Jewish Hospital: Profits over Patients – Part II
This is Part II of an earlier post on PIP benefits and a medical facilities refusal to treat a client simply because of greed.
Why would Jewish do something as heartless as this? The answer is really very simple. Typically, when a hospital bills a patient, that bill is sent to a health insurance company. Sometimes the health insurance is a private company and sometimes it is a government funded plan (Medicaid, Medicare, etc.). As an example, let’s say the bill is for $100. If the hospital sends that bill to Medicaid or Medicare, it can typically expect to receive back something like $20 0r $30, if that much. If the $100 bill goes to a private health insurance company, the hospital might get back more like $55 or $70. Sometimes the patient doesn’t even have any health insurance in which case the hospital might get next to nothing in return for the service. However, and here’s what the hospitals are figuring out, if they send the bill to the auto insurance carrier (the PIP or No Fault company) they get back, you guessed it: the entire $100. The hospital thinks that if they can’t force the patient to promise this money to them, apparently prior to even being seen by a doctor, that they will never see it. Well, in this case, the hospital got nothing. We told the client to seek treatment elsewhere, even though it took longer to be seen and cared for.
Before all of you responsible folks out there start complaining that I am counseling people to be irresponsible and ignore and even not pay their medical bills, what a minute. That is absolutely NOT what I am saying. What I am saying is that clients have a legal right to direct the benefits in a way that is most advantageous to them. They can also promise to pay back the hospital at a later time. They can do more than promise, they can legally and contractually obligate themselves to pay by signing what is called a "medical lien." This is a promise by the client to instruct his or her attorney when the case is resolved to pay the medical expenses before giving the client and of the money. All of these compromises were offered in this instance, but none of them was good enough for Jewish. It is unfortunate, This client could have gotten the treatment he needed, when he needed it. The hospital could have gotten paid, and gotten paid well (100% on the dollar as explained above, which is rare in the medical world). But it didn’t happen because this facility chose to put profits ahead of patients.
If you are having trouble understanding PIP or No Fault benefits or want to know more about your rights with regard to insurance after you have been in an automobile accident, contact me, Brian D. Cook, and I would be happy to help walk you through it.
