How a $175 COVID-19 test led to $2,479 in chargesA global pandemic ravaging America is no time to forget the first rule of American health care: There is no set price. One out-of-network medical provider in Texas seeks permission from patients to charge fees as high as six figures to their insurance.BY MARSHALL ALLEN, PROPUBLICA AUG. 1, 2020As she waited for the results of her rapid COVID-19 test, Rachel de Cordova sat in her car and read through a stack of documents given to her by SignatureCare Emergency Center.
Without de Cordova leaving her car, the staff at the freestanding emergency room near her home in Houston had checked her blood pressure, pulse and temperature during the July 21 appointment. She had been suffering sinus stuffiness and a headache, so she handed them her insurance card to pay for the $175 rapid-response drive-thru test. Then they stuck a swab deep into her nasal cavity to obtain a specimen.
De Cordova is an attorney who specializes in civil litigation defense and maritime law. She cringes when she’s asked to sign away her rights and scrutinizes the fine print. The documents she had been given included disclosures required by recent laws in Texas that try to rein in the billing practices of stand-alone emergency centers like SignatureCare. One said that while the facility would submit its bill to insurance plans, it doesn’t have contractual relationships with them, meaning the care would be considered out-of-network. Patients are responsible for any charges not covered by their plan, it said, as well as any copayment, deductible or coinsurance.
The more she read, the more annoyed de Cordova became. SignatureCare charges a “facility fee†for treatment, the document said, ranging “between five hundred dollars and one hundred thousand dollars.†Another charge, the “observation fee,†could range from $1,000 to $100,000.
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https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/01/coronavirus-texas-COVID-test-charges-emergency-room/
