Quotes from Charm's Dad..
"When my wife does a follow up visit on a Medicare patient in the hospital the reimbursement is $3."
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I wonder if you are perhaps confusing the Medicare program with the Medicaid program. It's a common mistake.
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Not hardly, and I don't see how in the world you could get that impression. I case you're not aware, Medicaid actually pays more for most procedures than Medicare in most states. As for my experience, it is far beyond just what my wife's practice sees, and far beyond one hospital. I used to write practice management software, which includes a massive billing component (and is currently the most widely used such software in the US.) I'm well aware of billing issues, much beyond those seen your a single hospital. I have directly worked with hospitals or practices in North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, DC, Ohio, Michigan and Texas. I also worked indirectly with practices in numerous other areas. The complaints against Medicare are extremely wide spread. Medicaid, which is more directly controlled by the individual states, is quite varied in its payment structure and timeliness of response. If one of us is confused between Medicare and Medicaid it's not me."
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Out of curiousity, I just pulled out one of my mother's EOBs.
The medicare approved amounts for daily bedside visits during her hospitalization by her main physician ranged from a low of $64 per day to a high of $86, of which Medicare payed 80% (with the 20% being billed to the patient or secondary carrier. Medicare payment methodologies are the same in each state, and although state by state Medicare payment amounts are WEF'd and PEF'd to adjust for regional costs, $3 vs $86 won't be the result of that. So, while you may believe that I don't know what I am talking about, I don't have any idea of what you're talking about. I'm not sure if your garbled sentence suggests that I've had experience at one hospital; I have worked as a consultant at multiple hospitals, but only happened to be the CFO at 2 of them. I also find it very hard to believe that NYS, long considered to have one of the most generous Medicaid systems in the US, pays MDs substantially less here than they do in North Carolina.
That is not to say that Medicare pays every claim immediately. If your wife does something (or the other complainants) that falls into an area of focused reviews, there will be delays in payment. The one area that frequently happens in is in psychiatric care.
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So yes, I am willing to have my tax dollars go to fund programs that I believe are important.
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"But you've already claimed you want the so called "rich" to pay a greater then their already hugely disproportional high amount for other programs that you want. Again, the "I decide but someone else should pay" approach. It would be quite different if everyone had to pay an additional $100 to $200 per month (or possibly more due to the excessive overhead of government run programs) to subsidize such programs"
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You've just repeated the same point that you made earlier. Let me be more clear in my response. When I have been in a relatively high tax bracket (altho not a 7 figure income earner), I haven't complained about paying my relatively high taxes. (And here in NY, I've got federal, state, local & one of the highest sales taxes in the country impacting me.) I'm not saying that "everyone should pay but me at all", no matter how many times you repeat that. I think multi-millionaires should pay most of the tax burden because they hold a vastly disproportionate share of the country's wealth.
I'm starting to think that you must fall into that category, since most of the people who complain bitterly about the unfair taxation of the incredibly wealthy, usually are the same people who benefit from those tax cuts, and also have far less need of public services.
"When my wife does a follow up visit on a Medicare patient in the hospital the reimbursement is $3."
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wonder if you are perhaps confusing the Medicare program with the Medicaid program. It's a common mistake.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not hardly, and I don't see how in the world you could get that impression. I case you're not aware, Medicaid actually pays more for most procedures than Medicare in most states. As for my experience, it is far beyond just what my wife's practice sees, and far beyond one hospital. I used to write practice management software, which includes a massive billing component (and is currently the most widely used such software in the US.) I'm well aware of billing issues, much beyond those seen your a single hospital. I have directly worked with hospitals or practices in North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, DC, Ohio, Michigan and Texas. I also worked indirectly with practices in numerous other areas. The complaints against Medicare are extremely wide spread. Medicaid, which is more directly controlled by the individual states, is quite varied in its payment structure and timeliness of response. If one of us is confused between Medicare and Medicaid it's not me."
------------------------------------------------------------
Out of curiousity, I just pulled out one of my mother's EOBs.
The medicare approved amounts for daily bedside visits during her hospitalization by her main physician ranged from a low of $64 per day to a high of $86, of which Medicare payed 80% (with the 20% being billed to the patient or secondary carrier. Medicare payment methodologies are the same in each state, and although state by state Medicare payment amounts are WEF'd and PEF'd to adjust for regional costs, $3 vs $86 won't be the result of that. So, while you may believe that I don't know what I am talking about, I don't have any idea of what you're talking about. I'm not sure if your garbled sentence suggests that I've had experience at one hospital; I have worked as a consultant at multiple hospitals, but only happened to be the CFO at 2 of them. I also find it very hard to believe that NYS, long considered to have one of the most generous Medicaid systems in the US, pays MDs substantially less here than they do in North Carolina.
That is not to say that Medicare pays every claim immediately. If your wife does something (or the other complainants) that falls into an area of focused reviews, there will be delays in payment. The one area that frequently happens in is in psychiatric care.
"quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So yes, I am willing to have my tax dollars go to fund programs that I believe are important.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"But you've already claimed you want the so called "rich" to pay a greater then their already hugely disproportional high amount for other programs that you want. Again, the "I decide but someone else should pay" approach. It would be quite different if everyone had to pay an additional $100 to $200 per month (or possibly more due to the excessive overhead of government run programs) to subsidize such programs"
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You've just repeated the same point that you made earlier. Let me be more clear in my response. When I have been in a relatively high tax bracket (altho not a 7 figure income earner), I haven't complained about paying my relatively high taxes. (And here in NY, I've got federal, state, local & one of the highest sales taxes in the country impacting me.) I'm not saying that "everyone should pay but me at all", no matter how many times you repeat that. I think multi-millionaires should pay most of the tax burden because they hold a vastly disproportionate share of the country's wealth.
I'm starting to think that you must fall into that category, since most of the people who complain bitterly about the unfair taxation of the incredibly wealthy, usually are the same people who benefit from those tax cuts, and also have far less need of public services.
Some things I have agreed with and others not...can't be perfect.
I'm at work and couldn't read this all the way through, so I was skimming all the comments. I just realized that this thread was started a Looooooooooong time ago.
