Woman Charged $1,133 To Clip Toenail

[The Straight Story]

Woman Charged $1,133 To Clip Toenail

POSTED: 10:23 am EDT September 9, 2005

SEATTLE -- A lawsuit spawned by a $1,133 bill to clip a toenail and run some tests at a hospital has been certified as a class action.

The ruling this week in King County Superior Court could raise the stakes by millions of dollars in a consumer protection case brought by Lori Mill against Virginia Mason Medical Center.

Mill is challenging a $418 fee included in the bill for "miscellaneous hospital charges" because she had the work done at Virginia Mason's downtown complex rather than at one of the medical center's satellite clinics.

Virginia Mason officials say the downtown operation is authorized by Medicare to charge higher fees because it is licensed as a hospital, and they maintain that such charges are a standard industry practice.



http://www.local6.com/news/4952902/detail.html

[benburch]

1. This was the hospital Andy Stephenson was in.

At the time, the Scamdy Fuckers were insisting that it accepted no medicare or medicaid patients, therefore, Andy was lying about how much money he had raised...

And even worse, they perjured themselves to Medicaid to get his benefits cut off.

[girl gone mad]

2. It is standard industry practice to rip off Medicare.

That much is true.

[MercutioATC]

3. I wonder about "and run some tests ". Tests CAN be expensive.

Without a detailed list of the procedures and tests performed and an itemized billing sheet, there's no way to tell if this is a reasonable charge or not.