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Report: Debt Collectors Work In Emergency Rooms, Demand Payment Before...
One of the nation’s largest medical debt collection companies — already the subject of a lawsuit over alleged privacy violations — finds itself in more hot water as newly released documents claim that...
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Sometimes It's Cheaper To Pay Cash Than Use Your Insurance
We all know that health insurance is supposed to lower our hospital and doctor bills to a level below the list price for procedures and services, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting the lowest...
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Medical Debt Collector Banned In Minnesota For Harassing Patients In...
One of the nation’s largest medical debt collectors just got a bit smaller after it agreed to stop operating in Minnesota over allegations that the company staffed hospital emergency rooms with its...
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Pay Bill In Full Right Now, Score A Hospital Discount
Phil Villarreal, a familiar face to Consumerist readers, recently welcomed a new baby into his family. Almost as exciting to him as the creation of new life and the addition to his adorable brood was...
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Photographic Evidence That Hospitals Should Maybe Rethink How They Bill Patients
Twice a week for the past three months, Consumerist reader P. has been going to her hospital’s gym for brief, doctor-ordered cardio workouts. Her insurance isn’t footing the bill and each session is...
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When Hospital Systems Acquire Private Practices, We All Pay More For Health Care
A growing number of private health care practices are being purchased by hospitals. And even if that practice remains changed in all other ways, you can expect that the costs for procedures and visits...
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Healthy Shmealthy: Business Is Hopping At Taco Bell Located Inside Brooklyn...
(Morton Fox) Hospitals always bring to mind bastions of health, where the unwell go to get well and we’re sure everyone is getting the appropriate amount of calories in their cups of Jell-O. And then...
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Govt. To Publish Data On What Drug & Device Makers Pay To Individual Doctors...
ProPublica’s Dollars For Docs tool already lets you sort through available data from some companies.Want to know if your doctor is receiving free lunches and other perks from Pfizer, GSK or some other...
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Hospital Sends Lab Test Results For 10 Patients To Random Stranger
(CBS Sacramento)Even in this era of over-sharing and supposed transparency, most people don’t want their medical files shared with anyone who doesn’t absolutely need to see them. But all it takes is...
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Hospital Sends Patient To Collections For Bill His Insurance Company Had...
(The Joy of the Mundane)We understand that hospitals often get patients using the emergency room as a “free” clinic, and that it may be less of a headache to turn unpaid bills over to a collections...
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Minnesota Hospital Apologizes For Misplacing Body Of Stillborn Infant In The...
(Great Beyond) A Minnesota hospital has the weighty task today of explaining, and subsequently apologizing, as to how the body of a stillborn infant went missing from the morgue, only to show up at a...
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Posing As Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour To Scam Hospital For $100K In Treatment...
The man in the foreground did not try to con a Minnesota hospital.Pretending to be a legend of rock in order to rack up a six-figure hospital bill may sound reasonable — to a crazy person — but it’s...
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Paging 1994: Report Says Hospitals Are Leaking Billions Of Dollars By Still...
(yoshiffles) There are no doubt millions of children in the United States right now who would greet a pager with a blank stare, having never witnessed one in action. And yet the country’s hospitals...
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Hospital Bills Patient 21 Months After Treatment, And Long After Original...
(msmail)When you pay off your portion of a hospital bill, you might assume that you’ve fulfilled your financial obligation to the healthcare provider. That is, until nearly two years later when the...
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Bad News: Your Medical Records Are Probably For Sale
(santa barbarian)Electronic medical records are kind of cool: they help your doctors beam your prescription records back and forth from pharmacies and are supposed to save everyone money and time. What...
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If Hospital Names Its ER After Abercrombie & Fitch, Will Patient Gowns Come...
(Maulleigh) Ohio State University is reportedly gearing up to name its new emergency department after Abercrombie & Fitch, as a nod to the $10 million the Ohio-based company donated to the medical...
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Report: Nation’s Top Hospitals Not Pushing Baby Formula On New Moms
(frankieleon)From diapers to formula to clothing and other infant-care items, newborns are a huge source of revenue to numerous industries. That’s why some of these businesses put together new-mom...
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Hospital Chain Inflated Bills, Pressured Doctors Into Generating Admissions,...
(Heather Ingram) There are many accusations of money-grubbing in the health care industry. Most of them are subtle: a preferred medication here, a handshake behind closed doors there. But actually...
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Hospitals Now Use Consumers’ Personal Habits To Predict Health Issues
(Santa Barbarian) By now we know that every purchase a consumer makes is added to a list detailing one’s spending and life-style habit, which is used to target people for marketing campaigns and other...
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Police Arrest Man Who Left Hospital Untreated Because You Can’t Wander Around...
(Truthout.org on Flickr) While you might think that your health is your own gosh darn business — and it is, to some extent — when you’re wandering out there in the world with an infectious and...
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