What Can A Medical Billing Advocate Do For You?
When a claim is denied, an out-of-network fee is too costly, or an uninsured patient confronts an unclear or towering bill, an advocate may be able to help.
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Code Blue: Out-of-Network Charges Can Spur Financial Emergency
When Gary Diego’s wife, Ellen, had bleeding in her brain, she ended up in an out-of-network emergency room. And he ended up with a huge bill. In a practice known as balance billing, insurers pay a portion of the out-of-network charges, and the rest is dumped on patients.
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Health Co-Ops Touted As Alternative To Public Plan
Facing mounting opposition to the overhaul, administration officials left open the chance for a compromise with Republicans that would include health insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run plan. This story comes from our partner NPR News.
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Boehner Blasts PhRMA On Deal With White House
The House Minority Leader suggested that the drug-industry pact with President Obama, whom he called a “bully” – will backfire on industry and consumers. The GOP has its own health bill, which Boehner announced on June 17.
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Transcript: Health On The Hill Discussion Of The Public Plan
KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey and NPR health correspondent Julie Rovner talk about the chances that the public option will not be in a health overhaul bill, details about how health cooperatives might work and the flap over end of life care.
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Health On The Hill – August 17, 2009
KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey and NPR health correspondent Julie Rovner talk about the chances that the public option will not be in a health overhaul bill, details about how health cooperatives might work and the flap over end of life care. A podcast and transcript are also available.
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Ad Audit: Club For Growth’s Anti-Government Message
An anti-tax group goes after Democratic health reform proposals, alleging they would lead to rationing and crushing government deficits. But the campaign includes some dubious comparisons with the British health system, and the group’s recommended solutions are open to question.
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Transcript: President Obama’s Colorado Town Hall Meeting On Health Reform
President Barack Obama spoke about health insurance, a pressed for a need to overhaul the health care system at town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colorado on Saturday.
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President Obama’s Weekly Saturday Address – Prepared Remarks
The White House released these prepared remarks in advance of the President’s weekly Saturday address.
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Excerpts of President Obama’s Montana Town Hall Meeting
At President Barack Obama’s town hall meeting in Belgrade, Montana, he was asked a number of questions about his push for health reform, including two pointed ones on paying for a health overhaul and on small business and insurance coverage.
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Transcript: President Obama’s Montana Health Care Town Hall Meeting
The White House released a transcript of President Barack Obama’s town hall meeting in Belgrade, Montana. He begins with prepared remarks and then answers questions from the audience.
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Opinion Column
The Last Taboo
We live in a time when seemingly no subject is taboo. Yet, there remains one subject Americans seem unable to talk about in an honest and rational way: the inevitable decline of old age.
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What The House Health Bill Says About End-Of-Life Care
Section 1233 of the health overhaul bill approved by three House committees has been the subject of great debate. We present the language as written in the bill itself.
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Doctors Providing End of Life Counseling See Benefit in Current Controversy
Physicians, while disputing the charges of plans for euthanasia, say the debate on what is in the House health bill on end-of-life care could help focus attention on an underfunded service.
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An Actuary’s Role In Health Reform: Making Health Reform Viable
All our actions have consequences.
It seems to be what’s missing often from debate, especially around such emotionally-charged arguments as the health care reform debate, but actuaries deal in repercussions, moving behind the scenes, analyzing risk and the future and what health care reform will actually mean for America 5, 10 or 20 years from now.
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Medicare Advisers Raised Rates but Complained of Flawed System
Elevating the commission, known as MedPAC, isn’t about greasing the path for unpopular payment reductions, an obvious way to save money. It’s about rethinking payment altogether. Even as MedPAC advised upping payments, commissioners quietly insisted for years that Congress should scrap its abstruse, fragmented rules for paying providers.
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Carolyn Clancy on Comparative Effectiveness:
Dr. Carolyn Clancy, the director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, warns, “Doctors and patients are working together in a relative evidence-free zone.” She hopes to change that as interest and support veer towards comparative effectiveness research.
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E-Health Ambitions to Confront Human, Financial Realities
As much as $36 billion in federal stimulus money will help physicians and hospitals go digital by 2015. But, workers need training, smaller offices may struggle to come up with down payments, and once the electronic records are up and running many say their biggest value is pointing out room for improvement. And, improvement efforts cost time and money, too.
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