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Money Monday: Kaiser: Thriving on Overcharging Patients

I F*ing hate Kaiser. If it weren’t for the quality care I get (most, but not all, of the time) from the doctors and nurses, I would switch my health care plan.

Who is administratively running the place? The CEO and the CFO need to be fired.

I wrote a while back at how befuddled I was to receive a bill close to $500. “This is your FINAL NOTICE. According to our records, this bill is seriously PAST DUE. Please pay the “Amount You Owe” in full or contact us immediately to arrange payment and prevent your PAST DUE balance from being assigned to a collection agency.” Ahh, thank you, Kaiser. I’ve made mental note of your convention to capitalize PAST DUE.

I don’t take writing $500 checks lightly. I will fight, plus I am in a unique position of being related to a Kaiser employee. I was put in direct contact with someone in Patient Financial Services. I was blessed with a team of 2 who poured through my card activity and reconciled it with the Kaiser bill. Now magically, my bill is $250. I’m still confused with a few more questions so this isn’t the end of the conversation.

Can you imagine patients who are truly sick who don’t have time to spreadsheet their account activity and question the charges? Does this make sense that a hospital is overcharging its patients without any recourse. I made multiple phone calls to the bill team; they were useless. I had to go directly to someone who works in corporate to figure this out for me.

When you are considering your health care options, you should consider my experience and go with a different insurance plan. Kaiser sucks.

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09.03.12

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Welcome to my site, derived from an advice column I wrote while getting my MBA. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I give helpful, opinionated advice based on my own experience and from the expertise of my extensive network. For more, click here.

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