9 patients cost taxpayers $3 million

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by TristansMommy

Perhaps if those 9 people had access to preventative care and a primary physician through coverage they wouldn't have had to visit the ER instead of going to their DR. .. that's just one of the many things I could think of.

Well, mental health is difficult to manage. There will be emergencies. Most docs have some type of on-call service, but sometimes people don't know how to use it, especially in a crisis.

[justNancy]

We seem to have switched to talking about the care of the mentally ill and the politics behind it instead of the outrageous cost of medical care. I just had a thought Since the patients probably never see the bills, is it possible the hospitals are overbilling because they realize these patients won't challenge it?

Once I was supposed to spend 4 weeks in a chronic pain program in Boston, walked in for an initial evaluation, but decided not to be admitted. However, my insurance company got an itemized statement for the daily doctor visits.
I swear this really happened!

[BigJon3475]

Originally Posted by Katiana

This trend started in the early 60s, in the Kennedy administration. It sounded so good: community mental health centers. Unintended consequences. I have worked in MH and I don't have all the answers

Community Mental Health Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rosemary's lobotomy in 1941 I'm sure had some heavy influences.

[harborlady]

justnancy my grandmothers senior citizen group watch their doctor bills like hawks. I believe AARP encouraged them to do so in a few articles pointing out medicade fraud. You did turn them in to the insurance company, correct?

[justNancy]

Originally Posted by harborlady

justnancy my grandmothers senior citizen group watch their doctor bills like hawks. I believe AARP encouraged them to do so in a few articles pointing out medicade fraud. You did turn them in to the insurance company, correct?

Well, not exactly. I called the doctor's office and was told they billed the wrong patient number. Sure they did. So they settled everything with my insurance provider.

Since we are on the subject, I used to run into this type of fraud a lot. Maybe it isn't fraud, but how can a doctor adjust his price so much depending on the patient's coverage? Here's what I mean. I went to a neurologist for chronic headaches. He billed me for several CT-scans and other procedures costing thousands. At that time I had Met-Elect which was a PPO, and the reason I went to this doctor was because he was in the network. So he had to accept the fee paid by Met Life and I was responsible for my deductible and 20% of the contracted fee, not his inflated charge. I kept getting past due bills and threats and finally, after making many calls & writing letters, I got someone at Met Life involved. She told them it was a violation of their contract to bill me for more than the agreed upon fee. So they told her I never explained I was on their plan and would take care of the discrepancy immediately. Grrrr.

[Oerdin]

Originally Posted by justNancy

So who said we don't already have socialized medicine in this country? What can we do to stop this kind of abuse?

The last sentence of the article pretty much sums it up. Those nine people are mentally ill and their hypochondria is pretty much the reason they go to the emergency room so often (up to a dozen times a day).

[monkeywrenching]

would have been cheaper to spend the money and provide non goverment health insurance to those people, then it would not have costed so much.

[harborlady]

Originally Posted by monkeywrenching

would have been cheaper to spend the money and provide non goverment health insurance to those people, then it would not have costed so much.

try reading about cost shifting.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi...stract/25/1/22

[Who?Me?!]

Originally Posted by justNancy

9 patients made nearly 2,700 ER visits in Texas

From the Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas – Just nine people accounted for nearly 2,700 of the emergency room visits in the Austin area during the past six years at a cost of $3 million to taxpayers and others, according to a report. The patients went to hospital emergency rooms 2,678 times from 2003 through 2008, said the report from the nonprofit Integrated Care Collaboration, a group of health care providers who care for low-income and uninsured patients.

Read the rest of this article here.
9 patients made nearly 2,700 ER visits in Texas (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090401/ap_on_re_us/frequent_er_patients - broken link)

So who said we don't already have socialized medicine in this country? What can we do to stop this kind of abuse?

Abuse? The repubs call this "everyone in the U.S. has access to health care, nobody has to go without, so we don't need universal health care because that has faults and will cost too much".