Hospital bills woman who never saw a doctor

Albuquerque, New Mexico - This exact same thing just happened to me!  I went to the Lovelace Hospital downtown in June because my right shoulder was enflamed & I couldn't move it.  We didn't have to wait for 19 hours, but I NEVER saw a doctor the whole time I was there.

Then in July & again in August, I received a bill from the Schumaker Group out of San Antonio, TX & finally called them this morning to find out why I was receiving this bill when my husband had filled out our HMO information [also Lovelace] while I was waiting to see a doctor I never saw.  I had to give them my information & they said they would bill Lovelace.  So them I called Lovelace because this seems unethical if not illegal to me.  They didn't seem to care.

Stuff like this is why health insurance is so expensive!  I also told Lovelace that it was their job to make sure that their contractors don't bill me again; that's why I pay an arm & a leg every month for the HMO.

Welcome to the public health care system.

my horror story was waiting 14 hours for a minor, but necessary surgical procedure.

after being admitted, there were always other more urgent surgeries ahead of me. That was understandable, the problem is that they had me on an IV for 3 days, telling me that I couldn't eat or drink anything in case a room opened up. finally, I got an opening, then they just did an exlporatory, instead of fixing it, and billed me $9,000.

I could not agree more.  Hospitals are sooo greedy that THEY are the ones driving health care through the roof.  Hard working people no longer can afford insurance. I smell bankers, not doctors, making the medical decisions in that hospital!!

I needed surgery for a kidney stone 3 years ago (it got lodged behind my pelvic bone, so ultrasound wouldn't work). Not only were the ER bills ridiculous, especially for two students with no health insurance ($1700 each for two MRIs), but they kept me waiting the day of my scheduled surgery for 8 hours, and expected us to write a check for $1000 up front because my husband and I couldn't afford health insurance. Wow, think about it, we can't afford health insurance, but you expect us to be able to just write a check for $1000? We ended up giving them $500 up front, because the woman wouldn't leave. Rent money...great. I wonder if they would have refused the surgery if we hadn't paid...my kidney had already shut down.

Exactly right - if the break is severe enough, it may require extensive surgery such as plates, screws, etc. Although in this case the patient did get screwed!

That the truth.  What role do you all think trial lawyers have in doctors and hospitals charging so much?  I personally think people should be able to sue but within limits, some of the lawyers are too greedy just like the hospitals and doctors.

1.  Since she already had the broken leg diagosis, she should have called her primary doctor and been directed to an orthopedic surgeon.

2.  A broken leg is bad if you have it, but not a true emergency.

3.  She received a bill.  Did she give insurance information to the emergency room clerk (first thing they ask for), or did she just go to the ER because she was uninsured and knew someone would give her "free" (read, paid for by the patients who had their own insurance) care?  Did her company pay?

4.  Of course 19 hours is bad...it means that more serious ailments were being taken care of before they could get to her.

5.  ERs are overcrowded as we will continue to have less American physicians as their life is not pleasant, with long training, low pay, and the constant threat of a justified or unjustified malpractice suit exists.  And you have people like Obama saying that health care is a "right"...that is, the education, effort, time, and expense incurred by doctors and nurses (and hospital facilities) should be given for nothing.  Where is our "right" to free groceries from Safeway?

6.  Doesn't matter if you have insurance unless it pays enough to reimburse potential doctors, hospitals, etc.  Look at England, and, more recently, Canada.  Long delays (even over a year for some conditions) for promised care.  Lots of problems.  This case just highlights a part of the big bad picture. 

#4.  Not necessiarly true at all.  The turn over is snail pace. We took 81 yrear old to ER because he was in great pain at 6AM.  At 5PM he was discharged with several doctors telling us different things. Like his knee needed to be washed out within 12 hours. Most definately he needed to be hospilized and his knee washed out in a defined length of time.  Didn't happen.  They contacted an orthopedic surgon who never came to see him.  He finially was sent home with antibiotics for a urinary tract infection. They did not offer to feed him.  The nurse was sarcastic to me.  We were exausted and confused and frustrated when we left.  Especially an eighty plus year old laid on an uncomfortable streacher all day.  He was very sick.  Was a waste of time.

She should not have to pay because no care was provided after 19 hours of waiting.  Frequently the careing is gone form medical care.

It don't matter if she had insurence or not 19 hours is why to long and come on ,I've been there and saw people come in bleeding all over the place and told to take a seat.If there is a lot of blood you had better be seen by spme one .Heart people is another thing,I watched my brother's Mother in law die waiting at the desk to fill out paper work.Her husband said get her to bed I'll fill out the papers and was told no she had to.She looked at him and said hon I don't feel good and hit the floor,she dided right there,it was the sadest day I have ever seen.

Our health care system is the most technically advanced, by far the most expensive, and most fouled up system around.

10 years ago, I could have my doctor(ok, his nurse) take a routine checkup blood sample, send it to the lab, and it only cost $40.

Now, the "primary care provider" office, sends me off to Labcorp(real name), which sends me a bill for $435 for exactly the same test.

Of course Labcorp has their own collection agents to harass you when you can't come up with the money for their obscene bill. 

Hey ks,

If you're gonna single out a politician, try singling out that idiotic rich kid McCain who voted time and again for the HMO and medical corporate interests for decades that directly effected the way we receive medical care now.

At least Obama is trying to address it.  And we dont have to completely follow the methods of the English or Canada, but we can and should thoroughly invvestigate them by LEARNING WHAT DOESNT WORK and do the other.  But we gotta do something.   Because I'm willing to bet ks you are a medical professional of some kind or a lobbyist who has plenty of insurance, I used to have insurance and STILL was misdaignosed for a staph infection until it was almost too late.  And I cannot tell you how hard it was to get the idiot doctor I saw to take the EARLY symptoms I saw seriously until the open sores on my face and body were so obvious a 1st year intern blind as Ray Charles coulda diagnosed the illness.

You can't just single out McCain, he is not the only politician to blame, it's the entire majority of congress and the president that signs the bills into law.  No one politician singlehandedly lays down the law for everyone else to follow.

If you want to know what doesn't work, you need look no futher than Canada. Hillary and Obama are not going to be the saviors when it comes to health care.  Sure he talks a good story now but wether he or even McCain make it into office we can about just ecxpect the same old stuff.  Congress was supposed to address healthcare 2 years ago and decided to table the issue until after the elections.  They'll do it again.  Ultimately, politicians are out for themselves and their health care is better than the military's, so they're in no hurry!

Now you want to talk about rich kid, I believe that'd be Obama.

As an emergency physician, I can assure you that the doctors and nurses are not the problem in the American healthcare system. Some of the comments from people on this board are disgusting and downright ignorant.  In this patient's case, she should not have been billed for the visit. However....

1) Yes, 19 hours is a long time to wait.  The wait was not because nurses/doctors are goofing off.  The wait comes from ER "boarding" where the hospital gets completely full and the admitted patients back up into the ER.  There is absolutely no room to see people. I have run into this many times. One solution would be to treat the patient out of the waiting room. Works for some instances but the government has passed HIPPA and doesn't really allow us to do this in front of other people in the lobby.

2) There are a lot of uninsured people that use the ER for primary care. There are a lot of insured (medicaid) people that use the ER for primary care.  The reason they do this is the fast food mentality of the American public.  They just don't feel like they can wait until the next day (or week) to see their doctor - they want that pill now, now, now.  A LOT of the patients I see are non-emergent and could easily have seen their doctor in clinic.  But wait, (see #3)

3) The number of primary care physicians in this country is declining due to shrinking reimbursements from 3rd party payers (private insurance, medicaid, medicare) so these docs are being forced to see more patients in less time.  They are overworked and underpaid for sure.  The myths of playing golf and taking extravagant trips while counting their millions are long over.  They are being paid at lower rates while their office staffs expect raises every year to keep up with inflation.  A lot of Family Physicians are having a hard time just keeping their doors open these days.

4) Could this patient not have waited until the next day to see her PCP or better yet just call an orthopaedist and gotten an appt.? Open the phone book and call. 

5)  Due to cutbacks in funding, there are fewer hospitals/hospital beds than there were 20 years ago.  Therefore the hospitals fill up easier.

6)  To the idiots below who are complaining that doctors make too much for what they perceive as "very little work", your bill is so much because that cardiologist also had to cath a homeless guy who needed a stent and couldn't pay his bill.  It didn't take the cardiologist long but how long/how much debt was accrued/how much missed time with his family/how much of his 20's and 30's were spent so that he was properly trained to do that procedure for a measly $5,000?

7) To split41, "bleeding all over the place" is a relative term. Trust me. Someone who is truly exsanguinating will come straight back regardless if there is a bed or not.  There are a lot of triage "experts" out there who think they know who the sickest patients are but actually know nothing about medicine.

8) The problems with healthcare...too many un/underinsured, too many cutbacks by federal and private insurers, out of control malpractice, and too much interference with HIPAA, JCAHO hospital CEO's, etc.  Wake up people! The ones who are making money in medicine are not the doctors.  Check the salaries of your health insurers executives. It will blow your mind.

OK, I'm off my setbacks. No personal attacks intended. Just trying to set the record straight about so many public misconceptions.

As a Dallas resident, you guys should understand something.  Parkland is the county hospital, which means EVERY uninsured, underinsured, and illegal resident use Parkland for their routine and non-emergent healthcare, thus making for extremely long wait times.  I work at a smaller hospital outside of Dallas, and we also charge a fee for patients who are triaged but leave before they are seen.

Personally, I think Ms. Milbrodt is an idiot for waiting 19 hours.  Even if you are uninsured, NO HOSPITAL can refuse you treatment.  She should have left and gone to a different facility. 

Any Dallas resident knows that if you go to Parkland for ANYTHING, you will wait.  End of discussion.

The bottom line is that she has to pay up or it will go to collections.  The hospital doesn't care about her..... only the money.

Our whole heath care system needs to be overhauled.  It's ok for the Dr. to keep the patient waiting but not the other way around.  Be late for an appointment and see what happens. 99% of the time you wait on the Dr. and you won't hear because you had to wait I am taking xx amount off your bill. Even if they treat you with the wrong treatment you have to pay.  I have a saying, When you go to an doctor, be it emergency room or office.. It is on your time, your dollar and you are at their mercy.

I know too that alot of emergency rooms charge the moment you walk in the door. It matters not if you change your mind or not.  Our health care systems are way out of control with charging very high prices for services that are way under standards for what they charge.

Y hear some one say oh he's a Doctor and the remark is he is rich he is a Doctor.

Laurie: In many cases, you wait because other patients keep the doctor waiting.

Squeak (love the name btw) if that is the case why then can't doctors see patients WHILE they are waiting?

Based on?

There is no "medical establishment."  You have doctors who get the best grades in college for 4 years, work very hard in medical school for 4 years  (how does 4000 applicants for 150 positions seem, just to get in), intern for a year and are residents for 2 to 9 years, and struggle to pay loans and their own practice expenses.  They don't "band together"...the AMA is so ineffective that only 19% of practicing doctors belong.  You have nurses who pay their own way through school, then generally work for hospitals, but are not organized.  Then you have corporate America, which is running your medical care, and collecting most of the money from your insurance premiums, with hospital chains such as HCA/Columbia or the equally dishonest Centura (7th Day Adventist chain), built for profit and caring nothing for nurses (except as employees whose mistakes they cover), doctors, or, worst and most important, patients.  To even call hospital administrators or billing departments "medical" is false...they are businesspeople with no medical training, and without the concern for patients possessed by doctors and nurses.

They're in the medical business, so they're medical, funny how that works.  The doctors are the ones who decided how much education is necessary.  You can say whatever you want, but the doctors are running the show, so it's their fault. 

I find it very hard to have sympathy for somebody who charges me $1,000 an hour.

SonOfLiberty - you obviously do not have any idea about what you are talking about. Sometimes it is best to keep quiet and let others think you are stupid than to open your mouth and erase all doubt. Hospitals are a business, just like any other business. The doctors do not "run the show." If there is any show running, it is the insurance companies that "run the show." Hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and insurance companies are the ones with the deep pockets, the power in DC, and they are the ones who "run the show." Whether you wish to believe it or not, most doctors and nurses do care about their patients, but try to work under the conditions that they do. You would probably last less than a half hour. The wait time in the ER, for the most part, is not due to the hospital employees, it is the system.

P.S. The doctors do not decide how much education is necessary. And I do not know any doctor that charges $1000/hour. Don't know what country, or fantasy land, you are in. But it is best not to talk about things that you are clueless about.

Finally, yes doctors do determine how much education is necessary.  Doctors are the ones who decided to abdicate their responsibility to others in regards to running things.

Some doctors charge far in excess of $1000/hr.  When my dad was scheduled for bypass surgery, a cardiologist stuck his head through the doorway and asked how he was doing................$5000.

Sorry if the facts upset you.

I had an angiogram several years ago and the cardiolgist's portion of the bill was also 5,000.00 dollars - for 30 seconds to look at the scope, tell the techs which part to print as a picture, and tell me everthing was OK.  (Of course he just moved into a brand-new 3-story building sith his name across the top.)

     The hospital put the monitor on for their own purpose, (to avoid lawyers) not because they give a @#$$%.

With all the good advice re. billing the hospital for her time, next y'all will tell her to bill Exxon when she has to wait in a gas station line to fill up her tank, or a Walmart when not all of the registers are open and she is required to wait to pay for her purchases.

Just like her experience at Parkland's EMERGENCY Department, nothing in life seems fair, but even though she would have to wait at the Exxon gas station - she wouldn't question NOT paying her gas purchase. She should just pay for the hospital-based service received and be happy she was not one of the dozens of gunshot wound victims being seen by that M.D. - whose lives hung in the balance - while she 'impatiently' waited for her turn. Such indignity!

So you'd have her pay exxon for gas if she didn't get any?

No, SonOfLiberty, if she didn't get gas then she shouldn't pay.  She did however receive a hospital based service which is what she was billed for.  If a physician did bill her for anything then it is fraud and he can be punished by the state's Office of the Inspector General.  However, it appears, based on the article, she received a bill for the hospital services of her triage which she should pay.

the hospitals don't only get paid for not rendering a service, they get paid if they render the WRONG service.  Sorry this practice MUST be stopped.  It will not only ensure that you have your doctor's FULL attention if he has to be right in order to be paid, but it will stop the idiots from committing wrong services just to get money. 

All other businesses are subject to repairing a damaged article, or refunding the money or not charging for services that did not correct the problem.  Doctors and hospitals should be subject to that same rule.  Then there won't be such eagerness to put the patient on "a pill, any pill" just to get them out of there.

It is LUDICROUS that this hospital saw fit to charge the patient for 3 minutes of nurse time $192 dollars.  NO nurse is paid that much.  A pulse check and blood pressure does not rate a service being done.  What auto company wouldn't LOVE to charge you for deciding what order your car goes in the oil change line-up? 

Again, this is a big business problem.  I don't see that any doctor was involved, though doctors seem to be your target...they have nothing whatsoever to do with the hospital billing.

By the way, your lack of understanding of the doctors' situation is one example of why many of America's best will not now go into medicine.

Of course McCain has a good health payment plan...as only one step of what needs to be done to stop the downward slope of health care in this country.  It is not  a "little" $5,000.  It is a TAX CREDIT.

Ks, the doctors are the ones who write the rules in the medical game.  Doctors chose to turn over the icky collecting money part to other people who then took over.  Whos fault would that be?  THE DOCTORS.  The doctors still write the rules, but abdicated responsibility to other people so they could get in their Wednesday golf or handball game.  Shame on them, if they're not willing to take responsiblity, why should we still give them the power to decide how things work?

Frankly, the "best" apparently stopped being doctors a generation ago. 

I'm hoping you're not a doctor, since you seem to be unable to read.  The net result of Mr McCain's "health plan", which is really more like welfare for MegaInsuranceCorp, will be to have more people opt out of employer based insurance and buy private insurance.  This will be payed for AT CURRENT RATES by this neato tax credit.  Of course the government could decide to do away with that credit any time it likes.

If insurance costs go up (they never do that), and/or the insurance company decides to stop covering all those privately covered folks for whatever it is that they are suffering from now, and/or the tax credit goes away, where are all these people going to be?  OUT IN THE COLD WITH NO OR INADEQUATE COVERAGE.

Of course the doctors will still be good, since they've stifled competition and restricted the number of doctors.  See ya on the 19th green, doc.

And you base that on what credible information?

While that's true to a degree, the plain fact is that the medical industry thinks they have us over a barrel, and can treat us any way they want.  We've let the doctors run the health care industry, and they've betrayed our trust in them. 

It's time for a national health care plan.  Adding the 30% profit and overhead that most insurance companies charge to already bloated medical bills doesn't seem like the best way to make health care affordable..............must be that new math.

Doctors don't run healthcare goverment and insurance companies run healthcare.

The truth is that the insurance companies run health-care, not doctors.  Think about how much physicians have to pay to insurance companies for malpractice.  I know of an OB/GYN who was told by her malpractice carrier the day before she was to renew her policy that the premium was going up from $75,000 a year to $200,000 a year.  What was she supposed to do?  She had no chance to find another carrier.  She had to end up paying the premium because a physician cannot care for patients without malpractice insurance.  This malpractice premium was in additional to all the expenses required to run her practice.  Talk about being over a barrel!

Which is why we need a national health care plan.

Insurance is just socialism with high overhead.

True but americans on welfare are to blame to they waite till the Doctor offices are closed then run to ER cause they get in faster and those that don't ,don't care if they have to waite its worm in the hospital and they always come with something to eat and drink.

Oh EDDO,

I challenge you to go to ANY local ER and tell me who you saw there - because when I've gone I saw mostly working class adults trying to find the way to carve out a little time in their struggle to survive by having to use the ER for basic treatment. 

Illegal immigrants are a drain on any economy but in this case the only immigrant  in the ER is probably a working American who cannot afford medical insurance. 

STOP blaming what you fear instead of what you choose to ignore about a totally American made problem.

AND split41 - wow - keep up the good work its always better for us good people when fools like you speak - it makes it easier to see you coming and avoid or ignore your opinion in the future.

As someone who has been on medicare that is a really harsh thing to say split41. I wasn't on medicare by choice. My husband got laid off 4 days after our daughter was born and if you've been reading and watching the news at all you would see how bad the economy is job wise. When we lived in Ohio, where we lived in Ohio, you couldn't find a job ANYWHERE. I had to get medicare, if not for mine and my husband sake, for my daughter's sake.

I know that a majority of people on medicare are categorized the way you describe them and I don't really like being grouped with them but the point is that medicare is there for a reason, and you shouldn't make people feel ashamed for using it when they need to use it. It is there for us to use, it is just sinful human nature that has led to the lazy people taking advantage of the system. Not all of us are like that, some of us are just trying to make a living and either couldn't find work or can't afford insurance when we have that low paying job.

As someone who's lived on both ends of the spectrum (my dad makes 40 dollars an hour and my husband had a job making 10) I know what it's like to have high end insurance and medicare.. and both systems are messed up. I think that insurance companies can do better than using big words and lots of paperwork to confuse people into paying alot for insurance than paying even more for medical treatment and I think our medicare system can do a better job filtering and monitoring the people who are on medicare. I'm still getting paperwork for the medicare I had in Ohio and they're just now cutting us off of the medicare system, this when we haven't lived in Ohio for almost 9 months. Just goes to show how well they keep up on the people who have medicare. For cash assistance my husband had to go to a job placement facility, but when he did get a job they couldn't even give him gas vouchers to get back and forth to work so he lost the job. If they don't want to pay for medicare for people, do the job placement for people looking for medicare as well and then give them gas vouchers (like cashier checks that can ONLY be used on gas) so they can get to their jobs until they get their first paychecks and help people out of the vicious economical cycle so they can learn to fend for themselves!

jlp coos: You're incorrect in that a licensed nurse practioner CAN indeed diagnose (the term is "triage") and order the necessary medical tests under the guidelines set up for the hospital Emgcy Dept. Everybody visiting an ED for the zillion 'emergencies' they have is triaged by an experienced, trained individual who decides what stitches can be handled by a non-M.D. and which helicopter transported multi-vehicular-accident (MVA) victim demands the higher level of attention from one of M.D.'s in the emergency department. Believe it (or not) some life-saving interventions demand immediate surgery from specially-trained on-call staffs who are on standby for their specialized services.

So now perhaps you can see that this minor triage essentially "frees" the M.D. to handle the real life-and-death situations which demands expert attention. And yes, they too get paid for their work just as you do when you render a service or day's work. It's called the system we live in. So live with it.

yet it is likely the nurse only got $2.50 of that for her time.  A nurse might make on average around $30 an hour.  So five minutes of that hour would have been her share.  and then we try to tell people that it's REASONABLE to charge that kind of money.  Wow.  No wonder people are so jaded against hospitals and doctors anymore, and so ANGRY about health care costs and the ridiculous cost of insurance.

I don't think nurses make $30/hr.  More like half that. 

My wife was in the er in Phoenix, acid in her eye which we had flushed out but went just to be safe, and the hospital tried to charge me $482.40 for 2 strips of litmus paper.  The total bill was almost $1,100.  I sent them a check for partial payment, and a nastygram explaining that there would be frozen precipitation in Hades before I'd pay that much.  I suggested that somebody moved the decimal 2 places.  After a few months in which I got progressively nastier, they actually sent a refund check.  The $1,100 bill ended up costing about $180.

The moral is, stick up for what's right, and don't let em bully you. 

The funny part is they probably burned up more that $180 in clerical time dealing with me, how smart is that?

Actually depending on if you are in SEIU and how long you've worked there, been a productive worker.  They can get paid close to 40.00 an hour.  But you need to be working there a long time (and in a good hospital with proper employee treatment).
My mums a nurse and she makes over 35.00 and hour, but she's been there since 86'.

It's one thing about the "labor" cost of the personnel including the doctor.

The charge for each of those little sanitized cleaning kits was about $126. I remember looking at those kits and thinking how I could easily go to Rite Aid, get all the items for about $20 and then make about 30 of them!

I'm in the wrong business!

A MEN DEBBIE

no one here suggested socialized medicine, but it is NOT fair to charge a person for the oder that you set things  up in.  That's like being able to charge you for making an appointment ANYWHERE you have to make an appt.  Because there's a person who has to take the time to make that appt.  WRONG.  You would not need a person to decide order numbers if there were no clients.

Uh, the nurse's assessment was part of the TRIAGE process.  That process is THE HOSPITAL's way of determining who needs care more urgently.   Because if they don't TRIAGE correctly, and someone dies, then they get sued.  The TRIAGE covers the hospital's arse.   It does not benefit the patient, if they give up on the process (as most people would who could walk away or be carried away by their loved ones). 

Why in the world should the patient pay for a process that only protects THE HOSPITAL?

Because they say so, and they never lie, and they're always right.  And the check's in the mail, etc.

So 760 is the discount from 160?  Do doctors have to take math?

You must remember at hospitals it is not the physicans who determine the charges but the hospitals themselves.