Health care charges

Can you assist my effort to have health care providers limited in their charges to uninsured or underinsured persons not exceed Medicare or health INSURANCE adjusted approved amounts ?
Only industry that cash payor is billed 5 to 10 times the amount Medicare or Humana would approve. My lab test charge was $1100 and blue cross adjusted to $91. Had I not had insurance my responsibility would have been full amount. This is just plain wrong!

Terry Says:  This is one of the strange things that makes our healthcare costs so significantly higher than in other countries.  No one can figure out — except insurance companies and hospitals — what the real charges are for any procedure.  Please look at my most recent column on the subject posted at www.terrysavage.com.

You do realize that if you had been individually responsible and had no insurance, that the hospital or physician would likely have “written off” most or part of the cost as “charity care,” which is required under Medicare certification!  But lots of people get caught in this trap, don’t get help from the institution, and find themselves burdened with debt of filing bankruptcy because of medical charges.  How can you be a wise consumer if  no one posts the prices — not the list prices, not the prices that will be charged to the insurer, and not how much you will have to pay in co-insurance even if you do have a policy!  You are right on target — and my column is an attempt to give you some resources.