Cash Up Front Please

In a recent blog post at the Wall Street Journal Health blog, they report on a serious crisis going on in today’s hospitals: patients are being rejected if they don’t pay their medical bills up front. With the hospital industry’s debt at $31.2 billion in 2006, and rising, the hospitals have a valid reason to ask for the money up front. But most of the time, medical bills more than double a person’s income for the year. Is there a happy median for this situation?

As WSBT TV reports, Lisa Kelly was requested to pay $105,000 before she received her leukemia treatment at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Her insurance did not cover the full amount, and so she had to pay cash before she could even be admitted to the hospital. This hospital is now demanding billing up front instead of invoicing patients later due to the increasing amount of charity cases and those who refuse to pay their doctors bills after they’ve left the hospital.