Tag Archives: medical costs

What’s a facility use fee?

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I had a visit from this lovely cardinal yesterday.

Have you ever heard of a facility use fee? We ran up against one this week.

My husband had an appointment with an orthopedic doctor. The appointment was for a shot of cortisone in the knee. He asked if he could go to the doctor’s office but was told by staff that it had to be at a surgery center.

He wondered why, but was told that’s where procedures were done.

Then he got a text message from the doctor’s office that our deductible wasn’t met and it would be $1,600 for facility use. It was another $65 for the doctor and shot.

Of course my husband questioned this. But he went ahead with the appointment thinking there might be more happening than what he was expecting. Like maybe they needed a scope or an MRI, or something.

He said at the center there was an anesthesiologist, they put a bracelet on him like you’d get at a hospital. They wanted him in a hospital gown and there were four nurses in attendance. My husband lifted the leg of his sweats for the shot and refused the hospital gown. The anesthesiologist had nothing to do and stood oddly by.

I talked to a friend of mine who said they ran into the same thing for her husband when he was getting a cortisone shot.

Of course we’re fighting the fee, but be forewarned that it’s becoming a common practice.

Here’s a snippet from Consumer Reports:

When Dan Sokol saw an orthopedist for shoulder pain in January 2018, he got an X-ray and then a cortisone shot to treat what the doctor said was bursitis. It all took less than 30 minutes at the doctor’s office, and his shoulder pain went away.

So a few weeks later when Sokol, a 61-year-old bank credit officer who lives in Los Angeles, got a bill with more than $3,000 in charges from Cedars Sinai Medical Center, a hospital near his doctor’s office, he was sure there was a mistake.

https://www.consumerreports.org/fees-billing/surprise-hospital-fee-just-for-seeing-a-doctor-facility-fee/

Have you heard of a facility use fee before? Have you ever been charged one?

The good old days of medicine

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A cord of firewood. Photo from Van Beek’s.

I was thinking about how convoluted and expensive healthcare is these days. It wasn’t always like that.

When I grew up in a rural town in Washington state, I don’t remember people worried about their healthcare. People could pay out of pocket to see their doctor or dentist.

My dad was one of about four dentists in town. We would get unexpected gifts for payment for a filling or root canal. Once a patient drove his pickup truck to our house and unloaded a cord of firewood. Other times, we’d get fresh lamb, veggies or eggs. He also got ridiculously small monthly payments of $2 to $10.

My dad’s office had two dentists and two doctors. The doctors treated our family for free and my dad did the same for the doctors’ families.

I went off to the University of Washington and I went on the school insurance. It was peanuts.

When my husband and I were starting our family, we had excellent insurance. The company my husband was employed by was self-insured. There was a sliding scale for monthly premiums based on income. We could go to any doctor with a small copay. Premiums and deductibles were low. Having babies didn’t bankrupt us.

Today premiums are high. We’re lucky to have insurance through my husband’s employer though, so we are subsidized.

We tried to get a primary care physicians at a well known medical center, the Mayo Clinic. Unfortunately they have a three-year waiting list and refused to add us to it. I wonder if they’ve always been like that? Or is it the recent influx of Californians moving into Arizona? Everyone is looking for a doctor.

Finding a doctor who takes new patients and we can get an appointment quickly isn’t easy. Not to mention the costs.

What do you remember about healthcare when you were growing up? Why do you think insurance and costs have changed so much?