What’s Not Best: Hospital Billing
We’ve been getting the bills now from when we had our third baby a month ago. The “nursery” charge alone was $2,000. He was in the hospital nursery for a total of about 20 minutes.
Grateful for health insurance — but of course that is also one of the reasons that such exorbitant bills exist.
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About Matt Perman
Follower of Christ. Husband of one, father of three. Director of strategy at Desiring God. This blog exists to help equip Christians in good works, because that's what productivity is really about.
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You’re correct that the cost of health care is partly a function of health ‘insurance’. Any time the person who pays the bill is disconnected from the person receiving the product or service, the incentive to keep the cost low evaporates. If new parents were the hospital’s real customer, rather than the insurance company, and were being asked to pay $100/minute out of pocket for a nursery stay, I bet the cost would begin to drop dramatically!
We had the same issue, only our bill said that we had 3 visits to the nursery. The only problem was that he only was in there 2 times. Insurance would have just picked it up, but out of principle I fought it and got it removed. But did I get a “thank you” from the insurance company? I think you know the answer. If everyone had to pay out of pocket you can bet people would go through their bills with a fine tooth comb.
Again, I can identify completely. And the way some providers deal with people whose bills keep constantly coming due to chronic or life-threatening illnesses are definitely not best either!