The Houston Chronicle looks at how large physician groups gouge patients by avoiding accepting insurance so that they can charge two to three times more than they otherwise could in hospital emergency departments.
“Hospital administrators, who contract out emergency department staffing, know these doctors don’t accept the same insurance they do, but they allow those doctors to run the ED anyway,” The Chronicle’s Chris Tomlinson writes.
Medscape reported that emergency physicians make on average $339,000 a year.
“Out-of-network emergency departments are hugely profitable. That’s why hospitals have billboards along major highways that advertise the current waiting time in their EDs. It’s why stand-alone emergency rooms have opened in strip malls across the state {Texas}. Emergency medicine generates huge bills and high margins, as long as doctors don’t agree to insurance company rates,” writes Tomlinson.
To read more, please hit this link.
