[lbo-talk] Modern medical "coverage"

[Andy]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 8:20 AM, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
>
> Last month I got a complete physical in honor of my 50th birthday.  As
> always (so far) nothing was wrong (although I'm still awaiting my inaugural
> visit to the proctologist).  The doctor charged me 20 bucks for a co-pay,
> just like 10 years ago.  And then they billed me 4 dollars, by email, via
> PayPal. That didn't seem so bad.  But today I just got a separate bill from
> the lab -- something I've never seen before -- telling me that the total
> bill for the routine bloodwork was over 400 bucks, and my share of that is
> $156.  So now it's up to $180 dollars for a routine checkup when nothing is
> wrong for a guy who's got what's considered good coverage? How can that even
> be called coverage?  20 years ago, it would have cost me half that with no
> coverage at all.

Ah, those tricksy insurance companies.

I had surgery to check out a mysterious mass -- I was out for less
than an hour.  As promised, the surgery itself was almost completely
covered, but the amount for the anesthesiology that was "deemed
reasonable" was something like $100 out of several hundred.  So I
wound up initially paying mostly for the anesthesiology.  A year later
I get a bill from my doctor for about $1100, for the consultation and
lab fees.  I'd hadn't even had a notification of a denial from the
insurance company.  After talking with the doctor's office, it seems
they had submitted the claims by mail numerous times and never got an
acknowledgment.  It's possible that they hadn't sent it to the right
address, but I didn't think quickly enough to catch them on that.

I'll deal, and everything could have been a lot worse, but it's the
sort of thing that makes me wonder if it's wise to have kids, what
with the added risk of utter and merciless ruin.

-- 
Andy