Hospital Overcharges May Cost You

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Hospital Overcharges May Cost You

If your Medicare supplemental health insurance requires that you pay a portion of your expenses, any overcharges from a hospital stay will cost you. The January 2003 issue of “Consumer Reports” says that to protect yourself from inflated bills, “you have to pay attention to the hospital charges from the moment you enter the building until a nurse wheels you out the door.” Here are a few common errors to watch for:

Check the dates on your bill. Most insurance plans do not allow hospitals to charge for your discharge day, although many hospitals frequently do so anyway. The day you entered, regardless of the time you were admitted, may be billed as a full day.
Look for duplicate or incorrect charges for medication, lab work, tests, or rooms. Compare the bill with your doctor’s orders (you will need a copy of your records.) Hospitals may try to bill you for a procedure even though your doctor cancelled it. Look for several lab fees on one day and check with your insurer to see if the fees should have been combined as one single charge. Check the bill for your room. Some hospitals bill for such things as sheets and towels that should be included with the room charge.
Check your records for times when surgery began and ended. Operating room use is billed hourly, or by the half or quarter hour. Rates can vary from $500 to more than $2,000 per half hour. You may be billed for three hours for a procedure that actually took only two.
Review bills for expensive services that were not performed. Known as “upcoding” this practice assigns a diagnostic code of a more serious condition that requires more costly procedures. Double check the doctor’s orders against the diagnosis to make sure it is consistent with the procedures on your bill.

For more information about common hospital billing errors and how you can save on your next hospitalization, see “Decoding Your Hospital Bills,” in the January 2003 issue of “Consumer Reports” or visit http://www.ConsumerReports.org.

April 2003