I chose to have gastric bypass surgery and my insurance agreed to cover it. I was admitted at 5am on 2/7 and was in the operating room at 7:30am. I was through surgery with no complications whatsoever, out of recovery room and in my room by 11am. I was up walking by noon. My surgeon required an overnight stay as a precaution. On 2/8 around 10am my surgeon discharged me and i was home by 11am.
This hospital has the unmittigated gall to submit a claim to my insurance company in the amount of $133,669.85 for that one night stay. Granted this included the use of the operating room, its supplies and the anesthesia supplies, but $133,669.85? That is just the facility charge. That does not include the surgeon, anesthesiologist or assistant surgeon. Their charges were submitted independently of this hospital charge.
I was able to obtain some detail (but not the requested level of detail) and learned that among the charges are a supply of 9 staples which are used to close the new stomach pouch. This is the standard protocol. The hospital has identified these 9 standard surgical staples as "9 implants" and charged $41,352 for those 9 staples. My surgeon confirmed to me that these 9 staples are not implants and are standard and the charge is outrageous.
My insurance company allowed approximately $22,000 for this so the hospital had to contractually "write off" $111,000. That $22,000 was subject to my deductible and then i had to pay 10%. I ended up paying about $2600. I feel fortunate that i had insurance to cover as much as it did.
My insurance company did not question the outrageous charge and when presented with the facts about the 9 staples/implants could not have been less interested.
I requested a review of the hospital charges and, not surprisingly, they came back that the charges are accurate. I have requested that they provide me with whatever level of documentation exists from the surgical event that was used to determine all the items for which charges were assessed. They have yet to comply with this request despite multiple requests.
If nothing else, this hospital is statistically manipulating its billed charges and that could have far reaching impact.
The public needs to know about how Medical City Dallas is gouging by its outrageous, excessive, predatory and ridiculous charges.
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