There’s much debate these days regarding healthcare coverage, and rightly so. Interestingly, most commentators seem never to get around to addressing what actually happens — to the lucky ones — once we actually secure coverage. Well, here’s the story, behind the healthcare coverage and billing story. And it’s a very sick tale, indeed.
According to a recent NY Times article How to Fight a Bogus Bill, by Jessica Silver-Greenberh, she states — can you believe this — that “there aren’t any comprehensive statistics on medical-billing mistakes.”
How in the world can that be? So much attention to the “cost” of healthcare, yet no studies focusing on the critical issue of billing errors. Amazing. Truly amazing, especially for those of us who have lived this nightmare, daily!
Silver-Greenberg does, however, cite the following studies that are mind-blowing, regarding medical billing error rates:
- According to Stephen Parente, a professor of health finance and insurance at the University of Minnesota, who has studied medical billing extensively, he “estimates that 30% to 40% of bills contain errors.”
- Access Project, a Boston-based health-care advocacy groups, says the number of errors is actually closer to 80%
And if these numbers aren’t bad enough, these figures very well may jump dramatically due to the federal governments $19 Billion Dollar push (resulting from the 2009 Economic Stimulus Bill), to move toward electronic health records — a key trigger, many agree, as a major of medical billing errors, according to sociology professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics who has studied electronic records extensively.
So beware.
- Today, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), only 16% of hospitals use electronic records.
- By 2014 HHS says that number will most likely jump to more than 80%.
Therefore, if in fact electronic billing is projected to jump five-fold in just the next three years, can you only imagine the colossal mess we all can expect to endure in the days to come.
And here’s a riddle for ya. How many times — based on your own experience — have the errors you’ve endured, been in your favor?
Advice >> (i) Open up your medical bills, immediately. (ii) Review your statements, bills, and Explanation of Benefits (EOB), thoroughly. (iii) And lastly, fight like hell to not only save your wallet but your credit rating, too.
Sorry. I didn’t say this exercise of reading NewsUnwrapped (NU) was going to be pretty, just eye-opening. Hope it helps …
News U-n-w-r-a-p-p-e-d 