Maybe because I was just so hopeful for recovery that I didn't care and probably because most of my ADR was covered except for my relatively high deductible as part of our self-insured HSA, but I never received an itemized list. My bills were one page after I paid the first few to arrive before the deductible was met. My local insurance company rep pre-approved the surgery and then negotiated the hospital portion down about 20% after the fact. I was never consulted to determine if things were correct. If asked, I would have complied since it was pretty easy to remember most of the stay. Probably wouldn't have noticed medication cost or date errors, but the big stuff could have been reviewed. I have no idea how much the hardware cost.
More people should review their charges and payments as you have. More people should know their costs up front. However, it's a daunting task for the uninitiated. I still rely on one of our key employees to guide me through saving money on simple things like lab tests and Rx's. Most doctors are too busy handling the clinical side to know exact charges, reimbursements, etc. We employ trained coders to review everything we do to make sure we charge exactly what was done. We recently had an external audit and things were deemed excellent with mistakes well below national standards. Still, they do occur.
One way to make people more accountable for monitoring their health care costs would be to make them responsible for a small portion of every bill without a deductible. It would keep people out of the ER for problems that can be handled by their PC during routine hours, since ER costs are much greater for treating the exact same problem. If I knew that going in tonight for that abdominal pain that I've having off and on for 6 months (yes, it happens millions of times per DAY in this country for millions of different routine problems) would result in $600 in charges for which I had to pay $60, but I could make an urgent visit to my internist in the morning for around $100 (costing me $10), then I'd only go if I couldn't take. There are lots of ER visits that are unnecessary, but no one cares b/c they've met their deductible.
Sorry, really didn't mean to go off on a rant, but I guess I'll leave it here
. My point is more people should do what you did, but I'm a hypocrite here, huh. Meantime, how are things going? I was thinking about you today as I was realizing that if I had chosen fusion instead of ADR, I prob would've failed b/c of my unrecognized vitamin D deficiency. Make sure to consider that during your recovery. It's a much bigger problem than I or some of my docs knew. I wouldn't have believed myself if I hadn't experienced it and then followed up with a literature search. Just imagine what we know now compared to 50 yrs. ago, and imagine where we'll be 50 yrs. from now. I guess we can only do the best with the info we have right now. Just use it to the fullest. Take care.
-tc-