www.SanTanSun.com
Opinion Community Commentary from Page 34
users to find local shopping, services and entertainment. The map, similar to Google Maps, highlights merchants within Chandler City limits. Additionally, there is a Local Bites guide that highlights eateries in Chandler. It can be found at
www.chandlerlocalbites.com.
Another agency called Local First Arizona has also taken the lead in educating the public
Letters
Surprise ER bills add insult to injury
The SanTan (Sun) area is blessed to be serviced by two modern hospitals, Mercy Gilbert and Chandler Regional. The staff is excellent and billings through our insurance have been efficient. My daughter had to be transported and admitted to Mercy Gilbert Sept. 30.
As you may know, these events trigger numerous billings including the emergency room doctor and physician’s assistant who are not employed by the hospital. To our surprise, Premier EM Medical Specialists, chosen by Mercy Gilbert, is not a contract organization with any health plan; they boasted of the fact when I contacted them. My daughter’s excellent insurance processed the billing out-of-network where there is a higher deductible. She got a bill for $717 from Premier, the full amount of the bill. When I contacted Mercy Gilbert, they could not explain why they contract in the ER, where you have no choice of doctor, with such an organization. Premier suggested I submit an appeal to our insurance to request processing as in-network based on her use of a contracting facility. We have done so, however, any payment will not cover the billing.
to theEditor
If you want to avoid a surprise billing of around $1,000 per ER visit from the doctors Mercy Gilbert and Chandler Regional choose, I suggest you go to the Gilbert Hospital at Power and Warner or Banner Hospital in Mesa. Until Mercy Gilbert and Chandler Regional require the ER doctors to be contracting or select a contracting doctor group as they did previously, we will boycott these facilities and we suggest you do so as well. During these difficult economic times, a $1,000 surprise billing for the ER doctor is not what you want to see. Alex Gernert, Brooks Ranch
Added mandates don’t mean higher costs
Hospitals and doctors should be required to submit detailed statements.
Insurance companies including Medicare should have hired staff to actually look at the charges submitted by hospitals and doctors. This would save millions of dollars. The cost of added personnel would be offset by the savings.
Patients should be offered monetary rewards for finding errors and overcharges on their bills.
I was hospitalized in August for a little more than two days. Blood tests and
Brian hopes to land a job in
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author.
antibiotics and one CT scan generated a bill for more than $30,000 not including doctors and radiologist bills.
I requested an itemized statement and wound up finding over $7,000 in overcharges, duplicated charges and charges for questionable procedures. I have no secondary insurance so Medicare was the only insurer. They paid the bill, no questions asked before I could even check my bill.
After I documented all of the questionable charges on the form I printed out that Medicare provided on the Internet and attached several pages of documentation of the erroneous charges. I sent it to the address provided on the form. I received a letter from them telling me I had to fill out the very same form I had submitted. I did it again. Another letter from them requesting the very same thing arrived a couple of weeks later. I filled it out again and attached the copies of everything sent on the last two occasions.
Another letter came, this time telling me they had tried to contact me by phone but couldn’t reach me. Not so. I have caller ID and a message machine and neither had registered a call from them. I was asked to call them regarding the case. When I
finally got them on the phone I was told the case would be reopened since my call to them had closed it. I had never called them. Yesterday I received a letter from a contracted company in New Guinea telling me they had closed the case due to my not being able to document the problem of poor care in the hospital. I can only imagine what this must have cost me as a taxpayer. The insurance companies and patients should be responsible for catching and stopping the practice of overcharging by these entities.
Teri Namon, 85249
Interrogation acts justified Water boarding was deemed legal by the Department of Justice and was the right thing to do for the sake of 3,000 innocent people killed by this mastermind Muslim jihadist. Hopefully no person of your family, Mr. Gates, will ever be subjected to these type of jihadists acts. Maybe then, if it did happen, you will see the justification for water boarding. America has a right to protect itself when attacked. Move on. Dennis Riswold, Chandler
about the benefits of building strong local economies. Their website,
www.localfirstaz.com, is comprehensive and includes economic studies from various states, a local business directory for Arizona and several initiatives to incentivize residents to “buy local.”
If you’re like me, seeing vacant spaces in place of favorite shops and restaurants is motivating
enough to get me off my chair and out supporting Chandler businesses. Yes, it is still tempting to purchase gifts from the click of a mouse, but the reality is, there’s more than meets the eye. At the end of the day, we can feel good knowing we’re contributing in a small but meaningful way to the enrichment of our City, both economically and socially.
Dec. 18 - Jan. 7, 2011 35
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