The woman who beat an $8,000 hospital fee

An Arm and a Leg

Society & Culture, Medicine, Health, Health & Fitness, Documentary

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2024

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Georgann Boatright's local hospital told her she'd need to pay an $8,000 "operating room" charge for a test she was pretty darn sure wouldn't involve an operating room. So she went elsewhere, even though it meant driving to another state.

Avoiding that charge required more than just a willingness to go — literally — way out of her way. Georgann Boatright has knowledge, skills, and grit that most of us don't — although we can maybe learn a thing or two from her.

More and more, people are noticing sneaky new fees like the one Georgann spotted. They’re often called “facility fees,” and they’re kind of like a cover charge for walking through the door.

Hospitals say these fees go toward overhead on facilities with lots of specialized equipment —places like emergency rooms. But these fees have been increasing in recent years — and becoming more common: As hospitals buy up doctor’s offices, patients are starting to see them tacked onto bills for routine trips to the doctor.

We asked you to send us stories about facility fees. We heard from a ton of you and learned so much.

We’ve got lots of stories to share. And we’re starting with this epic tale — which also involves the biggest facility fee charge we saw in all your submissions.

Here’s a transcript of this episode.

Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there. A couple of months ago, we asked you to help us report on a type of fee that seems to be
0:06.1	sneaking on to more and more medical bills. They're often called facility fees. It's like a cover
0:11.9	charge just for walking in the door. And these kinds of fees, they're
0:15.9	familiar to a lot of folks from places like emergency rooms, which do have a lot of specialized
0:21.5	equipment and staff in the facility behind that door.
0:24.4	That's basically the case for a cover charge. Once you get in the door, there's a lot of
0:28.3	stuff there. But in some cases, with facility fees, the door is just the entrance to a doctor's office.
0:35.0	Because facility fees, they're often charged by hospitals.
0:39.0	And hospitals own a lot of doctor's offices these days. And once they take over, there's no law
0:46.1	that says they can't just call that doctor's office part of their facility and
0:50.4	start charging. So we ask what you had been seeing.
0:54.0	And a bunch of you sent us stories and copies of your bills and your insurance statements.
0:59.0	And when we called the follow-up, you took our calls.
1:03.0	You had a lot to say.
1:06.0	Oh, it made me so mad, so mad.
1:08.0	I mean, it's a 10-minute appointment for a prescription.
1:12.0	I don't understand any of it.
1:13.4	Where did this number come from?
1:15.1	We learned a bunch, especially from those of you who are not new to this sort of thing.
1:21.0	It was a running joke with my husband and myself that like okay it's time for my weekly like one to two hour phone call with Cigna.
1:29.0	People who've been contending with the health care system for a while, dealing with chronic illnesses or going to the doctor
1:35.0	for monitoring or having some kind of ongoing treatment.
	...

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