Wed 22 Mar 2006
Here’s how I got nailed for $153.50 extra dollars (above what I would have normally paid - with insurance), because I went to the wrong Emergency Room.
Late on a Saturday night, I woke up to find myself shivering uncontrollably from fever chills. They were brought on by an infection that was both spreading and getting increasingly more swollen, and not responding to the oral antibiotics my doctor gave me. It was time for a trip to the Emergency Room.
I went to Providence Everett on Colby in Everett, WA. I knew they took my insurance and I had been there before. What I didn’t know was that since then, the doctors group that had a monopoly on the ER had stopped taking Blue Cross (although the hospital still did).
Though I knew it’s common for the doctors, radiologists, and other professionals to bill separately from the hospital (we got like 15 different bills when my wife had our son), I was not told that I was going to go into an ER where none of the doctors took the same batch of insurance plans the hospital did.
If a doctor or hospital or clinic takes your insurance, they have to bill you at the insurance’s allowed rates. These may be only slightly below the regular rate they charge the uninsured or may be as low as 1/4th of what they charge the uninsured. But if they don’t take your insurance, what usually happens is that they charge you what they charge the uninsured (which is basically whatever they want to charge), the insurance pays you a reimbursement based on their maximum allowed charge, and you pay the difference out of pocket.
So how did I get nailed for $153.50? The basic emergency room visit turned out to be right at what Blue Cross allows, so I paid the regular amount for that. BUT, while in the ER, the doctor numbed up the infected area and did an “I & D Abscess”, which basically meant he numbed me up around there, then poked around with a needle, looking for fluid pockets he could drain.
He didn’t find any and the whole thing took about 20 minutes.
Now here’s how I was billed. I was billed $470 for the ER visit itself, called “patient evaluation and management”. This basically pays the doctor for looking you over, deciding what needs to be done, and handling his share of the paperwork for your ER visit. Blue Cross didn’t argue with a penny of this. They paid their fair share of it and I paid my fair share of it.
But the “I & D Abscess” was a separate service from the ER visit and Blue Cross said normal payment for that is $298.50. I’d think that seems reasonable since the doctor was already getting a huge chunk of money for the basic work-up and paperwork. So the extra paperwork on this couldn’t be too major and his time with me on it was about 20 minutes.
But since the ER doctor has no contract with Blue Cross and doesn’t have to charge what they allow, he charged $452. Blue Cross paid their fair share of the $298.50 they allowed, leaving me with my fair share of that PLUS the difference of $153.50 between their allowed charge and what the doctor charged.
I called the Insurance Commissioner’s office and asked how this could happen. Don’t the doctors have an obligation to take the same insurance as the hospital? No. Doesn’t the hospital have an obligation to tell you specifically before you see their doctor that this doctor does not accept your insurance? No. Couldn’t the Insurance Commissioner do anything about this? Not under existing law, they said. They suggested I file a complaint with the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division. I have, but it’s early yet.
What I find most galling is that I know how databases work. I know how direly simple it would be to create a database of all the doctors in the hospital, put up a one-page intranet form with check boxes for the various insurance plans they might accept, and have the a billing person from each doctors’ group check off what they accept. Then, when a patient comes in, I could hit another intranet page, check off what insurance the patient has, and get a list of all the doctors who do or do not accept it. Heck, I could make that a self-service informational page on the hospital’s web site.
If the hospital gave me a list of their doctors and doctor groups, and access to their servers, I could build this in a day. So if it’s that simple, why aren’t the hospitals doing it?
Read The Next Post: The Emergency Room Trick - Part II - Be Prepared
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May 10th, 2006 at 4:59 am
Greg,
Thank you a million for sharing your bad experience and the tricks in the medical field.
There should be more people like you sharing wealthy information for us consumers/patients.
There should be many more helpful websites like this one!
Thank you,
from my Family to yours
Mrs. Xochitl
May 18th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
Update…
Before I started this site or went to the news media with my story, I had called North Sound Emergency Medicine and protested the amount of the bill.
They asked me what I wanted them to do about it and I said “chopping $154 off the bill would be nice.” They said they would “make a note of it” and that was that. Their tone and that particular phrase made me think I was SOL.
Oddly enough, after the site went up and the press release went out, I got $154 chopped off the bill… as a “Charity Discount”.
Now, I may not be rich, but I’m by no means a charity case. I was going to give them a call with a “how dare you”, but then I thought: “They cut the bill. Let it go.”
So, between this and the refund story (in the “Billing/Coding Errors” entry), it seems I’m winning my battles.
But with this crazy system, I have no doubt that there will be more on the horizon.
May 20th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
I was recently sent a bill from the doctor who treated me at my in-network hospital E.R.(Swedish), who was out of my network. The bill was close to $400. I called Blue Cross and explained the situation and how ridiculous the notion of being able to choose a doctor in an E.R.! She was completely sympathetic and said she would resubmit the claim. I wonder if anything will be done…I haven’t heard anything yet!
May 21st, 2006 at 9:19 am
It is about time this gets in the news. We have Blue Cross with a HUGE deductable… $1700.00.. so if that isnt bad enough, an emergency ride in an ambulance to the hospital cost me a fortune……then I got the ER bill from the doctors. While I get their point….insurance companies do tend to RULE the pricing world, who are they hurting??? Real people who can go bankrupt because of this.. And, how do these doctors sleep at night?
And, Blue cross…Can you negociate with these doctors and maybe offer them a little better pricing…. they accept other insurance companies…why not match their payment schedule
May 22nd, 2006 at 9:55 am
My mother has Regence and they are not contracted with them either. I called North Sound and told them I am choosing a plan for open enrollment and wanted to know what plans they are contracted with. They told me that they couldn’t tell me that because it is “HIPAA” protected. HIPAA is a privacy law that protect patient information. I think that’s total bull that they couldn’t tell me. I don’t think they are contracted with any insurance company in WA. The Everett and Monroe hospitals need to find a new ER physician group.
October 25th, 2006 at 8:00 am
I wished that I had found your web site before going to Providence Everett ER with abdominal pain (that turned out to be kidney stones). I received a MD bill for $300, of which Premera Blue Cross applied $128 to my deductable leaving me with $172 unapplied due to out of network provider. Needless to say, I was pretty pissed aobut this development and have tried to mitigate the situation. Premera was no help. Prov billing was sympathetic and promised a response, but nothing yet. North Sound Emergency Medicine sounded like they have heard this all before and claimed they would send my bill for review. I have also contacted Sharon Salyer at the Everett Hearld who is coincidentally writing a story on the shady practicies of NSEM and Prov. I encourage all who have been taken ripped-off by Prov (an others) to speak out about this issue. I also encrourage anyone who is or planning on donating to sisters of Providence to discontinue this practice and send your money to a group with integrity.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:09 am
As the wife of an ER doc, let me tell you that your ER doctor did NOT get $452 for poking around on you for 20 minutes. Most likely, he has NO IDEA how much you were charged for his services. Nearly all ER jobs in the country are now controlled by multi-hospital physician staffing companies which spend huge amounts on clerical staff and their CEO salaries, yet still have enough left over for their stockholders to make handsome profits. To do this, they give the doctors a wage of $105-$140 an hour for working 12 hour shifts. The average is probably $120 an hour. That may sound like a lot, but after years and years of schooling and huge debts, it really isn’t. (And how would you like to work 12 hours at night and on holidays for your whole career, never getting to spend Christmas with your kids, and no overtime pay?) I’ve known plumbers to charge more. The doctor doesn’t bill for himself, never sees the bills or collections. He is never even allowed to know how much money was billed in his name. The multi-hospital groups rarely give the ER doctors any benefits at all. No Social Security paid, no sick leave or disability insurance and not even health insurance because the doctors are called “independent contractors”.
Last year I had an unexpected emergency operation, and we were stuck with $16,000 of hospital and doctor charges (at least 3X what they would accept from the insured) because we were uninsured. (Health insurance companies had all turned me down due to my pre-existing health problems.) Talk about “the shoemaker’s wife goes barefoot”!
There are still some private ER groups left in the country, but corporate medicine is rapidly pushing them out. These companies are hiring more and more incompetent foreign doctors from third world countries, but that’s another story….
April 18th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
$120 an hour average translates out to $240,000 a year (with two weeks off unpaid). Even if your husband was paying $10,000 a month for his med school debts (which would be pretty high), he’s still got $120,000 a year.
As for the scheduling, when I think about the 7-11 clerk who’s pulling down $18,000 a year, gets no benefits, and has to work nights and holidays, my sympathies for the guy getting $240,000 a year are significantly diminished.
I know a TV news reporter who was earning $33k a year… before having to pay 10% to her agent. She did get overtime, but on $16 an hour, that’s not much, and she worked Thanksgiving and Christmas too.
There are a lot of people who work as hard as ER docs with just as few benefits for a lot less money.
And as for independent contracting. Set up a sole proprietorship business and have your husband get paid through it. You might have a few more minor expenses, but you also get more tax deductions, and then he can get medical insurance for you through group plans (where all group members and their spouses/dependents are accepted and cannot be disqualified for pre-existing conditions) provided by professional organizations for small businessmen or even Costco.
And your $16,000 hospital bill… 7.5% of your husband’s annual income, but more than 100% of the annual income of someone who makes minimum wage.
Not saying your husband’s job isn’t rough. But at least he gets well-compensated for it.
April 19th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
No, we’ve never seen $240,000 a year. The doctors are limited to 12 12-hour shifts per month every place he’s ever worked. He’s never gotten more than $172,000 a year. I know that sounds like a lot, but only because you’ve never paid taxes on that amount. About half goes to Social Security, state and federal income taxes, and insurance. Malpractice insurance, runs about $50,000 in our state.
He’s not really an independent contractor; they just call him that to avoid benefits, and no, he cannot get group health insurance by incorporating as an independent contractor. We looked everywhere. AMA sure doesn’t offer health insurance to doctors’ families, and neither does the state medical society.
The person who makes minimum wage didn’t go to school for 12 years after high school, so my sympathies for the 7-11 clerk are significantly diminished, too. I’ve never understood why the person who drops out of high school and has 2 or 3 kids right away should expect that they should make the same income as the person who delayed gratification and planned ahead.
When my husband was an intern and resident, way back when, he used to work 36 hours in a row, which I think has thankfully been outlawed. The first 10 years in practice he worked 24 hour shifts, and they still do that in some smaller hospitals that have trouble recruiting ER doctors.
Not to say that there aren’t doctors who are grossly overpaid, like heart surgeons, but most ER doctors are not overpaid and do not collect or even know what you are billed, and that is my point. Corporate medicine has taken over the ER.
April 19th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Oh, I forgot to mention that in cases where the ER is actually staffed by a physician-owned group, which seems to be the case where you are, what usually happens there is that the doctors who started the group years ago are the “partners” who skim off all the profit for themselves and become multi-millionaires.
Then they hire other ER doctors to do the actual work for them as so-called “independent contractors”. There is usually a provision that the new hire can become a limited partner after, say, 3 years. Then what happens is that the ER doctor is fired without cause right before he is due to become a partner so they can hire someone else who will never become a partner. Since often the same group staffs all the hospitals in town, the ER doctor who is not lucky enough to have become a partner years ago has to sell his home and move his family to the next town. The contracts are short-term, and ER doctors change jobs about every 4 years on average.
Oh, and 1/3 of ER doctors can expect to get sued in any given year. The malpractice is $100,000 in Chicago and close to $200,000 in Miami. Worrying about lawsuits is a lot of stress. Not to mention having to worry about getting AIDS from people bleeding on you when you don’t have time to suit up like a space man.
50% of doctors today would not choose medicine as a career if they had it to do over again. 50% of doctors over 50 plan to retire within 3 years. Their place will be taken by government imported doctors from third world countries who can barely speak English. Already X-rays are being read in many hospitals by doctors sitting over in India.
It won’t be long before you’ll sit in front of a TV camera in the ER, and a doctor over in Nigeria will direct an Indian or Filipino nurse here in the US to examine you, then turn you over to the recent hospitalist graduate imported from Uganda. My husband can’t even communicate with these new hospitalists who are flocking in from African countries.
Hospitalists are a new specialty of doctors who admit you to the hospital and are in charge of your care while there. Office-based doctors apparently don’t want to make rounds any more. Be sure you check with your primary care doctor or surgeon to see if he still makes rounds, because you don’t want to be stuck with one of these foreign hospitalists if you have to be admitted to the hospital.
April 25th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
I went to the Providence Everett ER on June 3, 2006 for a dislocated thumb. Sat in the empty waiting room for about an hour shaking in pain. When they pulled it back into place I was so relieved and thankful. That was until I got the bill. The ER was covered but the doctor wasn’t. I’ve never heard of that before. Isn’t the doctor part of emergency room service? Was charged $760 for the room and $1016 for the doctor.
I appealed the charge with Premera and lost. Appealed again and had a hearing. Pointed out that the benefit booklet defines emergency care and that it is covered. Lost again. Missed the opportunity to appeal again in the alloted 60 days but was bogged down from work to focus on it.
I’ve never been so mistreated by my insurance company. I wished my company would offer other carriers but they don’t. Maybe it’s because I work for Premera.
May 16th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
My 6 month old daughter got sick and wouldn’t eat or drink anything. After struggling with her for nearly two days she suddenly got really sick so we decided to take her to the emergency room. This was late in the evening on 07/29/2006. Yes, I said 2006.
What got us off on the wrong start was the fact that my company changed insurance plans two days after the date of service. Since the hospital visit was on the weekend, the billing got all mixed up. After spending several weeks correcting things, we got onto a payment plan with the hospital and they ensured us that everything was in order. Even after being on the phone with them several times, they NEVER EVEN MENTIONED that we should expect another bill or that none of their ER doctors were covered with my insurance (which was Premera Blue Cross).
Then yesterday (05/15/2007) I get a call from collections telling me that I owed Dr. Liam Yore $217. This was completely out of the blue so I made sure it was legit and then promptly paid it. I called the billing agency that works with Dr. Liam Yore and they cited that they sent out several letters but received no reply. If we received these letters we likely just threw them away as the date of service and visit details coincided with the hospital bill (which we thought we had squared away) and it would have come during the period of time where we were receiving double billing statements from the two insurance companies.
End result, we paid out of pocket nearly $500 for en ER doctor to examine and now we have a blip on our credit report.
My main frustration isn’t so much with the total (there’s lots of reasons for that), what frustrates me most is the hospitals’s desire to avoid any responsibility for the situation they have created in their ER rooms and shear apathy towards their patients. I understand that they cannot be responsible for 3rd parties but THEY SHOULD AT LEAST BE REQUIRED TO MAKE PATIENTS AWARE OF THE ENVIRONMENT THEY ARE GOING INTO.
May 16th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
My 6 month old daughter got sick and wouldn’t eat or drink anything. After struggling with her for nearly two days she suddenly got really sick so we decided to take her to the emergency room. This was late in the evening on 07/29/2006. Yes, I said 2006.
What got us off on the wrong start was the fact that my company changed insurance plans two days after the date of service. Since the hospital visit was on the weekend, the billing got all mixed up. After spending several weeks correcting things, we got onto a payment plan with the hospital and they ensured us that everything was in order. Even after being on the phone with them several times, they NEVER EVEN MENTIONED that we should expect another bill or that none of their ER doctors were covered with my insurance (which was Premera Blue Cross).
Then yesterday (05/15/2007) I get a call from collections telling me that I owed Dr. Liam Yore $217. This was completely out of the blue so I made sure it was legit and then promptly paid it. I called the billing agency that works with Dr. Liam Yore and they cited that they sent out several letters but received no reply. If we received these letters we likely just threw them away as the date of service and visit details coincided with the hospital bill (which we thought we had squared away) and it would have come during the period of time where we were receiving double billing statements from the two insurance companies.
End result, we paid out of pocket nearly $500 for a brief ER visit and now we have a blip on our credit report.
My main frustration isn’t so much with the total (there’s lots of reasons for that), what frustrates me most is the hospital’s desire to avoid any responsibility for the situation they have created in their ER and the shear apathy they have towards their patients. I understand that they cannot be responsible for 3rd parties but THEY SHOULD AT LEAST BE REQUIRED TO MAKE PATIENTS AWARE OF THE ENVIRONMENT THEY ARE GOING INTO SINCE THE HOSPITAL IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CREATION OF THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I too work with databases and know how simple it would be to make this information just a click away from the employee who takes your insurance information.
This practice seems wrong to me on a basic ethical level and I would support any law or bill that would require hospitals to make patients aware of practices that will effectively double their costs.
October 26th, 2007 at 6:50 am
Funny how the insurance companies raise premiums and co-pays every year, and yet keep attempting to drive up the discounts they require from physicians to participate in their managed care network.
Insurance companies(and employers)have raised premiums, deductables, and co-pays an average of 8-10% every year for the past 5 years, yet the average physician has acutally seen a decline in overall reimbursement. So where is all that extra money going? Not to the one who delivers the service.
March 10th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Thanks so much for posting this. I majored in Health Service Administration. It wasn’t till I had my own ER visit that I encountered an ER billing separately for they “physician” that was independently contracted with them, that I found out it was legal for them to do this.
My courses had only glazed over the idea. I really felt that it had to be illegal for them to do so, especially since they are getting paid under the hospital, but apparently it isn’t.
I have always tried to keep in mind that we should be serving the patient regardless of insurance coverage. This just gives me another aspect to focus on in my graduate studies.
Thanks again for your post.
March 18th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Depending on where you live, I would strongly encourage Overlake in Bellevue if at all possible in an effort to avoid these situations. I’m at a mid-point between both Providence and Overlake and chose to go to Providence when I had some stomach pains, thinking my coverage with Premera Blue Cross would apply at either location. The North Sound Emergency physician at Providence spent NO MORE than 5 minutes with me poking around a bit. I ended have my appendix removed and found out months later that North Sound Emergency doesn’t take Blue Cross. I was therefore billed an additional $611.00 out of pocket for this less than 5 minute evaluation!!! I called NSEM thinking there had to be some mistake and was told that the charges were valid and must be paid by me. Thinking this was ethically reprehensible to stick somebody with this kind of fee for a consultation of less than 5 minutes, I composed a very professional, level-headed letter and asked that these charges be reviewed. I just received a reply (4 months after my letter) stating that the charges are non-reviewable, valid and must be paid immediately.
I pled my case with the folks at Providence, and while they were very empathetic and nice, they can’t do anything since NSEM is contracted. The lady at Providence did say however that she’s heard A LOT of stories similiar to mine regarding North Sound Emergency Medicine. So, a word to the wise — Providence is a great facility but they’re contracting with E.R. personnel that care more about the almighty $$ than the patient. It’s absolutely disgusting that North Sound Emergency Medicine is affiliated with this facility (or any facility for that matter) and that they’re legally allowed to conduct business and take financial advantage of innocent, unknowing people in need of medical care. I’m fortunate that I was able to scrape up the resources to pay this ridiculous charge but I simply want to warn others about this E.R. NSEM should be ashamed of themselves and Providence should immediately sever all ties with them before their own credibility is destroyed. If not, they owe it to the public to very clearly communicate insurance coverage(s)that will be accepted by the crooks from NSEM. As long as North Sound Emergency is associated with Providence E.R., go to Overlake if at all possible.
March 18th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Agreed!!
May 7th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
You got off easy at $154. We’re looking at $432.
I would really like to know what happens when the crack heads and druggies show up at the ER. Who pays their bills?
Seems very likely to me that suckers like us, who actually take bills seriously, are probably making up for all of the folks who simply ignore their bills and don’t pay a dime.
May 17th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Don’t just assume that your insurance covers the doctors at Overlake. ALL the hospitals in the area have ER doctors that bill separately and they all take different insurances than the hospital.
I went to Evergreen ER in 2006 on-plan with United Healthcare and later when the bills came found out that their ER doctors were not on-plan. So had a bill over $300 over what the insurance paid. I found out that the ER docs were on-plan for the affiliated network on my card (check those as many plans have them like Multi-care) but said they weren’t and wouldn’t take the discount. With tenacity and the help of the Benefits Advocate at work finally after 9 months they did take the discount. BTW, I went to Evergreens ER again in 2008 on-plan with a different insurance, Guardian/PHCS, and the ER doctors WERE on-plan and no balance due; easy breezy!
In mid-2007, I went to the Swedish ER on-plan with Guardian/PHCS and later when the bills came found out that their ER doctors were not on-plan. They were not part of the affiliated network either. The bill was not very much, about $40, but I called and asked them to review it and see if since the insurance paid at the “higher in-network rate” if they would take the discount. It took a few months but they did so I didn’t have to pay anything.
In late 2007, I went to Overlake ER on-plan with Guardian/PHCS and later when the bills came found out that their ER doctors were not on-plan. So had a bill over $200 over what the insurance paid. They were not part of the affiliated network so no hope of working that again. After months of talking to the physicians billing and my insurance, the insurance company saying they paid at in-network rates and we were responsible for the balance billing, the insurance commission saying the same thing, and feeling taken, I found out that the Physicians Group was controlled by the ER Director. I called and talked to him, talked about them getting paid the higher in network rate, told him how I chose not to go to his ER when I had to just recently (now 2008) because of the outstanding bill. He looked over my bill and found that one of the codes was no longer being billed separately due to some Medicare issue (we don’t have Medicare but apparently that is a factor that determines how the hospitals bill things based on what is required by Medicare ). He wrote off that code with was most of the balance billing. I just had to pay a small fee for “after hours 24 hr facility fee” but since it was so small in comparison I chose to pay it. Now I just have to see if this all dinged my credit report or not.
I asked the Director why people were not told that their ER doctors were not on-plan. He said there was a Federal Law that prevented them from telling patients WHEN AN EMERGENCY IS HAPPENING so that people will go to the nearest emergency room and so there is not lawsuits of “the guy with insurance got seen before the person without insurance” (that is why they don’t do any billing paperwork until you are past triage). BUT THEY CAN TELL YOU IF THEIR ER DOCS ARE ON-PLAN IF YOU ARE CALLING ASKING ‘WHAT IF IN THE FUTURE’ QUESTIONS. Since we just got new insurance through work changing plans, he did tell me that the Overlake ER docs were on-plan with my new insurance.
So do check with your ERs when you are NOT needing them to see if their ER doctors are on-plan so that you have an easier choice choosing which hospital to go to in an emergency. But be prepared that if you don’t have a choice, like in a car accident with ambulance transport, that you WILL get multiple bills from multiple departments and you WILL have to be vigilant to see if you can get write-offs from the billing physicians. I have found that in some cases, it was as simple as ASKING NICELY if they will review and take the write-off. In other cases you really have to stand your ground.
I do think that everyone should talk to their Government Representatives to see if they can somehow make this medical insurance mess easier for people.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:45 am
A fundamental problem underlying many of these comments is that the managed care plans fail to inform their members that in most cases, the emergency department is separate from the hospital, and just because the hospital has a contract with that managed care plan doesn’t mean the emergency doctors have a contract.
Most EDs are managed by the doctors themselves and are legally separate. They have a contract with the hospital to manage the ED, much as a retailer leases space in a mall. If the doctors don’t have a contract with the managed care plan, then the bill is the patient’s responsibility to the extent the patient’s (non-contracted) insurer fails to pay the entire bill.
In the great majority of cases, the reason why the doctors may not have a contract with an insurer is because the insurer was not willing to contract to pay an adequate amount. The message is, if at all possible first check to find out if the emergency department has a contract with your managed care insurer. Managed care plans should - but usually do not - include this information in their lists of hospitals and doctors.
September 21st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Some very good advice in these messages. The most important being:
1. Know your insurance plan BEFORE an emergency occurs. The can tell you what hospitals AND physician groups they contract with. Call the ER and ASK what physician GROUP hnadles their ER. ***DO NOT WAIT*** until you have an emergency to find out. It is prohibited by a law called EMTALA to discuss insurance before you are triaged.
2. Often it isnt the hospital that controls that situation but the physicial billing group.
December 1st, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I work at Providence. I know that the medical group, North Sound Emergency Medicine, who staffs physicians in the Providence Emergency Departments, provides competent and caring doctors.
North Sound, the corporation, I was told, was left with no option but to stop accepting Blue Cross insurance after negotiations failed between NSEM and Blue Cross. An agreement was reached 1 1/2 years ago and NSEM does accept Blue Cross at this time. Emergency medicine, payment for services, insurance compensation, billing charges, are all very complex. I certainly understand all the concerns.
I also know that North Sound has been contracted Providence hospital in Everett for 35 years. Many of the original MD’s still work with the group and have never had any other job. Though many have retired it is a group committed to the health needs of Everett. The group that started in the spirit of the 60’s by young physicians. I know there is no profit skimming, as someone noted above. I know that no one working with the group gets paid unless they work.
It is easy to make inflammatory statements and allegations in this kind of forum. But, in the very difficult world of Emergency Medicine, where 35% of the patient care is provided free to people who can not pay, and where patient demand for services often outstrips a facility’s funding for staffing to meet those needs, there are many sides to this story.
An eye opener… if you have ever seen medical care in other countries, you would be glad to have American medicine standards in your own back yard. We have the best system, it all just needs to be made better… and people are working on it. In a country of 300 million, change will take some time.