Ok so I know we all can debate our healthcare system and who should pay for what but I thought I'd just give an example of how doctors screw us. I went to my family doctor for a normal check up. I get lab work done etc. I thought the bad part was going to be having to be stuck with a needle and them take some of my precious blood. But oh no. About a month after the visit I get a bill from the Lab. $1400 with a note saying they had already filed this with my insurance and this was MY PART!!!!! So I call the Lab company who says I have to call the insurance company who says I have to call the Lab company... grrrrrrrrr. Anyway, after hours on the phone they agree to rerun it on my insurance. So today I get the statement from them. They accepted $250 as payment from BC/BS. This is sickening to me that they charge 700% more than what they expect as payment. If I didn't have insurance would I have to negotiate a rate that was even half of this? This is robbery IMO and should be illegal. I'm not against a doctor making a VERY GOOD living. But this sort of crap just irks me. This REALLY makes me want to send them a bill for my time that I sat in their office waiting on my 10 am appointment for 4 hours. Bastards.

Been down that same road, I learned to never pay anything for at least 3 months.
If you wait the Medical companies will bill your insurance multiple times, and then you will get a bill for the negotiated remainder, or the medical company will drop their price in the amount you owe.

I made the mistake of paying the medical companies first, and then getting reimbursed by the insurance company. Wow what a beating I recieved, I noticed the exact same issue on on bill that the insurance company negotiated the total price down well over 50% and then paid their percentage.

Learned my lesson, It does hit your credit report, but most lenders understand the issue with insurance / medical price haggeling and will let it slide if everything else is good.

The lab fee's are seperate from your Physicians fee, But point taken.
You can haggle with price with your doctor before getting any treatment. Same goes with your dentist.

[quote name='Blitz' date='12/20/07 8:56pm' post='167472'] Been down that same road, I learned to never pay anything for at least 3 months.
If you wait the Medical companies will bill your insurance multiple times, and then you will get a bill for the negotiated remainder, or the medical company will drop their price in the amount you owe.

I made the mistake of paying the medical companies first, and then getting reimbursed by the insurance company. Wow what a beating I recieved, I noticed the exact same issue on on bill that the insurance company negotiated the total price down well over 50% and then paid their percentage.

Learned my lesson, It does hit your credit report, but most lenders understand the issue with insurance / medical price haggeling and will let it slide if everything else is good.

Junkie,Ive been through this nightmare more often than i care to mention.

14 years ago when i came down with R/A and was in suicidal pain through out my entire body,i went to see a doctor for alternative medicine...Big mistake..he gave me a phisical ,looked up my nose, checked my glands in my neck arm pits you know the usal.Then sent me into a nother room where they drew blood and said see ya soon .The very next day i contacted them and said im not interested in his therapy and NOT to send the blood to the lab.

Two weeks later i received a bill 600 bucks for the phisical,1800 bucks for the blood work.

I contacted a very close friend i grew up with an attorney and explained my problem.

He wrote a very firm letter to the doctor and all payments and billing to me were stopped.

and i owed nothing.At the time i had no health benifits at all.

two months later the three storiy building this guy worked out of was vacant.This doctor use all three floors for his Alturnative medicine practice.

He packed up and split.

Be very carefull who you trust with your personal health care and be sure to check on your doctor cridentials just to make you dont get burned or worse it could cost you more than a fist full of money.



"T.M."/Russ

I think I paid $2.00 for a script once.

Sorry about that Geno Wow, that is highway robbery, but after hearing that... I'm glad I live in Canada.

I guess free medical is ideal. I have never paid for a doctor, dentist, blood work, operation or physio. I even have massage therapy covered under my work plan.

With all the broken bones I've had, I would have been broke.

universal health care rocks

buggers

I guess they both have pros and cons.

As crazy as this sounds I don't prefer the government taking my money and telling me how to spend it. This was resolved and I vary rarely pay anything other than a copay but the headache I had to go through to get this done was infuriating. What scares me is the doc didn't ask me if I had insurance or hint at what the cost was. Fortunately I've learned a lesson now. I do know that doctors milk the insurance companies for as much as possible. I went to the doc in a box here for a cold/flu last year and they wanted to take xrays of my chest.... hell no I've got a cold not a broken bone. Give me some antibiotics, a shot, and some feel good cough syrup. Thank you. I'll be back in a week if I'm dying. They had treated 250 ppl that day for the same thing. So 250 x-rays on ppl with a cold x $100 probly. Geez.....



Sixy you pay for it just instead of being billed by the doctor you get billed by your government every time you get paid.

When I was in Florida last winter I had to go to the hospital after tearing a ligament in my leg. Fortunately I had bought travel medical insurance for a couple hundred before I left. The bill was close to $1000 for a x-ray and diagnosis! I don't know how you Americans do it...

Not saying Canada's healthcare system is perfect - because it isn't - but I'll take ours over the U.S system any day.

You are right Geno, we do pay more in taxes... also our doctors are on a cap (GP's). But at the same time, I sure have gotten my money's worth.

I think if you you look at the general tax structure, it all works out in the end. Especially with the cap on the GP's.

I think we end up with over crowding in the ER due to the fact, people won't wait to see there family doctor. But at the same time the ER set priority cases.. if you're an emergency-->you're in. You can see three specialist and never see a bill. I would hate to be hit with a bill, due to the fact I had the flu. We just stop by the doctors office and get our flu shot without a thought.

I still think $1400.00 is robbery for a doctor's appointment for a few random checks and some blood work.

If I was a doctor, I would sure move to the states, I would also give all MOB and Regs a huge discount...lol

[quote name='Cpt.Canuck' date='12/21/07 2:06pm' post='167532'] When I was in Florida last winter I had to go to the hospital after tearing a ligament in my leg. Fortunately I had bought travel medical insurance for a couple hundred before I left. The bill was close to $1000 for a x-ray and diagnosis! I don't know how you Americans do it...

Not saying Canada's healthcare system is perfect - because it isn't - but I'll take ours over the U.S system any day.


Hey Capt, i have read about the perscription prices in Canada compaired to the horrendous prices we pay here in the U.S. In that regard i consider you folks up there very, very lucky.Anyone here on a maintenance perscription type program for there meds needs insurance or thier in deep trouble.Its crimminal whats going on down here, and honestly tottaly wrong man.

There used to be drug clubs that would buy meds from Canada and have the medications filled and shipped to you.then a few years ago i think Mr. Bush signed a bill to make that against the law.With the excuse well we just want to be sure the meds are of top quality and no one gets hurt by buying impure medications and it cant be regulated.Thats just a bunch of Bull because most of those meds are manufactured here in the U.S. and already have the stamp of aproval by are wonderful FDA.i dont know its all just so frustrating.



"T.M."

I agree....

For those of you who don't live where it is working good, don't knock it. I'm in Canada like 6-pak- its great not being burdened with heavy over payments for those lighter hospital trips.
Plus the doctors and nurses are top notch quality and treat everyone to their best abilities- social status is not an issue.
I mentioned a while back a friend who went for a check-up bue to shortness of breath/tiredness- the doc checked him and 'ordered' him immediately to hospital- withing days my friend underwent bypass surgery that saved his life- he was home weeks later and his only cost now is heart treatment drugs.... the only cost ->
and he's now in good shape. The whole thing for him was free!
Sorry, but everyone whining about it should be somewhere where it works and then assess it being sucky or not. Yes, there are big line-ups/ waiting lists for surgeries up here too like evrywhere else- those that can afford medical insurance/private treatment up here have the freedom to do so too.

Up here if you're below a certain income bracket you don't pay into the program [there's a section of the tax form that calculates if you need to pay into it 'directly']. I'm guessing for each $10,000 income bracket you're in, the cost maybe $20 or so per year you pay into the program via these specified taxes.
My opinion is if everyone is getting excellent treatment instead of being afraid about the 'cost' if you're not insured, then they are more likely to be able to work more/ have less sick days=> therefore more work productivity and more money in the economy. More money in the economy trickles down to everyone -bigger paychecks- so maybe having a universal healthcare cannot be considered such a rip-off.

We have a thing called GST credit too- govt sends you a cheque even if you are working if you don't earn a certain level of net income to offset the weighty taxes we're paying.

I just had an assignment covering someone who was trying to lobby the state legislature to allow insurance companies in this state to classify their clients based upon their health. The insurance companies want to charge more to unhealthy people and less for the general population. Well, here is an example of where the issue of the right to privacy and the medical/insurance industry is going to come slamming down on the hapless population. Imagine a day when insurance companies can charge based on your health, as some states currently allow, now imagine that you are trying to hide the fact that you are a cigarette smoker because you don't want to see a dramatic hike in your insurance rates. Well, what is going to stop the insurance companies from going to homeland security and request to see your credit card purchasing record and your Paypal records? It would be very easy to figure out if you've lied to your insurance company once they have those records.

Does this kind of situation beat being able to decide how you are going to spend your medical dollar? I don't think so. The person I was covering was self-employed as a business consultant. She became upset when she went through a divorce and lost her health insurance as she had been covered through her husband's employer. She was stunned to find that Blue Cross Blue Shield's cheapest individual policy was one with a $10,000 per year deductible. That's right, she had to spend $10,000 before the insurance company would pay a dime. But that wasn't the bad part. She was floored to learn that the price she had to pay for that policy was over $400 a month!!!! I've since learned that similar policies go for around $300 in New Hampshire because they allow the insurance companies to segment their clients.

As for the extreme expense we have to face here in the US when we buy prescription drugs - I believe that's because the pharmaceutical industry can basically charge American's whatever they want. We don't negotiate with them as a country, as most all of the other industrialized nations do. Those countries can hammer out a good deal and we're left holding the bag. In essence, the US gives the drug industry their profit. I could be wrong on this. Anyone know the mechanism behind this?

From what I hear, much or signicant amount of it has to do with political 'favouritism' and sucking up between politicians of influence and affluent drug barons. Would explain why Bush chopped off access to americans crossborder shipping for affordable prescriptions in Canada.

yeah, that was really inexplicable. They claimed that the drug companies insisted that they couldn't guarantee the quality of drugs that were being shipped from Canada, as if you were some Third World Country.

We used to have buses of elderly that would leave from assisted living centers here in Maine that would make monthly trips to Canada so the folks could buy relatively inexpensive meds, until he cut them off. Once again, the corporate interests get what they want and the fixed income elderly get hosed.

Completely agree. Dispicable.