There are many instances where patients are now turned away if they lack insurance, even though a hospital can no longer legally do this.

 

A patient without insurance sees a Rose Medical doctor. Surgery is recommended but the patient is worried - he/she has no insurance. The patient is reassured - the surgeon will do the surgery for free or charge the Medicaid rate.

 

The patient calls Rose Medical finance department to see how much the surgery will cost - how much will Rose charge him/her. In the years prior to the Columbia-HCA buy-out, Rose would cut patients like this a break. Rose would allow the surgery to be done for free. Those days are gone. This is a for-profit system. Rose is now responsible to headquarters in Nashville and ultimately to shareholders. Rose tells the patient he/she will need to pay an inflated hospital charge.

 

For minor surgery the charge can be as high as $4,000 to $5,000. For major surgery such as abdominal surgery, the charge is can be $40,000 or more. For added insult, the Rose Medical finance people inform this poor patient that 1/2 of the amount is due now and the remainder is due over the next 2 months! Who can afford these high charges. The doctor tries to intervene and asks Rose Medical to consider charging this patient a smaller rate, perhaps the Medicaid rate, but the hospital refuses to budge.

 

Of course, the patient can't pay. He/she moves on to the Denver Health Medical Center for the surgery.

 

So....Rose Medical did not expressly turn the patient away, to do so illegal. The patient was "turned away" because he/she couldn't afford care there.

 

There are signs all over Rose Medical proclaiming that no patient can be turned away because of finances, yet this is happening daily.

 

This sort of overcharging was recently brought to the attention of the U.S. public by the Wall Street Journal and the Denver Post.