Advocates Can Help Lower Hospital Bills
Errors can result from using the wrong computer code to charging people for tests that weren’t performed
These individuals are called “medical billing advocates” and are trained to review medical bills, identify errors and negotiate with hospital billing departments and insurance companies.
Sometimes it’s a matter of being charged twice for the same service or for tests that were never done, according to Christie Hudson, vice president of Medical Billing Advocates of America.
Patients should always ask for an itemized statement after leaving the hospital, said Bill Watermeier, who runs Medical Bill Review in Bend. Often a hospital bill error is the result of a mistakenly-typed computer code, said Watermeier, who urges his clients to ask appropriate questions when they don’t understand their hospital bill.
Hospitals automatically generate and send patients a summary bill, he said, which reflects the total amount owed by the patient but doesn’t itemize the specific charges or services rendered.
“Most people…assume that [they are] complete,” he said. “That’s typically not the case. People stick their head in the sand, and don’t ask the proper questions.”
Hospitals do their utmost to respond when someone complains about an erroneous bill, said Tammy Johnson, manager of patient billing services at OHSU. “If there’s a problem, we fix it right away.”
Out of the 30,000 hospital billing statements sent to patients, Johnson estimates she receives about 200 calls from people asking to clarify a particular service. “Our error rate is less than 3 percent,” she said. OHSU also conducts internal audits to help verify its charges for a hospital service.
There is no state agency in Oregon that tracks hospital bill errors or regulates hospital billing, including any arm of the Department of Public Health. Even though other hospitals have patient advocates, including Providence Health and Services and Salem Hospital, their billing departments aren’t always willing to work with advocates.
Allen Patterson worked as an advocate in Salem between March and October and often left voice mail messages, but never heard back from the hospital’s billing department.
That’s not been Watermeier’s experience. It doesn’t make sense, he said, for hospitals to not talk to advocates. “It’s in their best interests. They’re not going to get any money if they don’t compromise to some extent.”
Medical Billing Advocates, a membership organization founded in 1994, has 90 advocacy members nationwide and two people in Oregon who can assist people with their medical bills. Typically they’re paid 25 percent of whatever they recover on behalf of their clients from a hospital. If nothing is recovered, the advocates are not paid.
TAKE ACTION
Are your hospital bills suspiciously high? Here’s the contact information for two medical billing advocates in Oregon.
Bill Watermeier
Medical Bill Review
Bend, OR
541-312-8550
John Halpern
Concepts and Wellness, LLC
conceptswellness@comcast.net
If you’re interested in becoming an advocate, check out Medical Billing Advocates of America at www.billadvocates.com
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Sometimes people are not aware about the proper billing of their medical expenses. That is why sometimes they are surprised of large amounts printed on their bills. Medical costs are out of control – no one knows if it's because of health insurance kickbacks, or huge malpractice premiums, but what ever the cause the effect is the same – us poor working stiffs have a heck of a time trying to manage medical debt. Some of the things you definitely want to do is look for billing mistakes. It's not that medical billing is fraudulent, but they do make mistakes and it's a good idea to get itemized statements, so you can contest any charges for things that never happened.