For all the doom-and-gloom prophecies about what artificial intelligence (AI) will do to the job market and the business sector, AI does have some very useful applications for the average American. Here's one.
Last summer, a man’s brother-in-law suffered a fatal heart attack. The hospital bill for four hours of emergency care: $195,628.
The man’s sister-in-law was ready to pay it. He asked her to wait. He requested an itemized bill with CPT codes, the universal billing codes hospitals use, and fed the whole thing into Claude, an AI chatbot.
Within minutes, Claude found duplicate charges, services billed as "inpatient" even though the patient was never admitted, supply costs inflated by 500% to 2,300% above Medicare rates and charges for procedures that never happened. He cross-checked with ChatGPT. Both AIs agreed. He wrote a six-page letter citing every violation by name.
The hospital dropped the bill to $33,000. An 83% reduction. Zero medical training. A $20 app.
There's more at the link. Highly recommended reading for anyone expecting or receiving big medical bills.
I've used this myself over the past year or so. As regular readers will know, I've been dealing with multiple medical issues for some time, including the removal of a kidney and forthcoming major spinal surgery for which extensive (and intensive) preliminary examinations and tests have been required. I've had to spend over $30,000 in doing so. However, once I started analyzing what I was being charged by using online AI tools, I was able to secure some dramatic reductions in the billing. I reckon I've saved five figures worth of money already, and expect to save a lot more by doing the same thing in future.
I recommend that any reader expecting (or paying) large medical bills should read the whole article referenced above, then try its recommendations for yourself. You may be very pleasantly surprised by how much you save.
Peter
16 comments:
Somewhat medically related - its been useful to take all the medications and supplements we take and throw them to AI.
Ask what sort of interactions or contradictions may exist.
Was an interesting report with useful & actionable information.
Long ago. Long LONG ago. We had to put our child in the hospital for about a week. Since we had no insurance I walked in with $2K and told them to let me know when they wanted more. A few weeks after he was discharged, they sent a bill for another $5000.00. My return letter stated "One of us was with the infant every second of his stay, and we recorded every procedure and supply used" Then I demanded an actual ITEMIZED bill to compare with our notes. Not long after that we got a letter saying the debt had been voided and we owed nothing.
Yes....AI could do a good job of reviewing the VERY complex medical bills people receive. And do so successfully. But you can bet the farm that hospitals will adapt and change their billing to counter this. There just too much money involved for them to just roll over.
Neither of the links works.
Isn't overbilling in such amounts fraudulent? A long time ago, in preparation for a daughter's birth, I prepaid the local hospital for the procedure. Afterwards, they decided that I owed them 4x the amount already paid and sent me a bill. I disputed the charges, and not surprisingly their 'billing expert' claimed it was all above board.
Luckily I had family in the field to ask for help - a DO, an MD and a nurse practitioner. After they looked at the bill, I went back and suggested that I could take the hospital to court for fraud. The hospital stood firm until they got an actual attorney's letter, at which point they offered to let the bill go. My lawyer told me to accept, so I did.
A few years later the hospital actually sold that account to a debt collector. I got a call from them and said "Oho, the hospital has decided to renege on their deal to avoid prosecution? Please tell me more!" The debt collector quickly backtracked and hung up.
The links don't appear to work if clicked on directly, or right click -> New Tab. But if I copy the link and paste it into the address bar, I get to the site. Maybe foxnews.com doesn't like being linked to from blogspot?
Sadly, this time of the AI is fleeting. Soon AI will be as useless as Google in getting the real thing or the truth or countering obviously false claims. The fraud is built into the system by the people building the AIs.
Both links work.
"Errors." Yeah, right.
This is not anything new (the overcharging), this has been going on since HMOs came into existence. Same hospital, same procedure $650 or $23000 depending on 'how' you paid... sigh
If its Medicare/Medicaid being over billed that yes...it a crime. If its us peons being over billed than whether or not it's criminal is irrelevant. Because there isn't a Prosecutor on the planet who will do a dam thing about it.
I'm paranoid, so I'd wait until after I was discharged to dispute the bill. I'd worry about the staff after word spread that I'm now a liability on the hospital's balance sheet.
(I'm assuming that most of the overcharging goes towards the freeloader's unpaid bills with the usual smattering of fraud.
Hospitals charge outrageous amounts that insurance companies never pay. I have a couple invoices for my wife's illness for about $30,000. The insurance paid $5,000 and I paid $500. They hospital wrote off the rest. They call in a loss for taxes. Anyone who pays out of pocket w/o insurance needs to be aware of this.
Our local health provider (hospital, office visits, etc) offers a discount for prompt payment in full, at least for simple outpatient care. There might be something comparable for larger bills. The bill refers to it vaguely and I have to call and ask for it. It might be worth asking even if they don't advertise.
My Physical Therapy provider discounts 20% for payment on the day of the billing, which I take advantage of.
When their computer system was down for several days, I asked if I could get the discount when I was able to pay - they agreed, and I saved a considerable amount on the service.
In 2016 I needed to go to emergency room because VA messed up a diagnosis and shipped the wrong meds that I needed right now not next week. 10 minute doctor visit in ER and 60 dollars out of my pocket prescriptions fixed it right up.. Inner ear infection.
VA prescribed topical antibiotic after a 5 min talk I had with a triage nurse on phone. Not doctor talked with, just a nurse, I never heard back. Waked into local VA clinic three days later which I got bitched at for. Nurse took my temp and blood pressure and told me a prescription had already been sent to me and please leave, no one else was going to see me. This started on a Sunday phone call to the VA nurse line. I walked in on a Wednesday having trouble hearing (maybe 60 of my hearing gone at that point) and in a lot of pain with my inner balance starting to go. She told me if it was an emergency to go to the ER.
I went to ER.. doctor said inner ear infection and prescribed steroids and a zpack. Walked out and to nearest pharmacy and got it.. ear started responding well in hours.
Got topical ointment from VA on the next monday for a topical infection I did not have and that no one ever saw me in person for and that no doctor ever talked to me even about it.
VA denied coverage of ER visit. I talked to VA reps, I called and emailed the departments they said I needed to. No one ever returned the multiple calls with messages and emails, everyone that I spoke with not in the departments that I was supposed to talk with were like we cant do anything for you.
Bill was about 1600 dollars for a 10 minute ER visit. Hospital and doctor bill. Hospital knocked a little more than half off theirs if I would pay it all at once and doctor's billing agency said they would match discount that hospital gave me so I ended up about 700 out of pocket plus prescription cost. I was and still get pissed as hell at the medical malpractice and refusal to pay. If they had payed the hospital the bill would have been about 130 dollars. I have watched what the authorized charges are and what is paid by VA on a lot of my visits outside the VA. payments is usually from 10 to 20% of billed amount with no liability on my part.. hospital/vendor accept that as normal.
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