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A growing number of coronavirus patients in the United States are facing surprise bills related to their medical care.
About 450,000 Americans have been hospitalized due to COVID-19, according to a report in The New York Times. But even those with adequate health insurance face mounting medical bills.
The New York Times invited readers to submit stories about the costs related to their medical care. Some of their experiences have exposed surprise bills in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Congress in 2019 abandoned attempts at preventing surprise medical bills, according to The New York Times.
The plan was popular, bipartisan and had White House backing, but fell apart at the last minute after private equity firms spent millions on ads opposing it.
Committee chairmen bickered and postponed the issue, according to The New York Times.
Because of Congress’ inaction, The New York Times says, many COVID-19 patients have now been left to fend for themselves.
Reader-submitted bills show patients are facing surprise bills on a variety of medical services, such as ambulance transport, lab work, and out-of-network doctors they didn’t choose or, in some cases, even realize were involved in their case.
The family of a Pennsylvania coronavirus patient who had been intubated said doctors chose to airlift her to a hospital with better resources, as the woman’s health was declining rapidly.
Her family was told it was a life-or-death situation and she needed to be transferred immediately.
She was transported via helicopter to a hospital 20 miles away and spent six weeks there, according to The New York Times. She survived.
However, she received a shock after arriving home: The air ambulance company that had transported her sent a letter telling her she owed $52,112.
Apparently the helicopter service had no contract with her health insurance plan, even though she was transported between two hospitals that were in-network under her plan.
According to The New York Times, she had no way of knowing about this — or about the fact that the private-equity air ambulance service has been sued many times over its billing practices.
Billing documents submitted to the newspaper show the woman’s health plan initially committed to paying only $7,539 of the bill — but ultimately rescinded that money, leaving the housebound woman to pay the full amount.
The Pennsylvania woman eventually filed a complaint with the state’s insurance commissioner. The commissioner’s office lacks the authority to regulate air ambulance billing, but office staff did call the woman’s insurer, which led to a quick resolution — the insurance company said it had already started reprocessing the claim by the time the commissioner’s office called.
Shortly thereafter, the woman learned her bill would be 100% covered.
But not everyone fares so well.
About a third of coronavirus patients who have been hospitalized report an altered mental state, struggling to cook or do other basic tasks, one study reported, according to The New York Times.
And many feel overwhelmed when they are greeted by medical bills upon returning home.
Alice Navarro, 40, was treated for COVID-19 at an in-network Texas hospital for 10 days, she told The Times. However, many doctors at that hospital were out-of-network for her, and her health plan denied about $4,000 in charges.
Navarro, who has short-term memory loss due to coronavirus, says she has filed appeals with her insurance company but thinks about the bills several times a day.
According to the newspaper, 20% of patients are vulnerable to surprise bills related to emergency room visits, while 71% of ambulance rides could result in surprise bills.
“We were shocked to see that,” said Dr. Karan Chhabra, surgical resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Chhabra was the study’s lead author.
After Congress’ 2019 attempt at billing reform failed, it tried to shield COVID-19 patients from surprise bills through relief packages passed earlier this year.
A $175 billion provider relief fund was established in an effort to help providers battling the pandemic on the front lines; to receive those funds, providers had to agree not to send their patients surprise bills, The New York Times reported.
In addition, many health insurance companies have promised to cover coronavirus patients’ hospital stays in full.
But many medical labs and ambulance services did not receive those funds — which means those providers are free to bill patients however they want.
And to make matters worse, some insurance policies covering coronavirus hospital stays don’t cover the required ambulance ride or follow-up care for long-term virus symptoms.
“The government is telling people if you have coronavirus, you cannot get surprise-billed,” Chhabra said. “It’s incredibly counterproductive if people cannot trust the policies meant to protect them when they’re getting care for this illness.”
Have you received surprise bills after undergoing treatment for COVID-19? Tell us about your experience in the comments.
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