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A Crowdfunding Site To Help Pay Patients' Medical Bills
Lucas123 writes: A start-up financial services company called Someone With Group has just completed a pilot of a crowdfunding service that allows hospitals to set up campaigns to help patients pay their medical expenses. The website, which is HIPAA compliant in terms of privacy and security, allows patients facing medical debts to inform family, friends and even strangers of their need for funds versus flowers or cards. The crowdfunding service also addresses a systemic debt issue in the healthcare industry. Each year, the U.S. healthcare industry writes off $40 billion in bad debt from unpaid medical bills. "Then you consider that $6 billion is spent on cards and flowers for patients every year. Why can't we redirect that money and put it into a debit instrument restricted to medical spending only?" said Jagemann-Bane, CEO of Someone With Group. One hospital group, Pinnacle Health Systems in Harrisburg, Penn., routinely writes off $40 million to $50 million a year in unpaid medical bills from patients. The hospital set up a crowdfunding site via Someone With Group and so far has seen a couple dozen patients use it. ... After a one-year pilot of the crowdfunding service, patients who've used it on average have raised $2,315.
1. Use real costs. The fact that there is an "insurance cost" and a "self pay costs" tells us all we need to know about medical bills. They aren't tied to the actual cost of service in any meaningful way.
The problem with that is that a lot of people who end up in bankruptcy over medical costs have insurance. Their rates are already discounted for their insurance, but they can't afford their deductibles, copays, or uncovered expenses. Even if everyone paid the same price, that problem wouldn't go away.
On top of that, as the primary mission of every insurance company in the country is to make money - not to provide coverage for the patient (as that costs money) - the insurance companies are constantly searching for clever new ways to deny claims. Being as the federal government essentially gave the insurance industry a license to print money back in 2010 with the affordable care act, they now have free reign to try whatever they want to "bring costs down".
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
health is not something that can or should be traded on the free market.
America's healthcare system is about as far as you can get from a free market. Patients have no ability to compare prices, or even know what services cost when they are provided. If socialized medicine was the sole answer, America would have a wonderful healthcare system, because our government spends more on healthcare than any other country in the world, and is near the top in per-capita government medical spending as well. Our medical system is bloated, inefficient, and bureaucratic, and at 18% of GDP it is bigger than the entire economy of Canada. If our medical system became as efficient and effective as other developed countries, it would wipe out 10% of our economy, and eliminate the jobs of more than 7 million well paid people. There is a huge amount of inertia and resistance to change.
Obviously you have perfect health, were not born with generic issues and have never needed to have your appendix removed, or never had emergency surgery for an anatomic issue that caused a medical emergency. Not all medical bills are caused by not taking care of yourself.
If the DNR was legally executed, then this is Medicare fraud. Did your family report this to the government or even to the local media?