subject: Care In The Emergency Room -what Insurance Would Pay For [print this page] Most people consider an emergency room visit to be something that your health insurance plan will cover you for. With the rising costs of health care and the tendency of many to use the emergency system as a 24/7 doctor's office many health insurance companies are limiting their coverage of hospital and emergency room visits. Looking over your policy you will probably find that there are some limits on this type of care.
Many health insurance companies are now requiring that patients pay tremendous co-pays for these services. Typical co-pays for emergency room services is around $300 and can be as low as $100 or as high as $500. And if you haven't looked over your health insurance coverage before rushing over there you may be floored when they tell you the amount of your responsibility for the visit.
Different health insurance companies would ask for the patient or provider to contact the health insurance companies themselves to be pre-authorized for the services provided. If these actions are not taken, with exceptions to life or death services, it will result in the health insurance companies rejection of the entire bill, thus forcing the patient to pay cash for all services received; This will happen because the patient failed to make the very important phone call before entering for an emergency care visit.
Now you may be wondering why health insurance companies are raising co-pay amounts and limiting benefits at emergency facilities. Well, they are doing this because they don't want to have people running to the emergency room for every little thing as these bills can really add up. They are trying to encourage people to wait if they can until they can go and see their regular physician in the office and have things like colds, flu, and fever treated there.
Realizing that health care is not what it once was is paramount. Do not think that your visit to the emergency room is covered by your health insurance. So before rushing to the hospital for less than emergency care, be sure to be thorough when reading your health insurance plan to see whether the services you require are taken care of under your policy. When confronted with a real emergency it would be absolutely expected to rush into the hospital. However, if the condition is not an emergency, it would be wise to just wait until your doctor's is available.
by: Ethan Kalvin
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