New York Hospitals Give Uninsured a Break
This month in New York after decades of overcharging the uninsured, hospitals in New York were among the first in the country to cut charges for uninsured patients. The hospital industry's use of ruthless collection tactics and its practice of billing America's 43.6 million uninsured at inflated retail rates has been the focus of many recent articles in the Wall Street Journal.
When I started working at Rose Medical Center in Denver over 10 years ago, I was able to provide care for some uninsured patients. The hospital accepted these patients without charging a dime. After the hospital was converted to a "for-profit" hospital by Columbia-HCA, my ability to provide care at Rose for the uninsured evaporated.
In my last year there I had to tell many uninsured that I would perform surgery at Medicaid rates BUT Rose Medical would not accept these rates. The hospital billing department told my patients that the charges were many times even what an excellent managed care company would pay. For example one patient needed a colon resection and was told the hospital bill would be $40,000 - 1/2 was due immediately and a quarter over the next two months. Minor surgery patients were told they would owe Rose Medical $4,000 and up. Since none of these uninsured patients had this money, they had to go elsewhere for their surgery. I pleaded with Rose Medical to reduce their charges to Medicaid level, but the hospital refused. This I felt was clearly unethical.
The Denver Post cited in 2002 that not all Denver hospitals were sharing the burden of caring for the uninsured equally. Most of these patients had to go to Denver General or the University hospital. The Columbia-HCA "for-profit" hospitals such as Rose Medical and others each made a profit. I wonder why? If you are not sharing in the burden of providing for the uninsured, you are likely seeing paying patients. Interestingly these hospitals provided a tiny amount of the uninsured care.
