Anesthesiologists are the worst offenders. My experience is that none of them are in network. You think you have everything covered and along comes this bill that is as big as everything else.
Woe to you if you are uninsured. I had minor heart surgery nearly two decades ago. The bill was something over $80K. The insurance company disallowed most of it, bringing it down to $20K of which I had to pay $2K. Except for the Anesthesiologist.
Why is it that you can't go to a medical facility and tell the intake nurse or admin person you're not agreeing to any procedure that's not covered by your insurance. Wouldn't that put the onus back on them? Anything not covered instantly becomes a freebie or a lawsuit?
Why do hospitals and clinic get away with this crap when auto mechanics and plumbers can't?
Some shady anesthetologists (and others) often try to bill you out of network. In-network charges are subject to insurance company price controls while out of network charges are not.
Once you make it clear you are paying in-network, as you kindly explained to the receptionist (who told you it was all covered), they back down real quick. It's just a scam they try to pull on the uninformed.
If a law was passed that they have to that's what. If a law was passed that any hospital billing mistake in favor of the hospital should be fined by a 10x fine of the amount on the first offence and a much higher one on subsequent offences. That kind of stuff, stuff that would protect individual citizens when they get sick and are most vulnerable. In a normal country that's what would happen.
The hospital didn't make a mistake in this case; they were indeed covered under the plan. The specialist who is not under the plan is probably not an employee of the hospital. So basically you're saying we should overhaul the way medical billing works. I totally agree, but I don't think that is accomplished by passing a law that levies fines on hospitals.
Woe to you if you are uninsured. I had minor heart surgery nearly two decades ago. The bill was something over $80K. The insurance company disallowed most of it, bringing it down to $20K of which I had to pay $2K. Except for the Anesthesiologist.