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$726 for 20 Seconds of Work

April 25th, 2007 at 07:21 pm

Medical bills once again......

My son fell and got a small bump on his forehead that was some blood vessel thingy (forgot the medical term) that would not go away. I took him to the dermatologist who explained what it was. He then numbed it (a few seconds), snipped it off (one second), cauterized it (one second), and slapped a bandaid on it (two seconds). Total bill: $726.00. My insurance reduced it by $260.77, leaving my portion to pay at $465.23. Plus add another $35 co-pay for the first visit to the family doctor who sent us to the dermatologist. My total out-of-pocket expense is $500.23.

My husband and I are self-employed so I know all about overhead expenses, but come on.....I am just disgusted and really bummed out.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “$726 for 20 Seconds of Work”

  1. nance Says:
    April 25th, 2007 at 07:38 pm 1177529902
    1177529902

    Hemangioma? I had one years ago, and the family physician removed it the same way. Is there any way you can find out if the insurance company will pay more if the procedure is "coded" differently by the doctor? My daughter's insurance company told her they would have paid more if the doctor's office had coded the procedure differently. She had the doctor's office enter a different code, and the insurance company paid more.

  2. Ima saver Says:
    April 25th, 2007 at 07:55 pm 1177530919
    1177530919

    That does make you sick!!

  3. homebody Says:
    April 25th, 2007 at 09:36 pm 1177536966
    1177536966

    Ouch. I feel your pain. We are self-employed too and we had over $15,000 in medical bills in 2004 for YD for an ankle surgery and about $8000.00 the year before for a pilonidal cyst removal! That was after our high deductible insurance! For an in-office procedure that seems pretty high, they may have coded it wrong in that it was coded a more difficult procedure than it was too! I would definitely question it. I used to do coding when I owned a billing service for physicians and there are errors in coding, so I would definitely ask for verification of CPT code used.

  4. daybyday Says:
    April 28th, 2007 at 05:16 pm 1177780590
    1177780590

    Well, the first doctor did diagnose it as a hemangioma, but the dermatologist said it was something else. I still can't remember the name.

    Anyway, thanks for the suggestion, nance and homebody! I don't know why I didn't think of questioning the bill as I have worked in the past both as a medical biller and an insurance claims processor. And I have caught errors before and don't know why it didn't occur to me to question this particular bill. I will post an update if I get some good news!

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