Here’s what you should know.
1. The ACA mandates payers cover preventive colonoscopy’s entire cost. However, patients across the country are often left paying out-of-pocket costs for a variety of reasons.
2. In some cases, the hospital charges the patients for a diagnostic colonoscopy, which payers are not required to cover in full.
3. Hospitals often offer a lower price for cash-only procedures compared to procedures billed through a payer. However, almost every hospital in New Orleans doesn’t advertise its cash prices online.
4. Fairway Medical Center in Covington (La.) charged a colonoscopy screening patient $1,561 out-of-pocket for anesthesia and physician services and facility use. The hospital quoted an all-inclusive rate of $1,172 for the same procedure to the Times-Picayune.
5. Louisiana-based Ochsner Health System billed four patients for endoscopy services when they were receiving colonoscopies. While technically correct, the wide variance endoscopy could entail makes it impossible to know if a health system mischarged a patient.
Ochsner Health didn’t address the mislabeling in a statement to the Times-Picayune. In that statement it said that “various factors” affect what the health system charges.
More articles on gastroenterology:
Underwater colonoscopy more effective than air insufflation — 5 insights
Drs. David Ahlquist & Anil Rustgi: 8 GI physicians in the headlines
GI leader to know: Dr. Dino Ferrante of the Center for Colon & Digestive Disease
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