Quote Originally Posted by RICHARD View Post
you can call the billing/insurance offices
I do, I do, I do

Definitely call the hospital billing department and ask them outright what their charges are. The first person you speak with may either be stunned that you're asking, not have a clue how to answer, or both. Persist cheerfully.

If you can't get an answer, call other local hospitals, ask them what their charges are, and then call your hospital back and say you have this information from other hospitals and you want it from yours.

Call your insurance company and ask them what their contracted rates are for the service you need. The first person you speak with will probably not be able to give you an answer, but should be able to put you in touch with someone who can. If you are getting nowhere fast with the insurance company, ask your HR department for the name and number of their contact at the company. (It's not the same person you talk to when you call the toll-free number.)

When I did floor nursing, every item in the clean utility room had an orange sticker on it. When we took an item (example: a "comfort kit" consisting of toothbrush, toothpaste and comb) for a patient, we put the orange sticker on a special page in the patient's chart. The nurses had no idea of the amounts that were billed for any of those items or what was not covered by insurance. I worked at the bedside for 8 years and it was only the last six months when I learned that a comfort kit was billed to the patient at about $8 and that insurance did not cover it. When a patient was about at the end of that little tube of toothpaste we would ask their family to bring in another one from home. Or if the patient had no family to bring one in, some of the nurses would do it. We didn't think it was fair to charge a patient eight bucks for a measly little tube of toothpaste that costs not even 1/4 of that at the supermarket. Same thing with topicals like Eucerin cream, Vaseline and non-allergenic lotion that we could obtain for patients from the pharmacy without a physician order. It's a very strange system.