An emergency room story to make anyone ill

By Attorney David Engler

Have you ever received an Explanation of Benefits letter from your insurance provider and cannot figure out what you owe? You are not alone in deciphering a hospital bill. At http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-lopez-medicalcosts-20120325,0,6538717.column/ Steve Lopez describes how a father received a $5000 dollar emergency bill for his daughter’s tummy-ache!

STEVE LOPEZ

So they went to Providence Tarzana Medical Center’s emergency room, where Moser handed over his insurance information. He had lost his job in TV production, and later bought his own medical insurance. To keep the monthly premiums manageable, he went for a plan with a $5,000 deductible.

“I kept asking, ‘Is this really necessary?’ ” said Moser, who first questioned the emergency room staff about the need for an IV drip to administer a saline solution.

The staff agreed not to do the saline solution. After some blood work, the doctor recommended an ultrasound, which Moser questioned. He relented, though, when the doctor said it wasn’t absolutely necessary but would rule out anything serious. And it did, so Ella went home with what was diagnosed as nothing more than an upset stomach, from which she quickly recovered.

But when the bill arrived, John Moser felt a sharp pain in his own gut.

The cost for just walking in the door of the emergency room? That came to $1,288. The ultrasound nicked him an additional $1,135. A comprehensive metabolic panel (blood analysis) was billed at $1,212.

Moser was also charged $158, accidentally, for the saline solution he had turned down. The total came to $4,852.55, not counting separate bills that would arrive later and total nearly $1,000, including $540 for pathology and $309 for the doctor.

“I was shocked,” said Moser.

The first bill, $4,852.55, was confusing, as medical bills often are. It said “your health plan has recently made a payment on your account.” It said the balance, $2,571.85, “is now your financial responsibility.”

When Moser mentioned the bill to his father, Marvin Moser flipped.

“Yes, the fees in ERs are off the wall all over the country,” the professor of medicine told me, but he found Tarzana’s to be extraordinary. “The one thing that stands out, beyond belief, is $1,212 for a metabolic panel.”

That’s a test, Dr. Moser said, in which a technician draws blood for chemical analysis, and it takes just minutes. Moser questioned not only the charge, but the usefulness of the test in his granddaughter’s case.

Out of curiosity, I went online to see what a lab might charge for a comprehensive metabolic panel.

Any guesses?

Some labs advertise prices as low as $39.

Glenn Melnick, who teaches hospital economics at USC, was not surprised.

“By and large, these prices are fictitious numbers,” said Melnick, who argued that Tarzana and most other hospitals routinely charge astronomical fees, especially for emergency room services.

Of course, and it’s all part of a years-long game in which the charge for service, the true cost of the service, and the acceptable payment are in three different orbits. And that doesn’t even take into account how the charges are adjusted up or down depending on who’s paying them and whether they have worked out a deal. How can patients hope to make sense of such an indefensibly convoluted system?

Starting Monday, President Obama’s healthcare reform act will get a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. But how can you have an honest conversation about soaring healthcare costs and health insurance, Dr. Moser asked, without addressing the maddening fictions built into the system? Patients seldom know in advance what they are being charged, he said, and many later find themselves in “medical bill bankruptcy.”

Melnick said hospitals argue that they lose money providing service to the uninsured, and by not getting reimbursed enough for Medicare or Medicaid patients. There’s some truth to that, Melnick said, but prices are set artificially high to help balance the books on the backs of paying customers. In the case of a $1,200 charge for entering an emergency room, Melnick said, the Medicare reimbursement is likely to be $300 or less, and far closer to the hospital’s true cost.

“Hospitals have figured out they can rapidly increase charges in the ER,” Melnick said, “and that will lead them to get higher amounts even from insurance companies they negotiate with.”

This is a very big deal, Melnick said, because half of all patients admitted to a hospital in California go in through the emergency room. Melnick said there’s also been a huge increase in the number of patients who lost group coverage and purchased individual plans with high deductibles, making them more vulnerable to exorbitant charges.

“More and more, people are seeing their deductibles eaten up on one visit.”

Melnick directed me to a state website (http://www.oshpd.ca.gov/chargemaster/) where every California hospital lists its fees. I did a little surfing and it appeared that the comprehensive metabolic panel for which Tarzana charged $1,212, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center lists a price of $786.45 and Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center charges $350.

A Tarzana spokesperson, Patricia Aidem, sent me a statement defending Ella’s care. “A child’s life was in our team’s hands and they acted accordingly…” said the statement.

It added that Providence hospitals spend millions each year on charity care for those who can’t pay. Aidem also provided data from the state website showing higher fees at other hospitals than Tarzana charged in the Moser case, including $2,678 for an abdominal ultrasound at West Hills Medical Center and a $4,413.24 emergency room visit at Cedars.

But that’s just the point. The price swings are so dramatic that they seem arbitrary, if not indefensible. I can’t predict how the Supreme Court will rule on healthcare, but I’m prepared to issue my judgment: It’s a mess.

(Look for a column in the next week on how the bill for Ella Moser’s tummy ache was settled and tips on how to avoid going broke from a minor medical emergency.)

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal

Also published on eGuardianship.com on March 26, 2012 http://eguardianship.wordpress.com// and Family Fault Lines Blog http://familyfaultlines.com//

What Happens When a 15 Year Old Girl Accuses 22 Year Old Boy of Rape

By Attorney David Engler

What Happens When a 15 Year Old Girl Accuses 22 Year Old Boy of Rape

It is easier to draft this blog after the jury has come back from 70 minutes of deliberations. In 26 years of practicing law the pressure point of a judge getting ready to say “guilty” or “not guilty” is easily the most excruciating second of time.

On a Thursday night in October of 2010 two girls, one who was petite and at least 20 and the other who was more developed but with a younger face show up at the house of four 22 year old young men. They are carrying a duffel bag and are staying the night. The one is blowing up the cell phone of her soon to be ex-boyfriend who attends college and is not answering any frantic calls after 2:00 a.m.. I ask her on the stand was she crying that night because she thought her boyfriend was with some other girl. She said “no” she was worried about him. When she came in to take the stand, the only thing missing was a rattle and blanket. My client and one of the other four boys did not recognize her. Her hair was in a pony-tail and she wore a shirt buttoned up to the neck. Her sister came to testify as well that she warned everyone at the house that night that her sister was just 14, ready to turn 15. The sister promptly then changed into a leopard print corset and later had the boys sign their names on her chest like they were a rock band. Even later the sister goes to bed with a housemate and sleeps the night. What turns out to be the younger sister goes into the bedroom of my client and they have sex.
The sister on the stand gets a real foggy memory and does not recall if she had to wash sharpie from her chest the next day.

A few days later the younger sister tells her boy-friend who is no longer the ex-boyfriend that she was raped by the older guy at the party. A month later the news slowly gets to the mother, who calls the police and my client, Matt gets charged with 2 counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. The issue for the jury was whether Matt knew or was reckless in not knowing that the girl was either 14 or 15. In Ohio as in most states the age to consent to sex is 16. Matt thought she was 19 and friended her on Facebook the night of the sex and she posted her age as 19.

The jury was a very bright group based upon their education. I left two police officers on the jury. This caused a minor buzz in the Courthouse, since defense attorneys believe police want everyone arrested. I thought differently. I am not sure if it worked but I knew my client had no idea the girl was nearly 15. Police have an instinct to cut through lies quickly and I believed it was the victim, her sister and Mom who would be fibbing through the trial.

So the words came out of Judge Evans’s mouth: “We the jury find Matt not guilty of Count 1 and 2 of the indictment”. I heard a long sigh come from my client. His life was back. One of the woman on the jury asked Matt if he learned a lesson. He did. I am not sure the young girl learned anything since the day of her testimony she posted on her Twitter account, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

Matt told me he had not been able to take a breath of air or a bite of food over the last 17 months awaiting this trial without thinking of his fate. This is a tale of caution to our sons and daughters. The Mom thought her little girl was at a sleepover and never bothered to check. The girl started telling a lie all because she was playing college girl, was over her head and wanted the attention of her boyfriend. The jury wasn’t able to see this girls Facebook pictures, tweets and texts that portray a very cunning now 16 year old. She could care less who was going to get hurt. For her it was an interesting story of teen drama. For my client and the rest of us it is a story of the risks of casual hook-ups with someone you just met. Protect your daughters……and sons.

Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal