Figuring out your credit card bill is tough, but you do it because it has implications for your credit score.

Figuring out what you owe the doctor is just as tough if not more so and often time far more expensive than that monthly credit card statement. At least you know what you bought with your credit card. A billing statement from the doctor or hospital leaves you scratching your head at the archaic abbreviations they use to describe whatever it is that they did to you.

And now along comes your MedFICO score from Healthcare Analytics like a consumer’s credit rating!

What’s a responsible healthcare consumer to do?

How can you keep track of your medical bills and avoid winding up with a bad score? That poor score may not keep you from receiving care as some fear, but it may wind up costing you more and sooner. Before you check out, the hospital may ask you to pay or if you can’t right then and there, they may ask you to sign a promissory note. Think they won’t do it? Some already do (see page 2, second paragraph). And guess what? The hospital has no idea what discount you might get by virtue of your insurance company’s negotiated rate - not until they “run it through” your insurance - and I know of no insurance company offering real-time adjudication (the insurance industry technical term for “running it though”) at this point, though many aspire to it. So could you be overpaying? Sure.
Consumers need products like MedBillManager and Intuit Health (though I have a decidedly prejudiced preference for the former). Patients and their caregivers need the services of medical bill review companies and audit services that identify innacuracies in billing. Healthcare long ago threw off its charitable aura and has become a business. It’s time for consumers to realize that and act accordingly. It’s time for consumers to take responsibility for understanding their healthcare and making the decisions and stop allowing the healthcare industry to hide behind the excuse that healthcare is too complex for the average consumer to understand. It’s time for comparing the pricing of a strep throat test to be as simple as comparing the price of an oil change.

The business people behind healthcare are getting serious about becoming a real business. It’s time for Americans to get serious about being real healthcare consumers.

Not convinced? Then check out some of these articles:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/121207dnbushealthcredit.299ccc0.html
http://www.vimo.com/blogs/consumer/?p=142
http://bestamericanhospital.blogspot.com/2008/01/health-industry-develops-medical-credit.html
http://susiemadrak.com/2008/01/18/21/22/medical-credit-reports-in-the-making/
http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=3640720
http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_8015982
http://www.just-a-webpage.com/rantings/?p=372
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/15131060/detail.html
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=214154