NEW YORK TIMES: …I have spent the last two and a half years reporting and writing about medical costs, and during that time I have pored over hundreds of patients’ bills. And while I’ve become pretty adept at medical bill exegesis, I continue to be baffled by how we’ve come to tolerate the Kafkaesque stream of nonexplanations that follow health encounters.
Bills variously use CPT, HCPCS or ICD-9 codes (more about those later). Some have abbreviations and scientific terms that you need a medical dictionary or a graduate degree to comprehend. Some have no information at all. Heather Pearce of Seattle told me how she’d recently received a $45,000 hospital bill with the explanation “miscellaneous.”
Are there no standards or regulations governing medical billing? Even my receipts from the dry cleaner say things like “sweater blue — $7.” The supermarket tells me I’ve paid $2 for 1.3 pounds of gala apples… (more)
