From the perspective of the average patient, going about his life unconcerned about health policy or economics, what is the most frustrating characteristic of U.S. health insurance? Surely, it is the madness of the billing cycle: Never knowing how much a medical service costs until long after you’ve received it, and sometimes only after a flurry of phone calls and paperwork that can take months to clear up.
This is surely why Michaela Dinan’s “winning entry” in a national essay contest, which invited people to submit anecdotes “illustrating the importance of cost awareness in medicine,” has struck such a chord. Ms. Dinan’s story concerned a billing error for inserting an IUD. Before the procedure, the patient learned (via “a few keystrokes”) that the cash price would have been $843.60. Insured, her out of pocket cost was to have been about $200. Instead, she received a bill for $1,100 that took months to sort out. I suspect that most readers and contributors at The Health Care Blog will use this story as further evidence of the need for a massive national investment in Health IT, along with Patient-Centered Medical Homes, Accountable Care Organizations, adherence to “meaningful use” standards, et cetera.