Originally Posted By Oldschool Disney Taking care of sick people should not be a business. That makes me sad.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer I work in health care for a large non-profit provider in the Seattle area. The issue is really about insurance reimbursements, not hospital charges. My employer provides about $100 million a year in charity care. I don't work for the tax-supported hospital here (Harborview), so the charity support we provide comes from our own operating revenues and some from donations to our foundation. Hospitals are very expensive to run as they require 24 hour staffing, redundant utility systems and they have to meet extremely stringent regulatory and accreditation requirements. Hospitals know exactly how much it costs to provide the care that they provide. My employer's margin is only about 3.5% to 4.5% at best. The amount of money that you see on a bill is reflective of the amount that insurance is going to write off, not the amount that the hospital is actually going to collect. Our CFO told us at an open forum that he would love to just work with one payer and to know how much we'd be reimbursed for the care that we are providing. The insurance companies have forced hospitals to hire massive finance and billing departments to keep up with the hundreds of different requirements for billing and authorizations and to keep on top of the insurance companies to make sure they pay. One of the reasons that your health care is so expensive is the size of this billing support team. The insurance companies have shifted so much of the expense of their work onto your hospital and doctor's office that all they see are massive profits and all the doctor's offices see are ever decreasing revenues. Health care reform should have always been called health insurance reform from the start.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Our CFO told us at an open forum that he would love to just work with one payer and to know how much we'd be reimbursed for the care that we are providing. The insurance companies have forced hospitals to hire massive finance and billing departments to keep up with the hundreds of different requirements for billing and authorizations and to keep on top of the insurance companies to make sure they pay. One of the reasons that your health care is so expensive is the size of this billing support team. The insurance companies have shifted so much of the expense of their work onto your hospital and doctor's office that all they see are massive profits and all the doctor's offices see are ever decreasing revenues.> Exactly. Doctors and hospitals now spend an inordinate amount of time on dealing with various insurance plans (and they vary widely from each other, so there's no rationality), and have to hire staff just to deal with it - which ultimately the patient pays for. Go to single payer, and that disappears.
Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 Hey TomSawyer...this is off topic but I have to say thank god your hospital (Harborview) is there...they saved my Dad's life last year and they were really wonderful in helping him deal with all of the insurance craziness.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer I actually work for Swedish, not Harborview. They are both good hospitals.
