Out of network billing

摘要

Brits, prepare to be shocked. Imagine you ended up going to a hospital outside of a pre-defined group of hospitals because of the timing or nature of your medical issue and that you got charged for this. (Of course in the US it's an extra charge because you were going to get some charge anyway, but this would mostly be covered by the private insurance you had taken out.) That would be considered pretty outrageous. Well this is common in the US, and the proportion of emergency department visits and inpatient admissions generating "out-of-network" billing has risen to 42% in 2016. This places an additional financial burden on patients. This seems inherently unfair to patients, who may not have much choice as to where and when they become unwell.