Cash before chemo: Hospitals get tough

[antigop]

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120934207044648511.html?mod=2_1566_topbox

When Lisa Kelly learned she had leukemia in late 2006, her doctor advised her to seek urgent care at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. But the nonprofit hospital refused to accept Mrs. Kelly's limited insurance. It asked for $105,000 in cash before it would admit her.

Sitting in the hospital's business office, Mrs. Kelly says she told M.D. Anderson's representatives that she had some money to pay for treatment, but couldn't get all the cash they asked for that day. "Are they going to send me home?" she recalls thinking. "Am I going to die?"
A growing trend in the hospital industry means cancer patients like Lisa Kelly are being asked to pay cash upfront before receiving treatment.

Hospitals are adopting a policy to improve their finances: making medical care contingent on upfront payments. Typically, hospitals have billed people after they receive care. But now, pointing to their burgeoning bad-debt and charity-care costs, hospitals are asking patients for money before they get treated.

As Michael Moore asked in "Sicko": "WHO ARE WE? WHAT ARE WE?"

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. "First, do no harm"

Isn't denying care due strictly to the ability to pay doing harm?

[jeanruss]

6. not anymore

That line "first do no harm" has been REMOVED from the doctor'd oath for several years now. Chemo made that oath impossible.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

16. Didn't know that

hmmm....think my MD still ascribes to it, though, as she uses other treatments that have proven successful. Edited to add: She is a cancer survivor herself, and refused chemo after a double radical mastectomy.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Thank God!

They were a bunch of pussies before.

[indepat]

3. What we as a people and what the "government of people, by the people, and for the people" do

for the people rather than for large corporations and donors define who we are and what we are, what we have become: among 1st world nations, perhaps only in America would a person with a life-threatening illness be some callously turned out the doors to die. :scared: :mad:

Edited for context

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. My brother is a doctor at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the US

and he put it this way... the medical system will collapse within 10 years since they are in dire straits

I went... THAT LONG?

The system will collapse and then, and ONLY then we will see a modern payment system... maybe. (Single Payer)

I can bet hospitals will close their doors before they allow themselves to go into a federal system

[Iris]

8. If people are being denied treatment, I'd say it's already collapsing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. People have been denied treatment for YEARS

if not decades

I still remember patient dumping by American ERs when I was a Mexican Medic bringing American Patients across.

That has been close to fifteen years...

So that is NOT exactly a marker.

What is a marker is that the system is under such stress that now they are extending this to people in the lower middle classes

[Iris]

10. yes, I see what you are saying.

And it still proves my point - eventually, only a very few people will be treated as they keep chipping away at who is deemed worth enough (or wealthy enough) to receive treatment.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Either that... or the system will collapse fully

and I am betting on the latter... since people will have enough sooner or later

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LeftishBrit]

12. Not true.

Chemo DOES cure many people. 40 years ago, almost all children with leukemia died; nowadays three-quarters are cured. Adults have a lower, cure rate, but still much higher than in the past.

Sadly, there are some forms of cancer that are still rarely curable; but in many cases doctors CAN help.

[Freddie Stubbs]

15. You should tell that to my ex-girlfriend

She had leukemia when she was a kid. She underwent chemo and her is in fine health. Except that when her hair grew back, she was brunette rather than a blond.

[TZ]

17. There is a poster on this very board

That is benefiting greatly from chemotherapy in her battle with cervical cancer..in fact it looks like the chemo has just about wiped out her cancer..Why don't you push your theory in Longhorn's face..I'm sure she would appreciate it...:sarcasm:

[alarimer]

18. That's dangerous unscientific nonsense.

I prefer science-based medicine to CRAP based medicine.

[Donnachaidh]

7. Any hospital that pulls this stunt should be CLOSED

And the licenses of any doctors involved with this decision pulled for LIFE.

We don't need these greedy quacks taking advantage of the sick in this country. They want to turn away the ill? Fuck them -- take away their livelihood and let them get a taste of the shitty end of existence. :rant:

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. It's not the doctors sadly

but the hospital finance department... most are on the red, and going deeper... thank the highly dysfunctional health insurance system

I'll give you a specific example...

Mamographies... there is only one place in town that does it

WHY?

The cost is over a hundred per... they get thirty back

How many places do you think can continue to function LONG TERM this way?

This is why we need a whole scale system reform PERIOD

[LeftishBrit]

13. Such stories make me SICK!

How disgusting and callous. It would not be permitted in Europe.

[New Dawn]

19. That is the problem with privately owned hospitals:

Their main objective is profits.

[OneBlueSky]

20. immoral, unethical, and should be illegal . . .

yet more proof that we need single-payer universal healthcare that bypasses the insurance industry completely . . .