{"id":631579,"date":"2023-04-20T18:56:04","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T23:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/20\/a-229000-medical-bill-goes-to-court\/"},"modified":"2023-04-20T18:56:04","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T23:56:04","slug":"a-229000-medical-bill-goes-to-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/20\/a-229000-medical-bill-goes-to-court\/","title":{"rendered":"A $229,000 Medical Bill Goes to Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Note: \u201cAn Arm and a Leg\u201d uses speech-recognition software to generate transcripts, which may contain errors. Please use the transcript as a tool but check the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> Hey there\u2013<\/p>\n

Lisa French was a clerk for a trucking company in Denver. She\u2019d been in a car crash, and her doctor told her that to keep her spine stable, she ought to get surgery.<\/p>\n

She asked the folks at the hospital what it was gonna cost her, out of pocket. They ran her insurance and told her: Your end is going to be one thousand, three hundred thirty-six dollars, and ninety cents.<\/p>\n

She said, thanks.<\/p>\n

Then, she and her husband sat down at their kitchen table and talked it over: They had a rainy-day fund. A thousand dollars they\u2019d socked away, they kept it at home, in cash. Were they ready to spend it all for this?\u00a0<\/p>\n

They decided they were, and Lisa went to the hospital with a thousand dollars cash.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She had the surgery, it went fine. The hospital had been expecting about 55 thousand dollars from Lisa\u2019s insurance. They actually got more like 74 thousand.<\/p>\n

But they decided that wasn\u2019t enough. They decided they wanted their full sticker price: 303 thousand dollars. So they billed Lisa French for the rest: 229 thousand dollars.<\/p>\n

And when they didn\u2019t get it, they sued her.<\/p>\n

Lisa French had her surgery in 2014. The court case finally got resolved last year, in 2022, by the Colorado Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been listening to this show for a while, you probably remember: We have gotten VERY interested in understanding, when we get a wild medical bill, what legal rights do we have? How can we use those rights to fight back? Even on a small scale, like in small claims court?\u00a0<\/p>\n

And even though Lisa French\u2019s case is a LONG way from small claims court, it has a LOT to teach us about these questions.<\/p>\n

This is An Arm and a Leg, a show about why health care costs so freaking much, and what we can maybe do about it. I\u2019m Dan Weissmann. I\u2019m a reporter, and I like a challenge. So our job on this show is to take one of the most enraging, terrifying, depressing parts of American life, and bring you something entertaining, empowering, and useful.<\/p>\n

And I should say upfront: We won\u2019t be hearing from Lisa French directly.<\/p>\n

Her case made a lot of headlines\u2013 in 2018, when a jury heard it, in YEAR when an appeals court overturned the trial court, and last year when the state supreme court made its ruling.<\/p>\n

Not in the kind of detail that we\u2019re gonna go into, but come on: Who can resist the headline?<\/p>\n

Male Anchor: Well, tonight we have a story of David versus Goliath. David being a woman who needed spinal surgery in 2014 Goliath, the hospital that charged her more than $200,000 to do it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> So over the years, a lot of reporters wanted a sound bite from Lisa French. Her attorney used to let her know when there was an inquiry, and she\u2019d say yes or no.<\/p>\n

Eventually, she told her lawyer: Don\u2019t even tell me when they call anymore. I just want to live my life.<\/p>\n

Fair enough.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s who we\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: I\u2019m Ted Lavender. I\u2019m an attorney in Atlanta, Georgia. I\u2019ve been practicing law for 26 years,<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> And he spent several of those years representing Lisa French.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably worth answering one question up front: If Lisa French had to empty her family\u2019s rainy-day fund to pay the hospital a thousand bucks, who\u2019s paying the lawyer from Atlanta?<\/p>\n

The insurance from her job. Which had played a role in starting the whole mess.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: the company that she worked for had a health benefits plan that was slightly different than what you might call run of the mill health insurance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> It worked this way: They weren\u2019t in-network with any hospitals. Instead, they\u2019d just take whatever bill any hospital sent, make their own evaluation of what a fair price would be, and send the hospital a check.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a somewhat unusual model\u2013 one survey says about 2 percent of employers use a plan like this\u2013 but Ted Lavender says it often works.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: a very large percentage of the time , the hospital would accept the check and no one would hear anything more from the hospital, which in legal parlance would mean acceptance<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> And as a backstop, in case there was any trouble, the health plan would send a lawyer. That\u2019s Ted.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s what happened that led to all the trouble in Lisa French\u2019s case: Whoever ran her insurance card at the hospital, they didn\u2019t read it very carefully.<\/p>\n

If they had, they would\u2019ve seen a little logo under the insurance-company name that said, \u201cprovider only\u201d \u2014 that is: This plan only has doctors and nurses and other PROVIDERS in network.<\/p>\n

With hospitals, there\u2019s no network, no \u201cin-network rate.\u201d We\u2019ll just send a check for what we think is right.<\/p>\n

The same health-benefits company has a different plan, one that does have a hospital network. You know how it is. Insurance companies, a million different plans, every one its own snowflake.<\/p>\n

The hospital mistook Lisa French\u2019s snowflake for another one, and that\u2019s how they came up with that estimate.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: based on their calculation, they expected to collect a total of<\/strong><\/p>\n

$56,000, the 1,336 from Ms. French and the remainder from her health plan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> And they presumably would\u2019ve been happy with 56 thousand. But they got more. They got about 75 thousand dollars.<\/p>\n

But once they got it, they wised up to the mistake they had made about Lisa French\u2019s insurance. They had no agreement with the insurance plan to accept 56 thousand.<\/p>\n

So, they decided: There\u2019s no reason for us not to charge our full sticker price here.Three hundred and three thousand dollars.<\/p>\n

So Lisa French had been expecting a bill for three hundred thirty-six dollars and ninety cents. That\u2019s the difference between what she\u2019d been quoted and the thousand dollars she\u2019d paid in advance. But the bill she got wasn\u2019t what she expected.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: it turned out to be a whopper of a bill. We ended up with an itemized bill that showed every line item for every charge that totaled this<\/strong><\/p>\n

$303,000<\/strong><\/p>\n

And then at the bottom was, you know, subtracting the thousand she paid, subtracting the money the insurance paid, leaving a balance of 229,000 and change<\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> Of course, Lisa French did not have 229 thousand dollars, or anything like it.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: Eventually she got a visit from the sheriff who served her with a lawsuit and she was sued for that $229,000.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> And that\u2019s where Ted Lavender entered the scene.<\/p>\n

The jury trial in 2018 took six days. As Ted Lavender says, it wasn\u2019t exactly a splashy murder trial, in terms of drama.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: this was a six day trial involving hospital billing. So, you know, there was no murder weapon. There was no aha, big, gotcha moment that was really exciting.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> But Ted Lavender did his best. Like one time, when he got a hospital executive on the witness stand.<\/p>\n

To stabilize Lisa French\u2019s spine, surgeons had implanted 13 pieces of metal into her body. So Ted Lavender had the hospital executive walk the jury through the price for each of those bits of metal. Or actually, the prices..<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: And I first showed him the itemized bill and asked him to identify what they charged for these 13 pieces of hardware .<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had given him sort of an oversized calculator that was sitting there in front of him on the witness stand, admittedly, for some dramatic effect<\/strong><\/p>\n

And through adding these up on the itemized bill, he arrived at the number which was $197,000.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> A hundred and ninety-seven thousand dollars. So that\u2019s about two-thirds of the three hundred and three thousand dollars the hospital is trying to charge Lisa French.<\/p>\n

And then the next thing I did was I handed in the 13 invoices that we had received from the hospital,<\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> That is, Ted handed the guy the invoices the hospital had received \u2014 and paid \u2014 when it bought those bits of metal..<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: and I asked him to add up and tell this jury what did the hospital pay for these 13 pieces of hardware.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He\u2019s adding, and he\u2019s adding and he\u2019s punching in numbers, and he\u2019s turning pages and he\u2019s adding, and he\u2019s adding with each addition, with each plus the jury seemed to ease a little closer up to the front of their chair, and ultimately he arrived at the total, which was $31,000 and change.<\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> So the hospital\u2019s charging like six and a half times what they paid. And that\u2019s two thirds of this 300 thousand dollar bill.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: It just, you know, the jury seemingly did not like that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> So that was a good moment for Lisa French\u2019s side. I mean getting the jury mad at the other side, that\u2019s a win.<\/p>\n

And the big calculator wasn\u2019t Ted Lavender\u2019s only visual: He also had a giant post-it note, where he wrote down, in magic marker, all the different prices the hospital accepted for the surgery, depending on who was paying.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: and we got these numbers from the hospital, they would\u2019ve accepted $146,000 from private insurance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> That\u2019s less than half of what they were trying to charge Lisa French. And they accepted less than that \u2014 a LOT less \u2014 from government-funded insurance, like Medicare, Medicaid, or Tricare, which covers folks in the military.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: The average of what they would\u2019ve accepted for these. Procedures that Ms. French had were $63,199. Again, Ms. French and her insurance company combined paid almost $75,000.<\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> You can hear that post-it rustling around. It was a good prop, he\u2019s held onto it. So, he\u2019d shown the jury that the hospital charged a HUGE markup, and that what they were suing Lisa French for was way, way more than they charged anybody else.<\/p>\n

On the hospital\u2019s side, they were like, Yeah, but this is our actual sticker price. And Lisa French signed a piece of paper that said she would pay \u201call charges of the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the hospital was like, yep, and these are our charges. That 303 thousand dollars, it comes from a list we keep. It\u2019s called the chargemaster. That\u2019s what Lisa French was signing up for.<\/p>\n

And this became something the jury had to decide:<\/p>\n

When Lisa French signed a piece of paper saying she\u2019d pay \u201call charges of the hospital\u201d \u2014 was she specifically agreeing to pay what was on the chargemaster?<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s one thing that might\u2019ve made jurors a little skeptical on that score: The hospital never showed that chargemaster list to Lisa French. Not before her surgery, not after it. They said it was a trade secret.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: they went all the way through trial. Never producing it though. We, we, we asked at the very beginning, once the lawsuit was filed, , basically you get to ask questions. Give me this information, give me information that supports your case or helps my case.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And we ask specifically for the charge master and they refuse to produce it on the basis that it was confidential and proprietary.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> By withholding that list, the hospital may have helped Ted Lavender make his argument: How could Lisa French have known what she was signing up for, if she couldn\u2019t see the prices?<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: if we can\u2019t get it through our subpoena power, how in the world would Lisa Friendship been able to use it by, had she asked?<\/strong><\/p>\n

And admittedly she didn\u2019t ask for it, but if she had, surely they wouldn\u2019t have given it to her either.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> In the end, the jury agreed: Lisa French had not specifically agreed to pay the hospital\u2019s chargemaster prices.<\/p>\n

And the only other alternative was: She agreed to pay something reasonable.<\/p>\n

The jury decided she owed the hospital seven hundred seventy six dollars and 74 cents<\/p>\n

Basically, that\u2019s the three hundred and some left over from the original estimate, plus some extra \u2014 because she wound up staying in the hospital one night more than expected: She owed a fee for late check-out.<\/p>\n

Of course the hospital did not take that lying down. They appealed the outcome\u2013 and won! Ted Lavender appealed that decision, which is how the case ended up in front of the Colorado Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve actually got tape of those proceedings. They\u2019re kinda juicy. Plus the outcome, and why it matters for the rest of us. That\u2019s right after this.<\/p>\n

This episode of An Arm and a Leg is produced in partnership with KFF Health News\u2013formerly known as Kaiser Health News.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re a national newsroom producing in-depth journalism about health care in America. We\u2019ll have more information about KFF Health News at the end of this episode.<\/p>\n

OK, so Lisa French\u2019s case was headed to the Colorado Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the big issue. Remember how the jury found that Lisa French hadn\u2019t actually agreed to pay the hospital\u2019s chargemaster price, the three hundred and three thousand dollars?<\/p>\n

The hospital argued: The jury never should\u2019ve been asked to consider that question.<\/p>\n

The law \u2014 legal precedent \u2014 makes it open and shut: The appeals court had agreed. And it had cited other cases from courts around the country.<\/p>\n

So when the hospital\u2019s lawyer, Mike McConnell, got up to address the Supreme Court, he led with those citations.<\/p>\n

Mike McConnell: All of the questions that you have raised have been addressed in more than a dozen cases around the country. carefully and thoroughly.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justice Richard L. Gabriel: Well, let me push back on you. Good morning to you, Mr. McConnell.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mike McConnell: Good morning.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> This is Justice Richard L Gabriel, stepping right in. He notes that these dozen other decisions all rest on one original case, from 2008, where a court had said: We can\u2019t intervene in health care pricing. Courts shouldn\u2019t try. Health care is too complicated.<\/p>\n

Justice Gabriel wasn\u2019t convinced.<\/p>\n

Justice Richard L. Gabriel: I guess the question I have is why, you know? I, you know, we may not be the smartest people in the world, but this is a contract and why should the hospital industry\u2014 different than any other industry on the planet \u2014have different rules for contract principles?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> The hospital lawyer argued that hospitals couldn\u2019t predict everything that would happen in a patient\u2019s care. In fact, the hospital can\u2019t even control it: Only physicians can decide what treatment to order.<\/p>\n

Mike McConnell: You can, uh, I guess imagine that hospitals ought to be able to predict in advance what a particular physician is going to order for a particular patient. Um, and, uh, perhaps, you know, obviously you feel that is the way it ought to be. It is not the way it is, but now<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justice Melissa Hart: Mr. Mr. McConnell, I\u2019m sorry, to interrupt\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> Here\u2019s justice Melissa Hart breaking in<\/p>\n

Justice Melissa Hart: \u2026the hospital did provide an estimate in this case. They did calculate what they thought this was going to cost and tell her that. So it is, it seems false to me that they can\u2019t do it. Of course, they can\u2019t predict with absolute certainty. In this case, she had the extra night stay in the hospital and she paid for that. But they can predict in a case like this, and they do.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> The justices didn\u2019t seem super-persuaded by McConnell\u2019s response to that. And that left one more big question in front of the justices.<\/p>\n

When Lisa French signed a document promising to pay \u201call charges,\u201d was she definitely agreeing to pay three hundred and three thousand dollars? Or 229 after insurance.<\/p>\n

The appeals court found that the chargemaster rate \u2014 the 303 thousand \u2014 had been \u201cincorporated by reference\u201d to the document she\u2019d signed, officially called the \u201chospital services agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The supreme court wasn\u2019t convinced. Here\u2019s Justice Richard Gabriel again.<\/p>\n

Justice Richard L. Gabriel: There\u2019s no reference to the charge master on the face of the hospital services agreement.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How could she have assented to something she never even knew existed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> And here\u2019s how the hospital\u2019s lawyer responded.<\/p>\n

Mike McConnell: When she read the provision, all charges not otherwise paid by insurance. She understood that the hospital charges would, she was responsible for paying the hospital charges that her insurance company did it,<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justice Richard L. Gabriel: Whatever it was. They could have charged her a billion dollars and she\u2019s your position to be she\u2019s bound because she agreed. All charges means all charges.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> Huh! There wasn\u2019t a real comeback to that.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court ruled against the hospital, unanimously. Specifically, they ruled that the chargemaster\u2013 the 303 thousand dollars\u2013 had not been \u201cincorporated by reference\u201d to the piece of paper Lisa French had signed.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t know those chargemaster list prices even existed. How could she agree to pay them?<\/p>\n

So that meant, the court ruled that, quote, \u201cthe hospital services agreements left the price term open.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is language that may ring a bell, if you\u2019ve been listening to this show. It\u2019s a legal principle \u2014 a bedrock of contract law:<\/p>\n

How the law treats an open-price contract \u2014 a contract that doesn\u2019t specify a price term.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a refresher on that principle from Ted Lavender.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: if you go to McDonald\u2019s and order a, a quarter pounder with cheese and you know, value meal number three, they tell you the price and that is the price that you have to pay. And then they give you your meal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You enter that contract with an actual price term<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> But you can also enter an open-price contract \u2014 a contract without a price term.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: if you have a contract without a price term, without a specific price in it, then the law infer into that contract a reasonable price.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> In other words, a contract with the price term OPEN is not a blank check. I don\u2019t have to pay whatever number the other side makes up.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what the Colorado Supreme Court found here.<\/p>\n

They ruled that, quote, \u201cprinciples of contract law can certainly be applied to hospital-patient contracts.\u201d They say, a court may have ruled otherwise in 2008, and other courts may have cited that opinion. We disagree.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Supreme Court is saying, even in health care, when no price is specified\u2013 when the price term is open\u2013 you have the right to a reasonable price.<\/p>\n

Yes!<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why Lisa French\u2019s case is so interesting to us, here on this show.<\/p>\n

Because we\u2019ve talked here about using this legal principle to fight back against outrageous bills.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve heard from one guy, Jeffrey Fox, who actually took a hospital to small claims court to enforce his right to a reasonable price. And won.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve heard from a listener who tried and failed, but said, more of us should try this.<\/p>\n

And this Colorado decision seems like good news for anybody interested in doing something like that.<\/p>\n

But honestly, it also raises a few concerns that I had not known about before. First:<\/p>\n

Well, there ARE all those other cases out there, in other states, that follow the 2008 case, the one that says health care is too complicated for courts to get into.<\/p>\n

And yeah, here\u2019s Colorado saying, \u201cNo it isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

But courts in other states aren\u2019t bound by Colorado\u2019s decision. Hm. And second: there\u2019s also something the Colorado court DIDN\u2019T decide:<\/p>\n

What if the paper Lisa French signed had specified, \u201cI agree to pay the hospital\u2019s CHARGEMASTER rates?\u201d Could she be required to pay them then? Even if they were a billion dollars?<\/p>\n

In their decision, The Colorado court wrote that the chargemaster rates are \u201cincreasingly arbitrary\u201d and \u201cinflated\u201d and \u201chave lost any direct connection to hospitals actual cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Ted Lavender thinks they might\u2019ve said, No, we can\u2019t be held to a billion dollars, just by adding the word \u201cchargemaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: I think they would\u2019ve answered that. No, but they did not come right out and actually answer that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> Because they didn\u2019t HAVE to answer that question.<\/p>\n

Ted Lavender: Courts routinely, in fact, it\u2019s almost an objective of appeals courts. They answer as few a number of questions as possible to get to an answer. ,<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> So the Colorado court simpley ruled that in Lisa French\u2019s case, the chargemaster rates weren\u2019t \u201cincorporated by reference\u201d into papers she signed.<\/p>\n

Those papers didn\u2019t didn\u2019t mention the chargemaster at all\u2013 and the hospital kept that chargemaster as a trade secret. Open, shut.<\/p>\n

But\u2026 hospitals aren\u2019t supposed to keep those rates secret anymore. For the last couple of years, thanks to an executive order from the Trump administration, federal rules have required them to post their chargemaster to the internet.<\/p>\n

And so I had all that in mind when I heard from a listener in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Cindi Gatton: my name is Cindy Gatton and I\u2019ve been an independent patient advocate for 11 years now.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> Cindi\u2019s job is helping people deal with medical bills, but she had actually written to me about her experience as a patient.<\/p>\n

Before a medical appointment, she got the usual forms online, including one for \u201cPatient Financial Agreement and Responsibilities\u201d<\/p>\n

Cindi Gatton: so I thought, you know what? I\u2019m gonna print it and just see exactly what it says. And I\u2019m reading through the thing it says, patient understands and agrees that he, she will be charge. The Piedmont Healthcare Standard charge master rates for all services not covered by a payer or that are self-pay.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never seen that before, and it shocked me that there was a reference to charge master rates in the financial disclosure.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> And Cindi has been dealing with medical bills full-time for a decade. She\u2019s seen a lot. So when she says it\u2019s new, and that it\u2019s shocking, that seems worth noting.<\/p>\n

Cindi Gatton: it just feels wrong to me. It feels really wrong because it, it reminds me of, you know, you, you go to a website and they give you their terms and conditions. Nobody reads those. I don\u2019t read them. You click yes so that you can move on with what it is you wanna do, which is to get care, to be seen by the doctor to, you know, have your procedure.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And I don\u2019t know this, this feels, um, it feels manipulative to me<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> Yeah, and to me, it feels ominous. Like lawyers who work for hospitals have been paying attention to the Lisa French decision and thinking:<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a wedge here maybe we could exploit. Like, if we get you to sign a document that says \u201cchargemaster\u201d on it, we\u2019re getting you to sign away your right to a reasonable price. After all, the court in Colorado didn\u2019t come out and say that wouldn\u2019t be kosher.<\/p>\n

So, where I\u2019m landing at the end of this story is: I\u2019ve got a couple big homework assignments:<\/p>\n

First, if I\u2019m interested in seeing how we can use our legal rights to fight back against outrageous, unreasonable bills \u2014 and I am \u2014<\/p>\n

I need to learn more about which states recognize our rights to a reasonable price in health care, and which ones \u2026 maybe don\u2019t. I\u2019m on it, and if you\u2019ve got any tips, please bring them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the first assignment, and for the second, I\u2019d love your help: How many hospitals are using this \u201cchargemaster\u201d language these days in those financial responsbility documents they ask us to sign?<\/p>\n

Do me a favor: See if you can get a copy of that document from any hospital system or doctor group where you get seen. And send me a copy of it?<\/p>\n

Redact anything you need to. And also know: we\u2019re not aiming to share this with anybody outside our reporting team.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what happened when I tried this.<\/p>\n

A hospital where I get seen uses a portal called MyChart\u2013 a lot of hospitals use it. I just logged on to MyChart there, and I did a little digging around. I found a link to something called \u201cMy Documents.\u201d And I found a form there called Universal Consent.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has stuff about financial responsibility.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t mention chargemaster rates. But it\u2019s a year old. It also says it\u2019s expired.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s an idea I got from Cindi, which I\u2019m gonna try\u2013 and which seems worth passing around.<\/p>\n

When Cindi found that chargemaster language in the document from her Hospital, here\u2019s what she did. She printed it out and changed it:<\/p>\n

Cindi Gatton: what I did is instead of the standard charge master rates, I drew a line through it and I wrote in two x Medicare rates.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> In other words, instead of saying \u201cI\u2019ll pay the chargemaster rates,\u201d it says, \u201cI\u2019ll pay two times the Medicare rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve heard about this strategy before, from former ProPublica reporter Marshall Allen, who wrote about it in his book, \u201cNever Pay the First Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the rationale. Medicare pays less than most commercial insurance; hospitals say that at least sometimes they lose money on Medicare. Doubling it seems \u2026 generous enough. But it also sets a limit.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s what Cindi wrote on her printout.<\/p>\n

Cindi Gatton: I have been taking it with me when I go to be seen that if they ask me for the document that I can say, you know, here it is.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan:<\/strong> So far, she says, nobody\u2019s asked for it.<\/p>\n

And, I don\u2019t think anybody will be confused, but just to make sure, I\u2019ll say: This isn\u2019t legal advice. I\u2019m not a lawyer. Cindi\u2019s not a lawyer.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s just a person going to the doctor, doing her best not to leave too many openings where she could get really screwed. And I\u2019m gonna try following her example.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve got another request for you: If you try this trick of printing the thing out, exxing out the chargemaster language and writing 2 x medicare rates\u2013 LET ME KNOW WHAT HAPPENS, OK?<\/p>\n

The place to do all this is on our website at arm and a leg show dot com, slash contact. That\u2019s arm and a leg show dot com, slash, contact.<\/p>\n

You are this show\u2019s secret weapon. You\u2019re our eyes and ears. Cindi Gatton\u2019s a listener who got in touch.<\/p>\n

How did I first learn about Lisa French\u2019s case? Email from a listener. [Thank you, Terry N, for that note last year! Took us a minute, but we got to this.]<\/p>\n

Thank you for listening. You absolutely rule. I\u2019ll catch you soon.<\/p>\n

Till then, take care of yourself.<\/p>\n

This episode of An Arm and a Leg was produced by me, Dan Weissmann, with help from Emily Pisacreta, and edited by Afi Yellow-Duke.<\/p>\n

Daisy Rosario is our consulting managing producer. Adam Raymonda is our audio wizard. Our music is by Dave Winer and Blue Dot Sessions.<\/p>\n

Gabrielle Healy is our managing editor for audience. She edits the First Aid Kit Newsletter.<\/p>\n

Bea Bosco is our consulting director of operations. Sarah Ballema is our operations manager.<\/p>\n

An Arm and a Leg is produced in partnership with KFF Health News\u2013formerly known as Kaiser Health News.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a national newsroom producing in-depth journalism about health care in America, and a core program at KFF \u2014 an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism.<\/p>\n

And yes, you did hear the name Kaiser in there, and no: KFF isn\u2019t affiliated with the health care giant Kaiser Permanente. You can learn more about KFF Health News at arm and a leg show dot com, slash KFF.<\/p>\n

Zach Dyer is senior audio producer at KFF Health News. He is editorial liaison to this show.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Public Narrative \u2014 That\u2019s a Chicago-based group that helps journalists and nonprofits tell better stories\u2013 for serving as our fiscal sponsor, allowing us to accept tax-exempt donations. You can learn more about Public Narrative at www dot public narrative dot org.<\/p>\n

And thanks to everybody who supports this show financially.<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t yet, we\u2019d love for you to join us. The place for that is arm and a leg show dot com, slash support.<\/p>\n

Thank you!<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Dan Weissmann<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: \u201cAn Arm and a Leg\u201d uses speech-recognition software to generate transcripts, which may contain errors. Please use the transcript as a tool but check the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast. Dan: Hey there\u2013 Lisa French was a clerk for a trucking company in Denver. She\u2019d been in a car crash, and her doctor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":631580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2047,3850],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-631579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-court","8":"category-medical"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}