Health junction

Hospital Overcharging-Where the Rubber Meets the Courtroom In a landmark class action lawsuit, Seattle based Swedish Hospital, now part of the Providence Hospital Group is being sued for charging an uninsured Issaquah man who visited the emergency room much more than what it charged privately insured patients or those covered on government health insurance programs. Though this disparity in hospital billing phenomenon is not new, what is raising the level of accountability is the class action lawsuit, because this will allow the courts to examine the billing of all uninsured patients for all seven of Swedish Hospital�s emergency departments. Though class action lawsuits often end in relatively small settlements for the plaintiffs in the suit, they are big money for the attorneys, at least those with the cojones to see them through to the end. Lifting the Veil on Hospital Billing   Basically here is how hospital billing works, there are different reimbursement levels for services f...

How Primary Care Reduces Health Care Costs in the Long Run Now that the teeth gnashing over health care reforms has been ongoing for two years, before the lifelines are cut on financing health care for the forty-nine million uninsured population, let�s examine the health care continuum for the impact of a failure-to-fund the health insurance subsidies. One of the things that is missing from many discussions and assertions about the 2010 U.S. health care reforms are which systems need to be changed in order to reduce the long term cost of American health care. And when I say reduce, I mean reduce the cost increases in providing health care to an aging population. It is essential the U.S.A. get the per-capita cost of its health care in-line with other nations, as it gobbles funds that could be used for education, capital investments for industry, and other economy building activities. The country will need to make substantial investments in k-12 education as well as building a more ener...