NYT 'Pay Till It Hurts' Case Write-Up

The title of my article was, "After Surgery, Surprise $117,000 Medical Bill From Doctor He Didn’t Know" (Link Here).

This article focuses on one man, Peter Drier, who was blindsided by a $117,000 bill from an assistant surgeon. While Mr. Drier said "I thought I understood the risks (of financial liability)", he said, "... this was just so wrong - I had no choice and no negotiating power". The article goes on to speak about a recent trend in operating rooms and hospital wards as "drive-by doctoring", where assistants, consultants, and other hospital employees charge hefty fees for a quick stop-by during a procedure. The need for these "drive-by doctors" is said to be questionable, and there is no set system to monitor these drop ins. On top of this, another issue exists when insurance companies get involved with these types of cases since, "insurance examiners are not in the room the day of the surgery to see the second surgeon walk into the room or why they were needed". 

More fees arise when out-of-network physicians perform hospital procedures. For example, a muscle and skin graft costs $1,781 (in-network), while average out-of-network skin graft costs $150,500. When Mr. Drier argued his $117,000 bill was out-of-network, his insurer agreed to pay for it. However, when insurance companies pay these outrageous out-of-network bills, they are only encouraging doctors to continue using out-of-network physicians. 

Other outrageous fees Mr. Drier faced were; $400 for the physical therapist who took him to the bathroom, $679 for the delivery of the machine to help him put on his socks (which he never used), $1,000 for a brief check-up from a primary care physician for three days, and a $950 fee for a echo cardiogram (even though he never has had cardiac issues). The long-hard fought battle between Mr. Drier and his doctor, Dr. Mu, resulted in a threatening letter from Dr. Mu's lawyer noting that, "he (Mr. Drier) had failed to forward the $117,000 check", so Mr. Drier sent him money with regret.

After reading this article I had two major takeaways.

1) There is no system to enforce "drive-by doctoring", let alone a system to warn patients about these hidden fees from out-of-network doctors. If insurance companies continue to hire the out-of-network physicians, then doctors will continue to hire them to turn a higher profit. I believe there needs to be a system that outlines ALL costs before surgery and caps a maximum price on the surgery prior to the operations.

2) Financial incentive triumphs empathy for patients. Doctors care more about personal financial incentive then reducing costs for patients. As seen with Dr. Mu, he completely disregarded Mr. Drier's arguments for a cheaper bill, then continued to threaten him into paying using his lawyer. As Mr. Drier stated in the video, "I couldn't beat the medical billing administrators that knew how to say the right things and never said anything wrong and knew the laws backwards". These outrageous medical bills seem to be built by people who have a strong financial incentive and utilize the grey area to the best of there ability.




Overall, I enjoyed reading this article to learn more about the corruption and lack of billing system with in our hospital wards and operating rooms. It's frightening to see how easy someone can be taken advantage of while fighting for their lives.