Talk about a kick in the teeth

[Rasher]

This guy went in to hospital with pneumonia and came out with a $44 million bill

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-styl...icle-1.1006744

The hospital cured his pneumonia, but the bill — for an eye-popping $44 million — made him sick.
Unemployed doorman Alexis Rodriguez couldn’t believe his eyes when he opened an envelope from Bronx-Lebanon Hospital last week and saw what he appeared to owe.
“I almost had an asthma attack,” said Rodriguez, 28, just one of several hundred patients to receive absurdly inflated bills because of a “system error.”
His amount due was $44,776,587 for outpatient services that in reality amounted to no more than $300.
Initially, Rodriguez panicked because he had spent three weeks in the hospital with pneumonia in the spring and knew he had to pay part of the $40,000 cost.
But he quickly realized the terrifying invoice couldn’t be right. He called the billing company and found out he wasn’t the only one with sticker shock.
The billing firm, PHY Services, said it was a simple mistake: The subcontractor that prints the bills put the invoice number into the “amount due” field.
“We are sending an apology letter to everyone who received it,” said PHY Services rep Ricardo Paul.
The company has apparently been deluged with complaints. A recording for callers says:
“If you are calling with respect to a billing statement for services provided at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, please disregard the statement
. You will be receiving a new statement shortly. “
Rodriguez said that even though no harm was done to his bottom line, the sloppiness surprised him.
“It was a big error,” he said.
“I think they should have somebody look over the bills before they send them out.
“I understand manpower may be down, but to send out a lot of bills with numbers that big — someone could have had a heart attack.”
Hospital spokesman Errol Schneer said he didn’t blame Rodriguez for being upset.
“We certainly share any concerns he would have,” he said.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-styl...#ixzz1jf89WD1B

[MagnusLensherr]

thats just bad quality control on whoever does accounts..or stuff...

[Platinum]

America I take it, there health care system is a joke.

[Rasher]

As much as the NHS is f**ked up sometimes, its one of the best health cares you can, and its free.
Its one of them things we never want to let go of here, once we lose the NHS we will regret it.

[Maggy]

sorry but the NHS for normal people (like me and the wife) its just a piss take.

FYI when harry was born, she was taken into hospital on the tuesday, made to wait, in a room with 4 other, rude, arrogant patients. for... wait for it.. a bed... wait for it...3 days.

we will NOT be using the NHS(hospital) for our next child, or indeed anything else that requires medical aid.

i dont see why we both have paid our taxes, for our entire lives, only to be made to sit and wait like this. if it was a private company, people would be cancelling thier subscriptions, and if i had the choice i would not pay towards the NHS, i would happily take private health care, and pay the extra.

[Rasher]

while i totally feel for your wife and you, no one should have to wait in a waiting room like that.

Its more the "Emergence's" that worry me, you hear of so many horror stories from people in counties who don't have an NHS nor private insurance, and they wont be treated because of it.

Its like all Luke's operations, the way private insurance companies work, you can only be treated a set number of times for an injury.
We have to pay for a lot of the work on Luke's arm these days, and time to time they will pop him in the NSH system because our insurance company wont cover him all the time.

Its the same with my illness, We have private insurance for me, but they will not treat anything to do with my illness as its an ongoing thing, I have, that i have to go to NHS or pay for myself.

[Jessica]

It was only a couple hundred of years ago that the only health system there was, was for the extremely rich. If we went back and told them that a couple hundred years down the line, even though it is sometimes a bit ****ty, that everyone is entitled to free health care they probably wouldn't believe us. Nowadays we take so much for granted, and even though they do mess up, it is amazing what we have. Yeah, you'd may be able to afford to go private, but there are many others out there who can't. That's the beauty of today, you can choose. But if we didn't have the NHS, I think waiting three days for a bed would be the least of everyone's worries.

[Angelfromabove]

That's never right, you should never ever have been made to sit and wait that long for a bed, that's ridiculous.

The biggest flaw the NHS has which allows for mistakes and events like the above to happen - is lack of staff. The government is trying to cut money spent on the NHS by ridiculous amounts and are doing this by cutting shifts on wards and telling the staff who work their they need to cut back on the amount of staff per shift.

I remember one particular horrific night shift at my old work, an elderly care ward where there was just me and a Staff nurse looking after a ward of 28 patients the majority with alzhiemers, dementia or needing total care. The standard had always been 3 staff nurses 3 auxiliarys, but now we were told that the funding wasnt available for our normal amount and that we had to make do with what we had. That night was truly awful and led to some admittedly ****ty care as everything was done rushed and horribly.

Another more extreme night, the same lack of staff - a patient fell out of bed, broke her hip and whacked her head resulting in a subdural haematoma - they died the next day. Nothing the staff could have done being that stretched but who did the blame come to? The nurses..one of which was found accountable in a root cause analysis and was struck off.

Bit of a rant, but the problems you experienced Maggy were likely due to bad staffing levels, something the higher ups really need to pull their finger out and get sorted.

With all of the above being said, you hear so many horror stories about the healthcare system in the US. Im currently ill myself with an ongoing condition requiring a **** tonne of meds, new compression bandaging every week and a consultant trip once a month - I dread to think how much that would cost me if I was over there and having to pay the massively over inflated prices for heathcare.

The NHS is a damn good system, possibly the finest and was once heralded as being the finest but it needs a little work doing to it. Private healthcare is not the answer imo.