{"id":3339,"date":"2015-03-13T21:06:45","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=3339"},"modified":"2015-03-13T21:06:45","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:06:45","slug":"texas-lawmakers-urged-to-end-surprise-hospital-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=3339","title":{"rendered":"Texas Lawmakers Urged to End Surprise Hospital Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

by John Michaelson\/TNS<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas – Legislation at the state Capitol aims to put an end to surprise medical bills, or so-called \u201cbalance billing,\u201d which has left a growing number of Texans facing a financial crisis while trying to recover from a health crisis for which they thought they were covered.<\/p>\n

Trey Berndt, associate state director for outreach and advocacy with AARP Texas, says the problem is many hospitals that are in-network under the state\u2019s major health insurance providers use physicians that are outside the network, unbeknownst to patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost consumers pay their premiums and look at their insurance card and it says usually a co-pay and some coinsurance, and that\u2019s all they expect to pay,\u201d Berndt says. \u201cYet they come home and get maybe sometimes thousands of dollars of bills later on.\u201d<\/p>\n

A proposal now awaiting a committee hearing in the Texas House would end such surprise medical bills by limiting the patient\u2019s out-of-pocket to no more than they would have paid in-network.<\/p>\n

\"Surprise

Surprise medical bills stem from patients going to hospitals that are in-network under their insurance plans, while unaware that some or many of the physicians on staff are out-of-network. Photo: Parker Knight\/Flickr.<\/p><\/div>\n

Berndt says the legislation would also take consumers completely out of any billing disputes between insurers and providers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen somebody is in the ER, the last thing they\u2019re going to be thinking about is in-network doctors, out-of-network doctors,\u201d says Berndt. \u201cThey\u2019ve gone to a hospital they believe is in their network and they expect the providers to work with their insurance company and that\u2019s not happening and that\u2019s what we absolutely need to fix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those Texans who have had insult added to injury with a surprise medical bill is Hugh Smith of Cypress. His wife broke her back three years ago and while in the hospital, they explicitly requested only doctors within their insurance network.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met my deductibles and all the co-pays and everything and then all of a sudden we get a doctor sending us a bill for a full amount, not willing to talk about it and says he\u2019s exempt from the process because he was not a doctor requested by us or used by us,\u201d says Smith. \u201cHe was an advisor to the chief of surgery at the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

After battling over that surprise bill for two-years, the Smiths were able to get the amount reduced, but still ended up having to pay $3,000. While the practice of balance billing is legal, Berndt says AARP considers it one of the most unfair practices in commercial health insurance today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by John Michaelson\/TNS AUSTIN, Texas – Legislation at the state Capitol aims to put an end to surprise medical bills, or so-called \u201cbalance billing,\u201d which has left a growing number of Texans facing a financial crisis while trying to recover from a health crisis for which they thought they were covered. Trey Berndt, associate state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3341,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3339\/revisions\/3341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}