I absolutely think he should be paid. But after our consultation and detailed description of procedure and people involved, we agreed to their quote and moved forward. The office miscalculated the personnel they would have available and they did not inform us they were changing services nor did they even let us know it happened after the fact. We found out some time later when the other office billed us. I viewed my response as a negotiation and put the burden on the original office to resolve payment - and they did. Doesn't get any more American than that.
Incorrect sir.
A surgical procedure is often like an automobile repair. You go in with an estimate for an expected series of items to be done, however sometimes that changes once you get in there. Unlike a car repair, the surgeons can't stop and pick up the phone to authorize additional work. However when you/your wife signed the consent form it was certainly clearly spelled out that complications may occur and necessitate additional line items, as it were. So there was no miscalculation. It was quite simply that for some reason your wife's procedure was more complicated than normal and that required a second set of hands.
I will give you a pretty standard example. Say you have a woman getting a hysterectomy. If that person is morbidly obese, it is going to be very likely to lead to complications, but they won't know that for sure until they are in the case. Further, if she were super skinny and super fit, she might have a ton of abdominal adhesions (scar tissue) which results in significantly more involvement, bleeding, risk etc and thus the procedure has to change as well.
You didn't negotiate, you told them to pound sand over a few hundred bucks and they declined to pursue it in collections. If they had, they would have won, hands down. They just didn't want to deal with the headache over a relatively small sum of money. That is precisely the American way. You got the service you felt you were entitled to, you underpaid for it, and threw a fit. They simply deemed you weren't worth the headache. Do you realize how many times I have seen this exact example play out?
I assume you had insurance, right? If so, you didn't negotiate anything, it was all spelled out in your insurance contract. These sorts of cases go to court all the time, 99% of the time the patient loses.
Out of curiosity, what do you think they should have done? From your point of view, you had a quote for a procedure, but the agreement you signed was for a specific set of work for a specific case/complication risk and you signed a document saying you were aware that additional complications and costs may arise. You don't see that second part, you just see "I agreed to pay you $1000 and you agreed to give me back a working wife". That's just not accurate, not fair, and it is really the crux of the problem in this country. Everyone wants concierge medicine, but they sure as hell don't want to pay for it.
Meanwhile, if the surgeon knew this was the case and thus declined to assist in the operation, you would have sued like a madman when something went wrong, right?
So if the doctor doesn’t take that person’s insurance, and they can only charge what that person would pay under that insurance, who pays the difference? Sorry if answered but I’m blocked by the paywall.
This is basically a scam pushed through by insurance companies. They are doing this so the providers have zero leverage in negotiating contracts. Why would BCBS negotiate in good faith when they know they can just stick it to you on the back end?
