Healthcare Bait-and-Switch: Hospitals are Hiding Fees From Customers.

Hospitals are Hiding Fees from Patients. Realm Health has a Solution.

Hospitals are driving up their profits by tacking hidden “facility fees” ranging into the thousands of dollars that health insurance policies may not cover onto bills for covered doctor office visits.

“It’s one of the most egregious examples of hospital financing at the expense of consumers,” Liz Hagan of the non-profit United States of Care (USC) told The Guardian. USC research found that hospitals are buying physician practices, outpatient surgical clinics and diagnostic centers and turning them into “outpatient hospital departments.”

Patients often are unaware of the bait-and-switch until they get a bill for an otherwise covered doctor visit with a non-covered hospital facility fee added to it. Facility fees are often impossible to anticipate or estimate and can range “from $0 to thousands, without any relationship to the particular service being provided,” The Guardian reported.

Health offers a cost containment benefit in its group plans to help consumers avoid the hospital trap and control their healthcare spending. Among other advantages, the benefit identifies and directs customers to the most affordable providers and services near them.

Customers who call Realm before seeking care can get a list of practices, urgent care and imaging centers that are included in their healthcare coverage. The proprietary third-party technology also provides customers with the real price of care, not the price providers want them to see.

Knowing that, consumers can make educated, cost-efficient decisions about their care, which is particularly important as for-profit hospitals accelerate their acquisition of independent providers. The USC research summarized:

“The addition of facility fees is one reason that many of the same services that can be safely delivered in a physician’s office are more expensive when provided in a hospital setting. These fees often come as a surprise cost for consumers, in large part because they are increasingly attached to services not received in a hospital setting.”

Hospitals are increasingly coming under fire for being a key driver in the explosive cost of healthcare. According to the American Medical Association, hospitals account for 30% healthcare spending, more than double the percentage of physician services.

National Nurses United, the 225,000-member professional association, reported in its 2020 “Fleecing Patients; Hospitals Charge Patients More Than Four Times the Cost of Care” that exorbitant charge-to-cost ratios have produced nearly $1 trillion in for-profit hospitals’ net income. It concluded:

“Hospitals have largely abandoned their once traditional roles as community-centered charitable organizations focused on patient care, transforming themselves into powerful corporations focused on maximizing profits. With little or no community accountability or stakeholder representation, hospitals effectively use their economic power to take advantage of their social importance and distort pricing systems.”

In addition to enabling its customers to avoid the “outpatient hospital department” hidden charges, Realm’s cost containment benefit also gives customers leverage when making decisions about hospital care. By calling before going to the hospital, patients can get information about nearby non-profit providers that are required to offer financial assistance. The benefit also will negotiate reduced costs before care and may be able to reduce or eliminate charges afterwards.

To schedule a confidential, no-obligation executive consultation, contact Realm Health at (844) 802-3842 Opt 2 or via RealmHealth.com/Realm4Life.