$5000.00 sleep study reduced to $800.00

i had a sleep study at local hospital few weeks ago......some how they didn't get my insurance information and today i received another bill saying since i don't have insurance the charge will be only $800.00. i called my health care provider and they said now u see why insurance cost so much

Many hospitals aren't being that generous when there is no insurance involved and stick the patient w/the full billed amount, not even allowing a reduction to a usual insurance allowed amount. The insured are paying for the uninsured invasion of the ER departments around this country.

I'm an outsider in this since i live halfway to the moon, but it seems to me that the insurers are probably to blame for the ridiculous state of affairs described here. If the reasonable charge is $800, then surely that is what should be charged, regardless of who is paying. I'd be asking loud questions of my political representatives.

No wonder the US health system is in so much strife. Sounds to me it's even worse than the Australian one, and that is saying something!

K

The insurance company probably wouldn't pay $5000.00 either. Typically, health providers have an amount they "charge" for each service, but they have separate amounts that they have contracted with the insurers that the insurers will pay (often the big insurers basically set this amount). Some will then say to no-insurance customer that they will reduce the bill and look good.

I'm on a high deductible insurance plan with a health savings account. I pay for the first $1250.00 in insurance bills (believe it or not, the way our plan works I save money overall by doing this). Yet, I don't pay the billed amounts, I pay what Blue Cross would pay, because technically I am insured by them.

For instance, my sleep study was billed at over $4800.00 (this was for a split night study). The insurer allowed (or contracted amount is $1383.00. That is all Blue Cross would have paid, so that is all I would pay.

(Actually I paid the first $1250 and twenty percent of the rest for a total of $1276.60 - Blue Cross paid the rest. Because I had met the deductible, I now pay a 20% co-pay on everything. My Elite S8 II and mask, cost me about $150.00 total).