Complaints about misleading health insurance marketing are soaring. State insurance commissioners are taking notice. They’ve created a shared internal database to monitor questionable business practices, and, in the future, they hope to provide a public-facing resource for consumers. In the meantime, consumers should shop wisely as open enrollment season begins.
We unmask the winner and runners-up in KHN’s fourth annual Halloween haiku competition — plus the original artwork they inspired as a special treat.
A medical billing specialist investigated her husband’s ER bill. Her sleuthing took over a year but knocked thousands of dollars off the hospital’s charges — and provides a playbook for other consumers.
Russell Cook was expecting a quick and inexpensive visit to an urgent care center for his daughter, Frankie, after she had a car wreck. Instead, they were advised to go to an emergency room and got a much larger bill.
In pursuit of unpaid bills, nursing homes across Rochester, New York, have been suing relatives and friends of their residents. This CBS News report, done in partnership with a KHN-NPR investigation, takes a look at the practice and tells the stories of some of the people affected.
Amparo and Victor Rios began searching for answers about their son’s development when he didn’t hit some milestones after turning 2. Three years later, they are still trying to get their insurance to pay for expensive therapy to help him.
Preventive care, like screening colonoscopies, is supposed to be free of charge to patients under the Affordable Care Act. But some hospitals haven’t gotten the memo.
An aging population in need of regular cancer screenings has driven private equity companies, seeking profits, to invest in many gastroenterology practices and set up aggressive billing practices. Steep prices on routine tests are one consequence for patients.
A bill one family considered paid wrongfully resurfaced, resurrecting painful memories. It’s a scenario that’s not uncommon but grievously unsettling.
Diagnosed with aggressive leukemia on a Western trip, a young man thought his insurance would cover an air ambulance ride home to North Carolina. Instead, questions about medical necessity left him with an astronomical bill.
