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Jerk McJerkface posted:Seriously. My kid had some fillings and due to a clerical error I got a bill for about $600. When I investigated, I found that the dentist actually charges like $99999999 for everything and the insurance company just says "nope we pay $100" so the dentist takes it. If you don't have insurance you end up having to pay $9999999 for no reason at all. It's madness. Many places have a no-insurance price that is lower than the insurance price. They won't tell you about it until after you get the bill and call up to complain since if they advertised it, the insurance companies would beat them down more. The hospital group we go to gives you a 20% discount if you pay your bill within 30 days. That's on the post-insurance bill. We have a $2000 deductible. That makes our annual deductible only cost us $1600. 20% is huge. Just think how much trouble they must have collecting if they give that kind of incentive.
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Jul 12, 2016 15:10
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Politicians still happily champing at the bit to dismantle the NHS though  Yay
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Jul 12, 2016 15:12
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Me: Hey guys, I know you want this software. Please send me a list of machine names that will need the software installed. Them: Ok! I proceed to get an individual e-mail from 70+ people each containing their personal machine name. Thanks for the list, Helpdesk.
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Jul 12, 2016 15:22
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Gounads posted:And no health insurance company profits! It's not "profits" that are a problem. If no profits existed, none of us would have jerbs. It's the fact that they are allowed to write their own legislation and can then bribe our politicians to pass it without them even having to comprehend whats in the law that is the problem. NLJP posted:Politicians still happily champing at the bit to dismantle the NHS though Yeah. Someone, somewhere isn't getting the cut they want, so they will destroy what they can to get "their cut" of the industry. It happens here frequently.
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Jul 12, 2016 15:22
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It's also not uncommon for an HR administrator to get personal "perks" (see also: money) from the insurance provider for buying into their garbage.
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Jul 12, 2016 15:26
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Wrath of the Bitch King posted:It's also not uncommon for an HR administrator to get personal "perks" (see also: money) from the insurance provider for buying into their garbage. I've seen situations where the circumstances make a kickback strongly suggested. Worse is when they switch providers to "save money" and take a bonus up front for the "savings", get a kick back and then move to another company in six months (before the "Wasn't this supposed to save us money?" kicks in) where they repeat the process.
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Jul 12, 2016 15:28
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Gounads posted:Many places have a no-insurance price that is lower than the insurance price. They won't tell you about it until after you get the bill and call up to complain since if they advertised it, the insurance companies would beat them down more. I went to a doctor for my CTS, just to start getting it treated for an initial consult, and the doctor was like, well, while you are here, lets do a couple quick tests. At the time I had a high deductible plan, 6k/year, and about 1k in my HSA (FSA?). No problem, I got the bill and it was about $15k. It was insane, for two hours, and a couple blood tests, and a five minute ultrasound. I had to pay out of pocket about 5k. I call the hospital and put it on a payment plan, $20/month for forever. After a year, they called me and said "hey if you pay us $500 now, we'll cancel the remaining 4k, just to be done with it." Sure!
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Jul 12, 2016 15:35
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BaseballPCHiker posted:Does the employer offer a health savings account of any sort? I think most HDHP plans offer them. My employer also has a lovely $5k deductible for a single person $10k for a family but they offer a health savings plan and match it 50/50 up to $5k a year which really helps. 99% sure they don't, but I might as well shoot the benefits department an email. This is a company that mainly hires assembly line workers and the like. Those companies tend to poo poo on their employees because they can't afford to do anything about it. I wasn't clear, the lovely plan through my company isn't Kaiser, so if I needed to get it and depending on whether there is a separate prescription deductible, she could get her medications.
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Jul 12, 2016 17:23
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22 Eargesplitten posted:99% sure they don't, but I might as well shoot the benefits department an email. This is a company that mainly hires assembly line workers and the like. Those companies tend to poo poo on their employees because they can't afford to do anything about it. At least you aren't in TX. Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the biggest insurance carrier in the state, announced they are raising all of their prices by 60% across the board, blaming it on ObamaCare. You know the rest of the companies are going to follow next year when they get away with it.
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Jul 12, 2016 17:33
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RFC2324 posted:At least you aren't in TX. Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the biggest insurance carrier in the state, announced they are raising all of their prices by 60% across the board, blaming it on ObamaCare. You know the rest of the companies are going to follow next year when they get away with it. I feel bad for Texans. High uninsured rate leads to high insurance premiums which leads to high uninsured rate...
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Jul 12, 2016 17:51
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My father in law is going to be pissed if that's nationwide, that's who does his company's insurance. That's the problem with telling a for-profit company providing a mandatory product their costs have to go up, there's no way they aren't passing that on to the customer. And then they realize they can attribute any price hike to the same thing since nobody else can see their books.
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Jul 12, 2016 17:52
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RFC2324 posted:At least you aren't in TX. Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the biggest insurance carrier in the state, announced they are raising all of their prices by 60% across the board, blaming it on ObamaCare. You know the rest of the companies are going to follow next year when they get away with it.
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Jul 12, 2016 17:53
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Collateral Damage posted:Why would they do that? Isn't the goal of ACA to bring more people in under insurance. You'd think it would be a gain for them. They're pandering. If everyone in a region hates the ACA and you're an insurance company that wants to hike rates, blaming it on ACA is a great way to deflect blame. Get them busy being mad at Obama and they'll forget to be mad at you!
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Jul 12, 2016 17:56
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Collateral Damage posted:Why would they do that? Isn't the goal of ACA to bring more people in under insurance. You'd think it would be a gain for them. I think it's the low profits that come from the mandatory low pricing under the ACA. Gotta rinse the non ACA customers to make those quarterly profit numbers!
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Jul 12, 2016 17:57
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RFC2324 posted:At least you aren't in TX. Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the biggest insurance carrier in the state, announced they are raising all of their prices by 60% across the board, blaming it on ObamaCare. You know the rest of the companies are going to follow next year when they get away with it. It is mostly the ACA's fault that prices are increasing. 2015 was the first year they didn't get a bucket of money to cover cost over-runs, which caused a crapload of the small guys to close or sell out. A lot of the bigger companies kept the price hikes "low" (in the 15-25% range) for 2016 while soliciting Congress for funds to continue to keep prices low, which they didn't get. So now they pretty much have to pain the people required to buy the plans in the first place. This will, of course, create an even larger group of people stepping out of the market, which will drive even larger cost increases in the future.  Collateral Damage posted:Why would they do that? Isn't the goal of ACA to bring more people in under insurance. You'd think it would be a gain for them. The problem is that the ACA did nothing to change the market that existed. Each state has their own laws and own requirements regarding insurance and health care, which means that they can't cross state lines to cover areas that should be in the same actuarial pool - which really screws a lot of people over that live on a state line across the street from a hospital they can't use without it being "out of network". Adding further burden, most of the "subscribers" that the ACA boasts about bringing in are people that are brought in to free health care or the very-subsidized health care between 150 and about 250% of the federal poverty line. Those on the free contribute nothing to the ACA plans and those that get subsidies are still paying more than they can actually afford for insurance (which is why every year in about March you hear about a bunch of unpaid plans) - plus they have a deductible to cover, to boot. That means the economic incentive is the same as it was in the old system: People avoid using health care and wait until it become an ER issue and then they go to the ER and often stiff the ER, which is reimbursed by the government. Over time, the ACA enrollments are dropping and I'll bet that a "fix" will be to force employers to dump their employees on the open markets to get enough weight behind the actuarial tables. Arsten fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Jul 12, 2016 |
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Jul 12, 2016 17:59
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Won't someone think of the poor stockholders and executives being bullied by the chronically ill and that big meany Obama?
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Jul 12, 2016 18:05
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I'm reading lots of dirty commie talk in this thread. Our glorious healthcare system is the best in the world!  My previous job I was forced to have a HDHP with a family deductible of like $6k. My wife has chronic health conditions so we would always meet the deductible, which meant that on top of the premiums I had to pay, my effective pay for the year was about $6k less. The company had actually lied to me about the available health insurance when I asked prior to accepting the job offer, giving me a benefits sheet from the previous year when they had a real HMO plan. I personally think that HDHPs should be illegal. You are paying premiums for the benefit of paying for your own health care, although at the "negotiated rate" instead of retail. Why there are different costs for that is beyond me. I do want to say that despite Arsten's "The government sucks and everything they do sucks" stance, the PPACA has helped a lot of people by forcing insurance companies to accept people with pre-existing conditions, who would normally be charged absurd rates if they were accepted for coverage at all.
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Jul 12, 2016 18:05
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Arsten posted:That means the economic incentive is the same as it was in the old system: People avoid using health care and wait until it become an ER issue and then they go to the ER and often stiff the ER, which is reimbursed by the government. Over time, the ACA enrollments are dropping and I'll bet that a "fix" will be to force employers to dump their employees on the open markets to get enough weight behind the actuarial tables. This is extra fun, since we discovered that quite a few specialists around here are refusing to accept any insurance plans that are not employer provided. My wife is dying, and no one will help her in the state of TX, no matter how much money I throw at it. So we move to Florida, which has a health care system set up to cater to an older population instead of the 'walk it off or die' we got here.
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Jul 12, 2016 18:18
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Jesus, I'm sorry to hear that.
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Jul 12, 2016 18:24
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Khisanth Magus posted:I personally think that HDHPs should be illegal. You are paying premiums for the benefit of paying for your own health care, although at the "negotiated rate" instead of retail. Why there are different costs for that is beyond me. Actually, HDHPs should go back to being what they were before the ACA: $80-120 a month plans that were basically there to save you from financial ruin when a helicopter crashed into your head. The market needs to change into one that's transparent. The reason we are in this ridiculous mess is because insurance companies hide what they are actually paying and pin costs on Employers while doctors and hospitals have to have a "list rate" that they must charge or be potentially sued by insurance companies they deal with. Khisanth Magus posted:I do want to say that despite Arsten's "The government sucks and everything they do sucks" stance, the PPACA has helped a lot of people by forcing insurance companies to accept people with pre-existing conditions, who would normally be charged absurd rates if they were accepted for coverage at all. I admit that I'm annoyed. Show me a recent government law or program that hasn't collapsed into cronyist nonsense. Before this was passed, these people could either buy into health plans or get on state run health plans in a lot of states. Yes, there were underserved, but they had options. It "helped" them get plans an expense at least 10x that of any other civilized nation. Sure, you can now get health coverage for your pre-existing condition. Welcome to paying $700/'month and the first $6-10k of health care. One of the core ACA promises was the reduced the cost of health care, and it's only driven that cost higher than it was before. Compare that to Canada, Great Britain, or even the Nordic Countries that trend high compared to the rest of Europe. RFC2324 posted:This is extra fun, since we discovered that quite a few specialists around here are refusing to accept any insurance plans that are not employer provided. My wife is dying, and no one will help her in the state of TX, no matter how much money I throw at it. I have a spouse with similar concerns. We've shelled out between $12,000 and $16,000 a year since the ACA forced my employer off of the $100 copay plan. 
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Jul 12, 2016 18:24
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RFC2324 posted:At least you aren't in TX. Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the biggest insurance carrier in the state, announced they are raising all of their prices by 60% across the board, blaming it on ObamaCare. You know the rest of the companies are going to follow next year when they get away with it. Whut. gently caress.
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Jul 12, 2016 18:53
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RFC2324 posted:This is extra fun, since we discovered that quite a few specialists around here are refusing to accept any insurance plans that are not employer provided. My wife is dying, and no one will help her in the state of TX, no matter how much money I throw at it. Oh sweet jesus. I am really sorry to hear this. Goddamn our country is just hosed.
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Jul 12, 2016 18:56
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topenga posted:Oh sweet jesus. I am really sorry to hear this. Goddamn our country is just hosed. ~5 years ago when Obamacare was a daily topic a family friend died from flu complications. Was diabetic and it laid him out pretty quick. No insurance so he never saw a doctor for something that should have been easily preventable. Which is sad on its own, but the real tragedy is his surviving friends and family. All of them are gun hoarding "NO COMMIES" republicans and even after his death they refused to see any value in universal health care. No way for me to know how common that conviction actually is, but it's still hosed up that a non-zero portion of America would literally prefer to see their family die than have socialized health care.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:03
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xzzy posted:~5 years ago when Obamacare was a daily topic a family friend died from flu complications. Was diabetic and it laid him out pretty quick. No insurance so he never saw a doctor for something that should have been easily preventable. The "No universal healthcare" thing is a very prevalent opinion among fox news viewers, because they have been steadily fed lies about how horrible universal health care is(month long waits for emergency surgeries, death panels, etc) for the past 2 decades at least. I'm very lucky with my current insurance. While the insurance plan is managed by BC/BS, all they really do is process claims and "negotiations" and all that stuff, the actual plan and insurance pool is internal to the company I work for. Even when rates do go up, they go up small amounts so that the insurance pool remains big enough from premiums to cover the costs.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:12
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xzzy posted:~5 years ago when Obamacare was a daily topic a family friend died from flu complications. Was diabetic and it laid him out pretty quick. No insurance so he never saw a doctor for something that should have been easily preventable.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:15
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When my grandpa's carotid arteries were so blocked that standing up would make him pass out I was not happy that the Canadian system meant he had to wait six months just for the diagnostic ultrasound. His cardiologist's advice was to try not standing up so much. Surprise ending? He died! Turns out you can get by for so long using only your vertebral arteries. No care, delayed care, poor quality care... take your pick or a lovely melange of all three. All healthcare systems are worthless unless you can afford private care.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:19
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Dick Trauma posted:When my grandpa's carotid arteries were so blocked that standing up would make him pass out I was not happy that the Canadian system meant he had to wait six months just for the diagnostic ultrasound. His cardiologist's advice was to try not standing up so much. My sympathies for your grandfather. anthonypants posted:There's plenty of news stories about people who argued against or actively fought against the ACA turning to crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe to pay healthcare bills. What's even more depressing is that GoFundMe has its own section for healthcare-related expenses. It is sad because you can't simply afford to go to a doctor, anymore.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:24
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xzzy posted:~5 years ago when Obamacare was a daily topic a family friend died from flu complications. Was diabetic and it laid him out pretty quick. No insurance so he never saw a doctor for something that should have been easily preventable. Relevant: Man Who Would Rather Go Blind Than Get Obamacare Now Going Blind.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:25
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It is his decision, even if you don't agree with it. By the same token, he could have refused treatment because he didn't like his doctors' voice. He chose it, he gets to live with it.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:27
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I wonder what the medical coding is for people that turn themselves blue from drinking silver.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:30
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Dick Trauma posted:I wonder what the medical coding is for people that turn themselves blue from drinking silver. I'm sure there is one. One thing about icd10 is that it is drat thorough.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:33
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Arsten posted:It is his decision, even if you don't agree with it. By the same token, he could have refused treatment because he didn't like his doctors' voice. He chose it, he gets to live with it. The fun part is that now he is pissed because no one will see him without insurance, he can't sign up for it until open enrollment, and is expecting to be taken care of anyway(his wife doesn't understand why they didn't get moved to the front of the line even tho they didn't pay) He had the option not to pay and not get help, but he expects not to pay and still get the same help everyone does.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:36
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Khisanth Magus posted:I'm sure there is one. One thing about icd10 is that it is drat thorough. code:
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Jul 12, 2016 19:36
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Arsten posted:It is his decision, even if you don't agree with it. By the same token, he could have refused treatment because he didn't like his doctors' voice. He chose it, he gets to live with it. But it's not his decision to go blind. He decided not to get health insurance with the misguided belief that the ACA would be there to bail him out when he needed it.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:37
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Khisanth Magus posted:I'm sure there is one. One thing about icd10 is that it is drat thorough. 2016 ICD-10 Code for Toxic effects of other metals: T56.8
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Jul 12, 2016 19:37
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RFC2324 posted:The fun part is that now he is pissed because no one will see him without insurance, he can't sign up for it until open enrollment, and is expecting to be taken care of anyway(his wife doesn't understand why they didn't get moved to the front of the line even tho they didn't pay) I didn't say he wasn't dumb, but that he made his choice and now has to live with it. A lot of people I know go without insurance and simply pay the doctors as they go. He probably assumed he could do the same. If he actually expected treatment from the system he rejected, then he's not great at forethought. Gounads posted:But it's not his decision to go blind. I disagree. If I choose to, say, never take insulin for a diabetic condition and I go into hyperglycemic shock, I don't get to then say "I never chose to die of shock! Only to not take my insulin!" This wasn't an unforeseen consequence of his choices. He chose it.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:45
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Gounads posted:But it's not his decision to go blind.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:47
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18 Character Limit posted:2016 ICD-10 Code for Toxic effects of other metals: T56.8 You're right, mine could be applied to too many patients.
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Jul 12, 2016 20:09
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Khisanth Magus posted:I'm sure there is one. One thing about icd10 is that it is drat thorough. The break room here has a calendar from the company's health insurance company with codes for various injuries. This month it's "activities involving frisbee." It bugs me that so many people from other countries think that Obama just plain fixed American healthcare. They don't realize that the biggest health-related change he has made has been to the survival rate of Yemeni wedding parties.
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Jul 12, 2016 20:15
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22 Eargesplitten posted:The break room here has a calendar from the company's health insurance company with codes for various injuries. This month it's "activities involving frisbee." Well, it's called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act! That means everyone's health is protected in an affordable fashion! Much like Americans don't generally understand the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of other nations, other nations' citizens rarely understand ours. There's a lot of intrinsic and cultural knowledge you need to wade through to get into the mindset to understand a government, after all.
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Jul 12, 2016 20:20
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