Originally Posted by vabeachman
Originally Posted by Mathsr
The hospital is probably going to accept the $20,000 as payment, claim the balance of $69,000 as noncollectable, all the while making probably close to $15,000, and knowing the guy got bit by a rat snake. grin


+1. My experience, +35 years in healthcare. So the guy ends up having to pay $5400. The hospital writes the noncollectable as a loss. The hospital still made a some. If a hospital makes too much profit it loses its nonprofit status so they use all kinds of ways to fudge the actual figures. I think it was Ronald Reagan in the eighties who passed a law forcing hospitals to treat anyone who came into an emergency room, but he did not account for anyway of paying for it, so a lot of unreimbursed healthcare is related to emergency rooms which is passed on to other patients with insurance.


BINGO!!! We have a winner.

Yes the hospital may only make 1% profit but it's because they cook the books. They charge $89000 for a procedure that likely costs $10000. The insurance settles for $20000. In actuality they have made $10000 but they count it as a $69000 loss. It's fairly easy to stay at 1% profit in that game and still pay million dollar salaries to all the doctors and administration. Also please don't give me all that BS about everyone it takes in the chain. Every drug store in the country manages to stock a large pharmacy and serve many times the amount of customers, many 24-7, without charging $100 for an aspirin.