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posted by janrinok on Saturday February 16 2019, @04:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the sickening dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

More than 45% of non-elderly adults with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) report financial hardship due to the associated medical bills, according to a Yale research team. Worse still, about one in five report being unable to pay those medical bills at all, said the researchers.

This study appears in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

According to the study, which was scaled up from the data sample provided by the 2013-2017 National Health Interview Survey, the non-elderly American adults with ASCVD experiencing medical bill-related financial hardship represents an estimated 3.9 million individuals.

"It is remarkably disheartening to see how many people suffer severe financial adverse effects of having atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease," said Harlan Krumholz, M.D., Yale cardiologist and director of the Yale Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE). "We have much work to do to ensure that people are spared the financial toxicity of disease that is imposed by our current healthcare system."

Of the group who indicated financial hardship, more than one in three reported that they have also experienced significant financial distress, cut back on purchasing basic necessities like food, and/or skimped on taking essential but costly medications in response to the burden of their medical bills.

Materials provided by Yale University.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @05:41AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 17 2019, @05:41AM (#802379)

    That's not really how the industry works. They set very high prices because they know they'll generally be dealing with insurance and it's completely unpredictable how much the company will pay and for what. So you get these ridiculously high bills and for weird things. The hospitals have to do that because they don't know what specific things will be covered to what extent and as a result, they can wind up not getting the money they need if they don't charge for everything.

    In all likelihood the billing department will negotiate things down a lot in most cases as they aren't really expecting anybody to actually pay the price they charge in most cases. Now, for smaller providers, the price might well be closer to the proper price, but in most cases, the proper price that they'll accept is much lower than the original bill.

    At absolute bare minimum, they'll generally offer some sort of payment plan.