California's ‘Surprise’ Billing Law Is Protecting Patients and Angering Doctors

Re:California's ‘Surprise’ Billing Law Is Protecting Patient... by riahi on Friday September 27, 2019 @10:22PM (#21097970)

EMTALA is precisely the problem. We cannot ask for any money before seeing the patient; nor can we ask for a deposit.

Further, we are medicolegally liable for all care we provide even if we don't get a dime.

That was the original intent of going out of network; we'd tell the patients "we don't accept your insurance because we could not come to an agreement; if you'd like to continue, we can see you but it will be billed to you. We'd appreciate you telling them you want to see us as a subscriber"

However, with the corporatization of medicine, the individual decision making has been lost.

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Re:California's ‘Surprise’ Billing Law Is Protecting Patient... by ikiris on Saturday September 28, 2019 @04:51AM (#21099254)

What the hell do you think the alternative is to EMTALA? Asking the heart attack victim to wait while you run their credit?

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Re:California's ‘Surprise’ Billing Law Is Protecting Patient... by ericd on Saturday September 28, 2019 @04:40AM (#21099211)

Do you offer a price list to the out of network patient you tell that to? Or perhaps a quote for the services before you perform them?

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Re:California's ‘Surprise’ Billing Law Is Protecting Patient... by perl4ever on Monday September 30, 2019 @05:07PM (#21119671)

Haggling in the emergency room doesn't even sound that terrible to me compared to the reality, which is a stark ultimatum - if you want to be treated, it's a blank check.

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