By Melinda Thomas
Are you sick of the abuses of the American Health Care system? Did your relative die in a hospital due to medical malpractice or gross negligence? Were you in a hospital that simply did not take care of your needs or were you in a hospital that made your condition worse than it was before you entered into the building? Are you being billed for services or products that you simply did not receive while you were in that hospital? When you look at your hospital bills, do you think that something is wrong, but you are not sure what is wrong? Did you know there are hospitals that will bill and charge you about seventy dollars for a box of ordinary tissues? Shocked at that statement? Did you know there are hospitals that have billed people about one hundred or two hundred dollars for a teddy-bear pillow (billed as a "cough-device")?
Most hospitals are good and most hospitals have good employees doing an honest day's work. Most times when you enter a hospital, you get good or adequate care. We have never met anyone who came from a hospital that claimed they got great care but we have met some that claimed they had adequate, good or horrible care. What kind of hospital are you in or were you in? Were your family members inside a hospital that made their illness or condition worse than it was?
Just what is the purpose of a hospital anyway? Yes, hospitals are to help people get better and some of the hospitals have floors that are designed to help people die better and to be in less pain while they die (these specific floors are the hospice floors). But most hospitals are designed and have the purpose of either treating , diagnosing illnesses and disease or curing illnesses or disease.
Have you seen your hospital in the news lately? How do you find out about the reputation of a particular hospital? Do this, go to Google and search for the name of the hospital in the news. See what you come up with. Interesting results, yes? Just do it. Search for hospital names in Google and search in the news section and in the web section and see exactly how many articles were written about this hospital in the news. Before you make judgment about the hospital know this --if a hospital has a lot of good publicity , that good publicity was probably generated by the hospital itself. That is a new trend in hospital news. Yes, businesses and corporations and some hospitals are turning our newspapers into advertising places for themselves in an effort to turn around the really bad news that is real news -about their particular hospitals.
I am not saying that all hospitals are bad. What I am saying is that there are hospitals out there that are specifically in the money-making business and as their patients get more ill and as their patients are dying from negligence and malpractice they are making even more money from those things happening. Think about it. Someone goes into the hospital with something minor or ordinary or something relatively simple to handle, cure or treat. And somehow the negligence of the hospital causes that patient to become more ill. What happens? If the patient has no family or has family that cannot visit, usually that patient will be staying in that same hospital that caused the illness to worsen and at that same time, that hospital is getting paid more and more money to treat that same individual, even though there is a lack or care or care that makes the illness worse than it is.
For example, a patient goes in with an ordinary asthma attack and winds up dying. Why ? Read the news, then search the name of the hospital. Another patient goes into the hospital and gets worse or dies. Why? Read the articles that are written about these hospitals and check out the true stories, not the gossip and you will learn what is really happening inside some of our large teaching hospitals. (This article is not about all teaching hospitals but it is about the negligent ones, the ones that simply are not helping patients but making patients worse than they are).
And what about the bills that you get after the hospital has done malpractice or negligence? Are you going to pay for their negligence too? Everyone is legally obligated to pay their hospital bills, but what lots of people do not know is that lots of the bills are in error. Yes, that's right. There are so many errors on some bills that it would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.
What about the hospital that would not allow a patient's family to visit but allowed the billing department to have constant contact with the patient? What about those hospitals that have collectors or billing agents and they call themselves "patient representatives"? Yes, that happens in some hospitals. There is hope for you even if you have been a victim of this kind of billing abuse. Whatever your situation is and whatever your hospital bill is, you need to read this one book --to start and then look for other books on the subject so that you can be well-informed.
Here is some print from the back of one such book, the link for the book is near the middle or end of this article:
"Arm yourself against the abuses of the American Health Care System. Ready for a real medical horror story? Nine out of ten medical bills contain errors. The average error per patient is $1,300. And the total yearly overcharge nationwide is a staggering $10 billion. Counting on your insurance to pick up the slack? Don't even think about it. Now a leading consumer advocate for patients everywhere gives you the knowledge you need to fight back. THE MEDICAL BILL SURVIVAL GUIDE will help you get back what's yours-- and make sure you'll never have to spend an extra, unnecessary dime on the care that you deserve, ever again.
Discover:
- What hospitals don't want you to know--and how not knowing can cost you a fortune.
- The unbreakable code of medical-bill language--and how to shatter it.
- Excessive, duplicate, hidden and undocumented charges --and how to bust them all .
- What insurance companies mean by usual, reasonable, and customary treatment--and how to reverse your claim denials.
- The patient's financial bill of rights-- ten common courtesies worth fighting for. "
This and so much more is included in this book. If you have ever been in a hospital or if you are in a hospital or have relatives, friends or co-workers in hospitals or in rehabilitation and care centers, you need this book. Consider this book a necessity, not a luxury. You need this book if you are going to avoid being a victim of wrong hospital billing .
I have heard from patients about improper billing and incorrect billing and overcharging, but worse than that is hearing from patients that some hospital employees allowed billing workers more access to patients than they allowed their own families access. What is wrong with that picture? It appears, yes, just seems to appear that some hospitals first concern is with their bills not with their patients' health and well-being. And what about the bills? What are some of the errors in bills that patients and families are not catching due to codes? Check your bills. They are usually not itemized and there are many items marked as miscellaneous or codes that you do not understand. Check this out from the book that I recommend that everyone buy:
"What I have found through the years is a system so convoluted that it actually discourages accuracy and encourages errors: Just what kinds of errors am I talking about? Consider these examples:
- One Virginia hospital billed a couple for the circumcision of their newborn. Not an unreasonable charge, really, except for the fact that the couple had a baby girl.
- An Illinois hospital billed a man $186,000 for "heart valves" . Two hundred heart valves, that is.
- Another Virginia hospital billed a patient for the use of its delivery room. Odd, since the man was in the hospital for heart surgery. "
So, why do I write this article? I write this article as a personal experience article because too many people have come to me with their own stories and with their own personal experiences of horrible care at the hands of health care professionals that simply are not doing their jobs and then added insult, patients and families are being billed for things that they should not be billed for.
Right now, this very week, another family member of a patient who recently died has been telling me about their story, their true story of the malpractice of some health care professionals and yet they cannot complain about it, because they are grieving, they are still in pain and they are still trying to get over the shock of how their family member died. Yes, there are unnecessary deaths happening every day in hospitals.
Yes, too, many people die in hospitals of natural causes that is already known. But the part that is unknown is that many times people are dying, and people are losing their health, limbs and sanity at the hands of unscrupulous workers, and under the hidden protection of administrators who have money in mind but not patient health care in mind.
So, we write because the grieving families cannot write or have no time to write or they just simply emotionally cannot handle complaining. So we write here to let you know what is happening in the American Health Care system. To anyone saying, "STOP!" your article is wrong!, let me assure you that this article is not about ALL hospitals but only about those parts of some hospitals that are totally offending and totally not taking care of patients. And, to make matters worse, these offending hospitals are billing patients and families for their errors.
Is that not adding insult to injury? Can you imagine yourself as such a victim. Could you even imagine going to a hospital with an ordinary emergency, perhaps a severe asthma attack or minor heart problem, and then ending up with illnesses or injuries ten times worse than those and then getting billed for the care in the hospital? You probably could not imagine that unless you have had the experience. But know, that as you are reading these words, there are some health care workers killing patients and then the hospitals and doctors are billing families and getting paid for their errors. Wow. What an sad statement that is. But it is a true statement of fact. Negligence kills patients. It might take a while, perhaps weeks or months for a patient to die from negligence, and you will never see "negligence" written on the death certificate, but when a patient goes into the hospital for one thing and dies of a totally unrelated -another thing, then you need to really examine what is happening in those hospitals and medical centers. Has that happened, probably, possibly , and yes, it has happened. Where has it happened? Check the google section of your computer and search the words negligence and names of some hospitals and see what you come up with.
Here are some things that you can do to help yourself at times when you are having a long stay in the hospital. Some of these things might be helpful to you:
- Always know the name of the doctor or hospital staff person that you are speaking to. (It is easy to shift blame and responsibility when the patient or family does not know the name of the person who is treating them.
- Write everything down. You will not remember staff names or happenings. Hospital stays are entirely too complicated for that. Get a notebook for each time that you are in a hospital and write every single thing down. Write down the names of the medicines or treatments that you are receiving and write down the names of everyone. If you are in a rehabilitation and care center or nursing home, insist on using the recreation computer and write your things in there on a flash drive or on removable storage. Always keep records. Residents are permitted to use that computer, so go with the patient to the computer and assist them in making journal records or any records they need that detail their stay at the center.
- Ask for spelling of names. So many doctors shorten their names, "Dr. V" , or so many doctors use their first names as their names. If something happens and you later need to know which doctor that is , try finding Dr. G, in a hospital that has 100 doctors whose names begin with "G". (These names are only examples and not real doctors' names).
- If you can safely do this, insist on an immediate copy of any paper that you sign, this includes release forms and consent forms. This saves you the problem of trying to find copies or paying for copies later on . Ask your lawyer if you are entitled to immediate copies. Don't leave these copies in the hospital but send them home with your family or your friends. I would tend to think that any paper you sign is a legal contract (otherwise they would not need your signature, correct)? And usually , it used to be that you were entitled to an immediate copy of any legal contracts that you sign. I do not know if the medical doctors or hospitals are exempt from this but ask your lawyer who can give you correct advice. ATTENTION: all lawyers, can you please advise me and let me know if a patient is allowed or permitted to have an immediate copy of any release forms or papers that a patient signs while at the hospital? My readers and I would love to know the details regarding this point. And, meanwhile, readers, consult with your own lawyers to find out the truth in this matter.
- If you have a person in serious condition who is weak, undernourished and cannot communicate well, wait for that person to be out of the hospital before you complain to the HHC, because if you complain while they are in there, they will just bother the patient with questions and interviews while the patient is trying to recuperate from their illness. That will not be a fair investigation as when you interview or question people who are weak , in pain and malnourished, most likely that person will not want to speak at great length and probably is not in good physical condition to give any information. So if you can, wait until the patient is stronger --released from the facility before you complain to the HCC.
So what came up when I googled some hospital names? First, Google with intelligence. Use many words in your search of the hospital name or you will probably just come up with hospital publicity (articles that hospitals pay for - to make the hospitals sound good). Do your search like this, take a hospital name and add the word negligent to it. Then search for those terms. For example, (and this is just an example - a sample , instructions on how to search and the results of my search). I put in the words "woodhull negligent" into the search bar, and this is what I came up with (this one article and some other articles),
If you value the life and finances of anyone that you love or of yourself, you owe it to yourself to get that book for yourself. There is another book that is quite helpful; please get this book from the bookstores or libraries:
Take This Book To The Hospital WIth You
The following is just an example, set here for an example of what could happen inside a hospital, and of what did happen inside of a hospital. I place this here for those of you who think that "all hospitals are good", or that "everyone gets good care inside of hospitals". I place this article here just to enlighten you if you are one of those who are in the dark about hospital practices, and hospital emergency rooms. I heard about this case as it happened in the news, and I read the full details of the case and was totally horrified at the account of what actually happened. I am sure that the hospital has saved some lives (though no one has told me this), but as printed in the news, this hospital has lost one, at the very least. Read the details in the news article.
This is just ONE example of a lack of care inside of a large teaching hospital:
Woodhull search.
In that article there was a story of a girl who died at that hospital -and the complete story is there. Read the words in the article and then judge for yourself. Make your own opinion. And look at the result of the court actions in this case. The family either settled or was awarded millions. Does that prove that something was wrong? Yes. Get this one book today if you do nothing else.
The author, Melinda Thomas, has read and studied psychology, health, business and consumerism for many years. And has attended courses in one of the largest cities in America. Contact her through Ezine, by clicking on the icon above.
