Folks with a $5,000 deductible plan could very easily wind up facing a bill of at least $5,000, Eisenberg added. They included pneumonia, acute bronchitis, lower respiratory infections and acute respiratory distress syndrome.Īverage out-of-pocket spending for these respiratory hospitalizations was $1,961 for patients with cheaper high-deductible plans versus $1,653 for patients in traditional plans typically with lower deductibles.īut that's on average. "If people are already struggling with fear of losing their job or a spouse losing their job, this additional financial shock to the system could really hurt a lot of people."įor this study, Eisenberg and his colleagues evaluated medical costs between 20 related to hospitalizations for respiratory conditions similar to COVID. "The challenge is that we're facing at the same time a huge public health threat and an economic crisis caused by the public health threat," Eisenberg said. And those plans aren't required to cover cost-sharing related to treatment. Worse, three out of five employer-sponsored health plans aren't subject to a federal law that waives out-of-pocket charges for COVID-19 testing. He's an assistant professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. High-deductible plans in the past have required patients to pay about $2,000 on average for hospitalizations caused by respiratory infections like COVID-19, compared with only about $1,500 for low-deductible plans, said lead researcher Matthew Eisenberg. People who've chosen skimpy health plans might face hospital bills that could ruin them financially, unless either their company or the government intervenes, researchers said. More than 250,000 people have been hospitalized for COVID infection in the United States, according to background notes with the study. That's not going to be the case for a lot of folks who receive similarly high bills, a new study warns. The 181-page bill listed nearly 3,000 itemized charges - and didn't include other items likely to make Flor's bill even higher, the 70-year-old told Time.īut one fact provided Flor some solace: Kaiser Permanente, the health care company through which he receives his Medicare and Medicare Advantage coverage, has announced it will waive most out-of-pocket costs related to COVID treatment. MONDAY, J(HealthDay News) - Seattle resident Michael Flor's heart nearly stopped when he received a $1.1 million dollar hospital bill for months of COVID-19 treatment.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |