hospital bills

A Pasco County mom tried to dispute an emergency room bill, but the hospital and collection agency refused to talk to her — because it was her child's name on the bill, not hers.

Instead of health insurance, the Rev. Jeff King had signed up for an alternative that left members of the plan to share the costs of health care. That meant lower premiums, but a huge hospital bill.

A Venice health system charged a woman for a shoulder replacement she didn't need and hadn't received. She didn't receive the care, but she did receive the bill — and some medical records of a stranger.

Her sleuthing took over a year but knocked thousands of dollars off the hospital’s charges — and provides a playbook for other consumers.

A hospital's cost calculator said her procedure would be $1,400 for patients without insurance. Instead, the bill was almost $18,000 and, her part was more than $5,000 — the balance of her deductible.

It shows that 80% of the hospitals surveyed in Florida are not following the law.

A dump of tens of thousands of colossal digital files from a single insurer is not unusual, and it'll be weeks before data firms can put the information in a usable format for employers and patients.

Medical breakthroughs mean cancer is less likely to kill, but survival can come at an extraordinary cost as patients drain savings, declare bankruptcy or lose their homes, a KHN-NPR investigation finds.

Whether a simple operation is performed under the auspices of a hospital or at an independent surgery center can make a huge difference in cost.

The Biden administration announced new measures to ease the financial burden of high medical bills. Here's how the measures can help and what's still missing to protect patients.