Payors

From Harvard’s Let’s Talk Healthcare Blog:

….according to the American Hospital Association, private health plans now pay on average 40% more for the same service than Medicare pays.  Today, 4 out of 5 hospitals in the United States would be technically bankrupt if Medicare was their only payor.

Controversy About ED Wait & Bill

From Fox News:

A woman who never saw a doctor even though she waited 19 hours with an injured leg in Parkland Memorial Hospital’s emergency department got a bill from the hospital for $162.

Amber Joy Milbrodt, who said she fractured a bone in her right leg while playing volleyball, received the bill two weeks after her Sept. 24 visit.

“It should have been more like them paying me for having to sit in the emergency room for 19 hours. That’s just sad. It’s not proper. It’s almost not moral, what I went through,” she said in a story for Monday’s online edition of The Dallas Morning News.

Parkland officials say the bill was appropriate because a nurse spent time assessing Milbrodt for triage.

“She’s not paying for waiting,” says Rick Rhine, the hospital’s vice president in charge of billing. “She’s paying for the assessment she received.”

The assessment, which lasted a few minutes, established her place in line that night. The hospital says one in five patients who check into Parkland’s ER leaves before seeing a doctor. Those who stay long enough to see a triage nurse must pay.