Streamline Your Hospital Invoice Format for Support

Hospital invoice format for Support

right now with a story that's all new tonight a trip to the hospital comes with all sorts of complications even more complicated the bill that comes after we heard from a lot of you about this so here's how we decided to approach this story we had 13 news now investigative reporter Evan Watson create a simulated hospital visit then he asked local hospitals to provide an itemized bill after months of back-and-forth talks this is what he found out confused or skeptical about what you pay for at the hospital you are not alone is it difficult to understand hospital billing it is extremely difficult to understand hospital billing even for people who participate in the healthcare process to try and better understand the system we sent a request for a sample itemized bill for a child birth to centerra healthcare and spokesman Dale guiding this is a typical stay in the hospital for a non complicated vaginal delivery having a baby in the hospital without any complications at all two days one overnight stay a bill for labor and delivery including common services drugs and postpartum supplies with no complications the total cost sixteen thousand six hundred and thirty three dollars room and board costs more than fourteen hundred dollars a night and nursery time cost more than three thousand dollars for two days Godding is quick to point out that no one will pay this full amount themselves if you're uninsured there are significant discounts available and if you have health insurance you'll have a maximum out-of-pocket cost the most you'll pay regardless of the size of the bill a number of specialties are gonna come into play costs are gonna arise and so it's really hard to say it's not like buying a box of cereal going to the hospital is a complicated affair even for a seemingly routine procedure all insurance companies are required by law to provide cost calculators on their websites hospital systems like San Terrace a high prices on bills without insurance adjustments can scare consumers so they choose to not post sample bills online I think that putting a sample bill like this on the website is tantamount to saying this is what it's going to cost you and it's way more complicated than that we didn't just ask centerra for information Chesapeake Regional Healthcare said it would be impossible to provide a sample itemized vil because there are quote too many variables after some digging we found an itemized bill for an uncomplicated child birth on their website showing it would cost about twenty-two thousand dollars we followed up an ass Chesapeake Regional to break down some of those costs a spokeswoman responded and said they are correcting inconsistencies and asked us to disregard the data that is still available on the hospital's website the Bon Secour health system declined to provide any information saying it would oversimplify the complex nature of hospital billing starting this year hospitals are now required to post their charge masters but the extensive Excel spreadsheets with thousands of prices for each hospital service are far from consumer friendly is it effective is it helping posting that information online I think we would say there is no benefit to consumers to looking at the chargemaster we think that it adds to the confusion about health care costs how could we find a system that has that transparency of posting the cost that doesn't add to the confusion what where's the middle ground in between those two I don't know where it is and I don't think anybody in the business knows where it is right now Godding says proposals to put ultimate consumer pricing on hospital websites would be too difficult and involve far too many health plan designs that's just an avalanche of information that most people would find very difficult to navigate how can we simplify all this I don't know we work in a very common we didn't invent the system that we work in but we have to function within it and until something better comes along this is this is what we're stuck with got eggs takeaway is this find the cost calculator on your health insurance plans website to estimate your bill and find the maximum that you would pay and if you're uninsured investigate the hospital's assistant plans before you might need them 4:13 news now Evan Watson reporting