-by-side comparisons of wait times for minor surgeries (typically the major “waiting list” complaint in socialized systems), US and Canadian consumers have quite similar wait times. US consumers just pay a helluva lot more for the same surgery after waiting the same six months to get it.
I have a health care savings account AND a flexible spending account. Neither has improved my access to health care or the quality of the care I receive, and our insurance costs have actually increased. All they do is pay for my out-of-pocket health care costs pre-tax instead of post-tax, and the trade off is that my deductible is MUCH MUCH higher. And I still pay the premiums, which are still rising. It doesn’t solve any problems in the health care system; it’s just a shell game of at what point the money comes out of my paycheck. (And since you can deduct certain medical expenses, it’s really just a convenient form of bookkeeping to have it automatically done pre-tax.)
How exactly are these magical savings accounts supposed to improve my health care access or the quality of care I receive?
@graydoll: “Clearly, there are those of you out there who think 1. that there is a point at which money becomes more important than trying to save a person’s life,”
I think many people are merely acknowledging the reality that we have as a society now invented far more medicine than we can pay for, and our medical model is still based on “do everything possible for the patient.” “Everything possible” can mean $1.5 million in bills in the last 10 days of a patient’s life, and frequently there’s no increase in quality or comfort for that $1.5 million.
Any serious discussion of health care in the U.S. or ANY first-world nation, whether health care is private or public, no matter who is paying, does have to address the issue of rationing health care dollars. There is simply no current scenario under which we as a society can afford all possible treatments for all patients, even after we take the profit motive out of health care and insurance. Until we achieve the Star Trek future (or some similarly radical advance in technology), there will simply never be enough medicine to do everything for every person.
It’s interesting to me, as a Canadian living in the U.S., how vilified socialized medicine is. It seems that many people in the U.S. believe that their neighbor’s health doesn’t affect them, therefore they should not have to contribute their hard-earned money toward the neighbor’s health. Imagine if policemen and firemen worked the way insurance companies do. If you pay them, they will come save you from your burning home, if you don’t, you’re SOL. So, you pay a “fireman fee” every month and your neighbor doesn’t. His house catches fire, but since he did not pay this fee, the fire dep’t won’t come, and your house catches fire as well.
We are not islands, we are not a collection of individuals, your well-being in tied to my well-being.
How is it good for the economical well-being of the U.S. if the leading cause for bankruptcy is an overwhelming health-care debt? If you look at it in pure economic terms, if these people mortgage their entire existence to pay for this child’s care, they will not be stimulating the economy by buying a plasma. every american should own a flat screen
@mikelotus: I would just like to say thanks for poking at my theories… You have really made me think and do some research, which I enjoy. I am in accounting and I am finishing up school so I can sit for my CPA. That might explain why I like the tax exemption policies. However, I recognize that this may not work for all.
My argument was not to lower health care costs, rather find an alternative to help make insurance affordable for everyone. While MSA does have its disadvantages and will probably only work for people like myself, i.e. young, relatively healthy. I thought it could be an alternative to our current failing insurance policies, that are ridiculously outrageous in price. I guess I will have to do more research for another alternative.
Anyways, my point to my ramblings is that no matter how much we debate and try to come up with a reasonable answer for Health Care in America, There is no way to satisfy everyone. I guess we can all agree that a change needs to be made. Exactly what that change may be?? I do not have answer for.
On another note…. Wikipedia has a post comparing the American Health care system to that of the Canadian, It was quite interesting.
[en.wikipedia.org]
I cant beleive someone posted ‘you dont have to show your insurance card at the ER’… No way is anyone that stupid or mis-informed….
I went through that at John Randolf, Southside Regional and Johnston Willis in VA. My wife was in agony and crying and screaming for me (cue ER music) and we waited in the waiting room… After a nice wait I was called up front. Was it to see a Doctor? No it was to fill out insurance forms and ‘contracts to pay’… Funny the non-english guys that seemed to have had a constuction accident just filled out something and went in. I had to provide ID, INsurance card and sign a pile of papers and then WAIT for her to enter the information into a computer. THEN we waited some more. Finally she was allowed into the back to sit in a bed and wait more for a Doctor. The Doctor turned out to be a nurse practicioner who took more information and vitals. Then the doctor showed up and administered treatment.
My deductable: 200$ time spent 9 hours for a treatment that should have been 40$ and outpatient with a 2 hour office visit incuding wait time.
Thanks UHC!
@vdragonmpc: Sorry that you had an unfortunate experience at the ER, but legally they cannot ask for your insurance card before treatment. I was admitted to the ER twice last year, actually 3 times- – sports related accidents. Anyways, when I was admitted to the ER, in Las Vegas, they didn’t ask for any of my information until I was treated and ready to leave. The other two ER visits I had were in California. When I was in the ER in Mission Viejo, CA I asked the nurse @ check in if she wanted my insurance card, she responded by saying that legally they cannot ask for insurance or payment until treatment has been administered. Same scenario with the ER I visited in San Diego. I did even look at payment paperwork until I had been treated and cleared to leave.
Obviously, you are the stupid and misinformed person here, either that or the hospitals in your area are in serious violations, if this is truly what happened.
@Orngbliss: Maybe it’s a state law difference. I also live in VA, and they also asked me for insurance info before administering treatment when I went to the ER for a broken arm. I don’t know if they could actually legally turn you away if you refused, but they did ask me about it first thing.
@Orngbliss you = epic fail. Im neither stupid nor misinformed. There is nothing quite like your wife screaming in a booth while you fill out forms and watch the illegals roll right in with no insurance. We had at least 5 people go ahead of us while I filled out forms and the paper-person told my wife to calm down its not so bad.
Yes we get to fill out forms that state we will be hammered by collections while the insurance company decides when to pay the bill. EVERY time we went to that ER they had to copy my ID and medical card along with me filling out several pages of information.
The only time they let me fill out the forms in the actual exam area was when my son was in there and I was climbing the walls. I told them I was not leaving his side (he was 2) and they brought the forms to me. We didnt see anyone until those forms were filled out though.
Now if I was uninsured I guess I get to come through a different door?