Is it legal for a hospital to charge you more money because you are uninsured?

Question

I went to the ER on 1/5 because I was injured in a car accident. When I registered, I gave the hospital the other party's insurance info to bill them because they were at fault.
On 3/5 about the same time of day I went to the ER for chest pains and I personally do not have health insurance. Each day was a week day each visit was the same time of day. I received two different bills of course. The one from the car accident was just for my records but the administrative charges and doctor charges from the visit that was covered by insurance are about $300 less than the charges that are uninsured. Is this legal?
Each visit I was there about the same amount of time also. This seems very unfair to me. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Both visits I simply saw the ER dr on duty and not any specialist or anything.
I'm frankly tired of people who think that people who are so called "indigenent" choose to be uninsured. I could just quit my job and live off of welfare and have medicaid and all the other stuff but I choose not to. I'll pay my bill but I also expect to receive a fair price for the service that I receive and also not to be treated like I'm worthless by hospital employees when I tell them that I am uninsured.

Answer 1

Could be that there were different tests and the like. Also - did you see a specialist or just an ER doctor?

Hospitals charge based on work done, not by the hour.

Also, Insurance companies can negotiate better fees, especially because tey pay a lot faster than most uninsured patients.

Answer 2

The best thing to do would be not to get sick or injured. Doctors and hospitals charge whatever they can for as much as they can. This serves a couple of purposes. First off, whatever they don't collect, they can write off their taxes as losses. Secondly, by charging a large amount, they can show insurance companies that their expenses are high for all patients, in an effort to get more money out of the insurance companies. Third, medicare pays only a specific amount for different procedures and/or services and medications. If you have a bunch of things done, and each step of the process is billed separately, there is a better chance that the hospital will recover more. Example. You go in for a chest x-ray. If the hospital only charged for the x-ray, they would be given a flat rate...say $100. But if they also charge for the technician who performed the procedure, the electricity that was used, the clean up, the doctor who may or may not have looked at it, the administrative costs in filing it, processing it, preparing it, developing it, etc., the hospital may recover $500. It all goes into the pot, to cover the hospital for the indigent person, who can't pay for anything, that the government says Must be treated.

Answer 3

Insurance companies negotiate with hospitals to accept certain amounts for certain things. For example an X-ray charge may be $50, but the insurance company says if we recognize you as a provider then we will pay you $40 for the Xrays, but as a provider for our company you will get a larger volume of business.
The charges are not "different" per say between insured and uninsured, but the amount payed and the amount written off are different. You would be surprised how much hospitals are forced to write off because of insurances only paying a pittance of the actually price of services and the amount of uninsured who never pay their bill.

Is it fair? Not really, but then again - neither is the hospital be forced to take pennies on the dollar by medicare, medicaid, and being stiffed regularly by the uninsured/ indigent.

Answer 4

As long as all of your hospital visits were related to the car accident, they should be covered by the at fault partys insurance company.

Hopefully you have not signed any kind of release.

Try to get copies of the outstanding bills from the hospitals/doctors, then contact that insurance company and get them to pay the remaining balances. If they won't pay, file a lawsuit in small claims court against the person who hit you to recover the remaining damages.

If you have already signed a release in exchange for settlement money, they you are obligated to pay any remaining medical bills on your own and you cannot sue.

Answer 5

You can dispute a doctors bill with a hospital, most of the times they will come down on the charge, with a promise from you to pay it monthly or in full. But, if you don't follow through they will charge you full price. I don't find it unfair, because you don't know what they are charging the insurance company honestly.

Answer 6

Actually, the Insurance companies and Medicare/aid are able to negotiate lower bills from hospitals than individuals. They also know that they are not very likely to get paid by most uninsured patients, but are still held legally liable for any mistakes they might make. The little guy never has bargaining power

Answer 7

It is sad to say, but yes they can....it really is not the case of charging more, but the case of the poor not having insurance..

They bill the insurance company and then the insurance company bills you the diiference, but if your not insured, then the hospital will charge you full price..

Move top Canada...it comes out of your taxes for every one to get health care...the Us has the best Docs, but a bad plan fpr the poor..wow thats seems to be a topic that coes up alot..

the 1% run this country and they rape us blind

Answer 8

I'm not into law, so i don't know if it's legal, but i know for a fact that all the hospitals in Alabama charge less to patients who are insured..I was charged $3500 for colonoscopy years ago.. When they filed with the insurance company they paid $1800 and that was that. No more money no co-pay no anything.. Doesn't seem fair does it?

Answer 9

It's true, they do give the insurance companies a discount. It's kind of like they are buying in "bulk", like at Sam's Club. Do I think it is right? Not at all. Hospital fees are exorbitant anyways, the markup is incredible. As a nursing student, I was doing my clinicals at this one hospital, and they actually had the unit prices of the medications, and then the consumers price...a bag of normal saline unit price for them was like $9, the charge for it was like $75. Insane.

Answer 10

you were there for different reasons, chest pain doctor == a different doctor then car accident pain etc, the ER may be a flat rate, but the doctors might not be a flat rate, you are also paying the bill of the doctor too..