Report: Uncompensated care costs passed to insured

This practice is called "cost shifting" and it has been around for many years.In my opinion, it accounts for a major percentage of escalating annual insurance premium rate hikes. While there may be 47MM people in the U.S. without health care insurance, the vast majority do not go without health care.

This statement shows the lack of understanding how Healthcare reimbursement works.

“Providers then raised prices to insurers to cover these costs, and insurers, in turn, charged higher premiums, the group says.”

How does raising prices get more money out of the insurer if I am a provider that has a contract with an insurer that says you do this procedure you get paid this fixed amount? It doesn’t. This is not like going to the market for apples. In fact the opposite is true, reimbursement rates are going down. Just look at the biggest insurer of all, Medicare. CMS slashed rates for most providers; it’s true some PCP’s did a bump in rates but that was well deserved.

When was the last time the insurance company actually paid charges to the doctor for any uncompensated care? This excuse has been used by hospitals and insurance lobbies to constantly raise premiums sometimes as much as 10-15 % per year. Someone needs to track each of these statements and use them at an appropriate time.

This is a travesty; in my business I see examples of uninsured persons using emergency departments again and again for very minor, unnecessary ailments. Aside from the unpaid charges, this takes away the time clinical staff should be spending with real emergencies. When I have gone to the ED for a simple UTI, the bill has totaled $1000 paid for by our insurance. My husband recently spent one night in the ED, had a few tests and the bill came to $12,000 again paid for by our health insurance. There is no question the hospitals are overcharging the insured in order to cover the costs of the uninsured!