The ugly truths about medical debt

My colleague, Michael Herin, writes a very good blog about debt collection. Mr. Herin, recently wrote about the ugly truths of medical debt His blog post is very interesting and I highly recommend it, although I only disagree with him on one issue.
Mr. Herin states that if a patient has insurance, that it is strictly a contract between the insurance company and the patient. I disagree with his analysis. The doctor is also a party to that insurance contract as the doctor has agreed to accept a reduced amount of fees for her services. Nevertheless, Mr. Herin makes some very good points that I think everyone really ought to know.
I used to do a great deal of medical collection. I can tell you that it sucked. Medical debt is not the kind of debt that anyone asks for. I loathed going after people who either did not have medical insurance or who simply maxed out their benefits and were on their own for this bills. The absolute worst medical debt was pursing a parent for medical bills that they had for their children. Like its not bad enough that your kid is so sick that one has to accumulate astronomical debt. I understand the need for the hospital and docs to get paid for their services. I am just glad that someone else is doing it. However, the problems of our healthcare delivery system still gnaws at me. I am a father and I wonder what the system will be like for my kids when they grow up.
I predict that in the next 10 years that there will be a major change in the way that America delivers healthcare to the population. Its kinda funny to see who blames whom for the woes in our system. My aunt Phyllis works for an HMO and she tells me that the hospitals are using more services and thus costing the insurance companies more money. She is a very bright woman and I respect her opinion immensely. I know another gentleman who worked for a very large health system in Michgan. He blames the insurance companies for cutting fees at a time when costs are going up. At some point, the finger pointing will be moot as the problem will be inescapable and we will protected by a an irretrievably broken system.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 and is filed under Debt Collection Laws - Federal . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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