{"id":19080,"date":"2019-02-26T19:32:48","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T19:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2019\/02\/26\/cancer-complications-confusing-bills-maddening-errors-and-endless-phone-calls\/"},"modified":"2019-02-26T19:32:48","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T19:32:48","slug":"cancer-complications-confusing-bills-maddening-errors-and-endless-phone-calls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/cancer-complications-confusing-bills-maddening-errors-and-endless-phone-calls\/","title":{"rendered":"Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-style:italic;font-size:16px\">By  <a class=\"colorbox\" href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2019\/02\/26\/696321475\/cancer-complications-confusing-bills-maddening-errors-and-endless-phone-calls?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=healthcare\">Anna Gorman<\/a><\/span>  <\/p>\n<div class=\"ftpimagefix\" style=\"float:left\"><a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2019\/02\/26\/696321475\/cancer-complications-confusing-bills-maddening-errors-and-endless-phone-calls?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=healthcare\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2019\/02\/20\/cancer-bils-1_custom-44765deae50cd53f6d1070357d608f8191f8ad39-s1100-c15.jpg\" alt><\/p>\n<div>\n            <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2019\/02\/20\/cancer-bils-1_enl-d225099ba04402ea4dd1a3f37f204aecfea6491e-s1200.jpg\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n            <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2019\/02\/20\/cancer-bils-1_enl-d225099ba04402ea4dd1a3f37f204aecfea6491e-s1200.jpg\">Enlarge this image<\/a>\n        <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>\n                Carol Marley, a hospital nurse with private insurance, says coping with the financial fallout of her pancreatic cancer has been exhausting.<\/p>\n<p>                <b><\/p>\n<p>                    Anna Gorman\/KHN<\/p>\n<p>                <\/b><br \/>\n                <b><b>hide caption<\/b><\/b>\n            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>            <b><b>toggle caption<\/b><\/b>\n    <\/div>\n<p>    <span><\/p>\n<p>        Anna Gorman\/KHN<\/p>\n<p>    <\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Carol Marley wants everyone to know what a life-threatening cancer diagnosis looks like in America today.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, it&#8217;s the chemotherapy that leaves you weak and unable to walk across the room. Yes, it&#8217;s the litany of tests and treatments \u2013 the CT scans and MRIs and biopsies and endoscopies and surgeries and blood draws and radiation and doctor visits. Yes, it&#8217;s envisioning your funeral, which torments you day and night. <\/p>\n<p>But none of these is her most gnawing, ever present concern. <\/p>\n<p>That would be the convoluted medical bills that fill multiple binders, depleted savings accounts that destroy early retirement plans and so, so many phone calls with insurers and medical providers. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have faith in God that my cancer is not going to kill me,&#8221; says Marley, who lives in Round Rock, Texas. &#8220;I have a harder time believing that this is gonna get straightened out and isn&#8217;t gonna harm us financially. That&#8217;s the leap of faith that I&#8217;m struggling with.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Coping with the financial fallout of cancer is exhausting \u2014 and nerve-wracking. But the worst part, Marley says, is that it&#8217;s unexpected. <\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Share Your Story And Bill With Us<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve had a medical-billing experience that you think we should investigate, you can <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2018\/02\/16\/585549568\/share-your-medical-bill-with-us\">share the bill and describe what happened here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- END CLASS=\"BUCKET\" -->\n   <\/div>\n<p><!-- END ID=\"RES698229848\" CLASS=\"BUCKETWRAP LISTTEXT\" --><\/p>\n<p>When she was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas head in July, she didn&#8217;t anticipate so many bills, or so many billing mistakes. After all, she is a hospital nurse with good private insurance that has allowed her access to high-quality doctors and hospitals. <\/p>\n<aside>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Randall Marley, a computer systems engineer, says he frequently comes home from work to find his wife feeling unwell and frustrated about having spent a precious day of her recovery making phone calls to understand and dispute medical bills. One recent night she was in tears and &#8220;emotionally at a breaking point,&#8221; he says. &#8220;The hardest part of this is seeing the toll it&#8217;s taken on my wife.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stress-inducing bills accumulate<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>More than 42 percent of the 9.5 million people diagnosed with cancer from 2000 to 2012 drained their life&#8217;s assets within two years, according to a <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amjmed.com\/article\/S0002-9343(18)30509-6\/fulltext\">study published last year<\/a> in the <em>American Journal of Medicine<\/em>.<em> <\/em>Cancer patients are 2.65 times <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4240626\/\">more likely to file<\/a> for bankruptcy than those without cancer, and bankruptcy puts them at a higher risk for early death, according to <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4933128\/\">research<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>But those statistics don&#8217;t convey the daily misery of a patient with a life-threatening disease trying to navigate the convoluted financial demands of the U.S. health care system while simultaneously facing a roller coaster of treatment and healing.  <\/p>\n<p>Stephanie Wheeler, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the number of bills coming from different providers can be overwhelming.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s oftentimes multiple different bills that are rolling in over a period of several months and sometimes years,&#8221; says Wheeler, who has conducted <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/meetinglibrary.asco.org\/record\/166359\/abstract\">survey research<\/a> with metastatic cancer patients. &#8220;As those bills start to accumulate, it can be very stress inducing.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Given that many patients can&#8217;t work during treatment, these bills may force even relatively well-to-do cancer patients to take out second mortgages, spend college savings or worry about leaving debt behind for their families, Wheeler says.<\/p>\n<p>Carol Marley is a slight woman who dotes on her two dogs and is involved in her church. Her 88-year-old father, who has dementia, had moved in a few years earlier. She and her husband, Randall, pride themselves on living frugally. They pay their credit card off every month and don&#8217;t have car payments.<\/p>\n<p>Carol and her daughter, June Marley, who is a second-year college student, have health insurance through Carol&#8217;s employer, Ascension Health, a large faith-based health care system with facilities across the nation. Carol&#8217;s husband has separate insurance through his job. <\/p>\n<p>They were hoping to retire early, buy an RV and drive around the country. Instead, they see their meticulous plans disappearing, even if Carol recovers. <\/p>\n<p>Their high-deductible insurance policy meant they had to spend $6,000 before their insurance started covering her treatment expenses. They hit their annual out-of-pocket maximum of $10,000 well before the year was over. <\/p>\n<p>But Carol says she was prepared for that. &#8220;What I didn&#8217;t anticipate is the knock-down, drag-out fight that I would have to engage in to get people to see there were errors and address it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Since she&#8217;s unable to work, the family lost her nursing salary. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Money is not coming in, and it&#8217;s going out by the thousands,&#8221; she says. <\/p>\n<p><strong>From nurse to patient<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Carol had treated cancer patients before. She had seen them come in with unexplained aches and leave with devastating diagnoses. Now it was her turn. <\/p>\n<p>Though she didn&#8217;t recognize it at the time, her symptoms were textbook. Fatigue. Back pain. Weight loss. In July, doctors told her she had pancreatic cancer. <\/p>\n<p>Her first thought was that she was going to die. One nurse friend asked if she had her affairs in order. That&#8217;s because pancreatic cancer is usually discovered too late. Just 9 percent of patients are alive five years after diagnosis, compared with 90 percent of breast cancer patients. <\/p>\n<p>Carol knew she was lucky. Hers hadn&#8217;t spread. She might be able to undergo surgery. But first, four months of chemotherapy and five weeks of radiation.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2019\/02\/20\/cancer-bills-2_custom-a97c6d29c7656321001f39d6bcb9c38f0295323b-s800-c15.jpg\" alt><\/p>\n<div>\n            <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2019\/02\/20\/cancer-bills-2_enl-d5b5722ce1690e853cfd767850de5eb5dd7f82ae-s1200.jpg\">Enlarge this image<\/a>\n        <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>\n                After Carol Marley was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last July, she worried what it would mean for her family, including her 88-year-old father with dementia.<\/p>\n<p>                <b><\/p>\n<p>                    Anna Gorman\/KHN<\/p>\n<p>                <\/b><br \/>\n                <b><b>hide caption<\/b><\/b>\n            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>            <b><b>toggle caption<\/b><\/b>\n    <\/div>\n<p>    <span><\/p>\n<p>        Anna Gorman\/KHN<\/p>\n<p>    <\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The chemotherapy \u2014 seven or eight rounds, she can&#8217;t quite remember \u2014 drained her. &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t put words together in my head,&#8221; she says. She had muscle spasms and developed fevers that landed her in the emergency room.<\/p>\n<p>As she became weaker, Carol realized she could no longer care for her father at home. On a recent morning in early January, she sat down with a nurse from a memory-care facility where a space had become available. Holding back tears, Carol told the nurse she knew this day would come. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t think it would be so soon, and I didn&#8217;t know under these circumstances.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p><strong>Different insurers lead to different bills<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Later that same day, Carol&#8217;s energy was up. She adjusted the colorful scarf on her head, turned on her computer and pulled out a pen. Some days she spends hours trying to clarify and fix medical bills. &#8220;But I don&#8217;t do that frequently because it is so fruitless and it is stressful,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n<p>Often, she is just trying to figure out what different bills mean. &#8220;Even as a nurse, I feel like it&#8217;s impossible to understand,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I can&#8217;t make heads or tails of it.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Sometimes there are errors.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the problem, she contends, is that one insurance company covers visits with Ascension providers and hospitals and another company covers pharmacy claims, specialty drugs and providers outside Ascension&#8217;s network. Some of the bills, including a $1,400 one from an ER visit \u2014 were sent to the wrong insurer, she says.<\/p>\n<p>Carol cites other issues. An $18,400 chemotherapy bill was submitted with missing information and then denied because it arrived late. An $870 MRI bill was denied because the provider said there was no pre-authorization. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not any one individual. It&#8217;s not any one system or provider,&#8221; she says. &#8220;The whole system is messed up. &#8230; There&#8217;s no recourse for me except to just keep making phone calls.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>On this particular afternoon, Carol has a long list of calls to make. One to figure out why she couldn&#8217;t access her insurance claims online. Another to a medical provider that urged her to pay $380, even though it acknowledged that it owed her about $80 of that total.<\/p>\n<p>Someone who answers the phone suggests again that Carol pay the entire amount. &#8220;Once it&#8217;s posted to your account and it goes through, we would send you a check,&#8221; the woman says.<\/p>\n<p>Carol shakes her head. &#8220;I&#8217;m sure y&#8217;all are fine people over there, but I&#8217;m not trusting a refund to come,&#8221; she responds, reflecting on her experience as a consumer of cancer care. &#8220;The problem is, they want their money and they are going to get it one way or the other.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As for her hospital bills, Ascension declined to comment, citing protected health information. But spokesman Nick Ragone said, &#8220;The matter at issue was favorably resolved.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He didn&#8217;t say which issue was resolved.  <\/p>\n<p><em>Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation and is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blockads.fivefilters.org\/\">Let&#8217;s block ads!<\/a><\/strong> <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blockads.fivefilters.org\/acceptable.html\">(Why?)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source:: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2019\/02\/26\/696321475\/cancer-complications-confusing-bills-maddening-errors-and-endless-phone-calls?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=healthcare\" class=\"colorbox\" title=\"Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2019\/02\/26\/696321475\/cancer-complications-confusing-bills-maddening-errors-and-endless-phone-calls?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=healthcare<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ftpimagefix\" style=\"float:left\"><a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2019\/02\/26\/696321475\/cancer-complications-confusing-bills-maddening-errors-and-endless-phone-calls?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=healthcare\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2019\/02\/20\/cancer-bils-1_custom-44765deae50cd53f6d1070357d608f8191f8ad39-s1100-c15.jpg\" alt><\/p>\n<div>\n            <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2019\/02\/20\/cancer-bils-1_enl-d225099ba04402ea4dd1a3f37f204aecfea6491e-s1200.jpg\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n            <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2019\/02\/20\/cancer-bils-1_enl-d225099ba04402ea4dd1a3f37f204aecfea6491e-s1200.jpg\">Enlarge this image<\/a>\n        <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>\n                Carol Marley, a hospital nurse with private insurance, says coping with the financial fallout of her pancreatic cancer has been exhausting.<\/p>\n<p>                <b><\/p>\n<p>                    Anna Gorman\/KHN<\/p>\n<p>                <\/b><br \/>\n                <b><b>hide caption<\/b><\/b>\n            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>            <b><b>toggle caption<\/b><\/b>\n    <\/div>\n<p>    <span><\/p>\n<p>        Anna Gorman\/KHN<\/p>\n<p>    <\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Carol Marley wants everyone to know what a life-threatening cancer diagnosis looks like in America today.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, it&#8217;s the chemotherapy that leaves you weak and unable to walk across the room. Yes, it&#8217;s the litany of tests and treatments \u2013 the CT scans and MRIs and biopsies and endoscopies and surgeries and blood draws and radiation and doctor visits. Yes, it&#8217;s envisioning your funeral, which torments you day and night. <\/p>\n<p>But none of these is her most gnawing, ever present concern. <\/p>\n<p>That would be the convoluted medical bills that fill multiple binders, depleted savings accounts that destroy early retirement plans and so, so many phone calls with insurers and medical providers. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have faith in God that my cancer is not going to kill me,&#8221; says Marley, who lives in Round Rock, Texas. &#8220;I have a harder time believing that this is gonna get straightened out and isn&#8217;t gonna harm us financially. That&#8217;s the leap of faith that I&#8217;m struggling with.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Coping with the financial fallout of cancer is exhausting \u2014 and nerve-wracking. But the worst part, Marley says, is that it&#8217;s unexpected. <\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Share Your Story And Bill With Us<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve had a medical-billing experience that you think we should investigate, you can <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2018\/02\/16\/585549568\/share-your-medical-bill-with-us\">share the bill and describe what happened here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- END CLASS=\"BUCKET\" -->\n   <\/div>\n<p><!-- END ID=\"RES698229848\" CLASS=\"BUCKETWRAP LISTTEXT\" --><\/p>\n<p>When she was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas head in July, she didn&#8217;t anticipate so many bills, or so many billing mistakes. After all, she is a hospital nurse with good private insurance that has allowed her access to high-quality doctors and hospitals. <\/p>\n<aside>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Randall Marley, a computer systems engineer, says he frequently comes home from work to find his wife feeling unwell and frustrated about having spent a precious day of her recovery making phone calls to understand and dispute medical bills. One recent night she was in tears and &#8220;emotionally at a breaking point,&#8221; he says. &#8220;The hardest part of this is seeing the toll it&#8217;s taken on my wife.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stress-inducing bills accumulate<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>More than 42 percent of the 9.5 million people diagnosed with cancer from 2000 to 2012 drained their life&#8217;s assets within two years, according to a <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amjmed.com\/article\/S0002-9343(18)30509-6\/fulltext\">study published last year<\/a> in the <em>American Journal of Medicine<\/em>.<em> <\/em>Cancer patients are 2.65 times <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4240626\/\">more likely to file<\/a> for bankruptcy than those without cancer, and bankruptcy puts them at a higher risk for early death, according to <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4933128\/\">research<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>But those statistics don&#8217;t convey the daily misery of a patient with a life-threatening disease trying to navigate the convoluted financial demands of the U.S. health care system while simultaneously facing a roller coaster of treatment and healing.  <\/p>\n<p>Stephanie Wheeler, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the number of bills coming from different providers can be overwhelming.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s oftentimes multiple different bills that are rolling in over a period of several months and sometimes years,&#8221; says Wheeler, who has conducted <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/meetinglibrary.asco.org\/record\/166359\/abstract\">survey research<\/a> with metastatic cancer patients. &#8220;As those bills start to accumulate, it can be very stress inducing.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Given that many patients can&#8217;t work during treatment, these bills may force even relatively well-to-do cancer patients to take out second mortgages, spend college savings or worry about leaving debt behind for their families, Wheeler says.<\/p>\n<p>Carol Marley is a slight woman who dotes on her two dogs and is involved in her church. Her 88-year-old father, who has dementia, had moved in a few years earlier. She and her husband, Randall, pride themselves on living frugally. They pay their credit card off every month and don&#8217;t have car payments.<\/p>\n<p>Carol and her daughter, June Marley, who is a second-year college student, have health insurance through Carol&#8217;s employer, Ascension Health, a large faith-based health care system with facilities across the nation. Carol&#8217;s husband has separate insurance through his job. <\/p>\n<p>They were hoping to retire early, buy an RV and drive around the country. Instead, they see their meticulous plans disappearing, even if Carol recovers. <\/p>\n<p>Their high-deductible insurance policy meant they had to spend $6,000 before their insurance started covering her treatment expenses. They hit their annual out-of-pocket maximum of $10,000 well before the year was over. <\/p>\n<p>But Carol says she was prepared for that. &#8220;What I didn&#8217;t anticipate is the knock-down, drag-out fight that I would have to engage in to get people to see there were errors and address it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Since she&#8217;s unable to work, the family lost her nursing salary. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Money is not coming in, and it&#8217;s going out by the thousands,&#8221; she says. <\/p>\n<p><strong>From nurse to patient<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Carol had treated cancer patients before. She had seen them come in with unexplained aches and leave with devastating diagnoses. Now it was her turn. <\/p>\n<p>Though she didn&#8217;t recognize it at the time, her symptoms were textbook. Fatigue. Back pain. Weight loss. In July, doctors told her she had pancreatic cancer. <\/p>\n<p>Her first thought was that she was going to die. One nurse friend asked if she had her affairs in order. That&#8217;s because pancreatic cancer is usually discovered too late. Just 9 percent of patients are alive five years after diagnosis, compared with 90 percent of breast cancer patients. <\/p>\n<p>Carol knew she was lucky. Hers hadn&#8217;t spread. She might be able to undergo surgery. But first, four months of chemotherapy and five weeks of radiation.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2019\/02\/20\/cancer-bills-2_custom-a97c6d29c7656321001f39d6bcb9c38f0295323b-s800-c15.jpg\" alt><\/p>\n<div>\n            <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2019\/02\/20\/cancer-bills-2_enl-d5b5722ce1690e853cfd767850de5eb5dd7f82ae-s1200.jpg\">Enlarge this image<\/a>\n        <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>\n                After Carol Marley was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last July, she worried what it would mean for her family, including her 88-year-old father with dementia.<\/p>\n<p>                <b><\/p>\n<p>                    Anna Gorman\/KHN<\/p>\n<p>                <\/b><br \/>\n                <b><b>hide caption<\/b><\/b>\n            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>            <b><b>toggle caption<\/b><\/b>\n    <\/div>\n<p>    <span><\/p>\n<p>        Anna Gorman\/KHN<\/p>\n<p>    <\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The chemotherapy \u2014 seven or eight rounds, she can&#8217;t quite remember \u2014 drained her. &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t put words together in my head,&#8221; she says. She had muscle spasms and developed fevers that landed her in the emergency room.<\/p>\n<p>As she became weaker, Carol realized she could no longer care for her father at home. On a recent morning in early January, she sat down with a nurse from a memory-care facility where a space had become available. Holding back tears, Carol told the nurse she knew this day would come. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t think it would be so soon, and I didn&#8217;t know under these circumstances.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p><strong>Different insurers lead to different bills<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Later that same day, Carol&#8217;s energy was up. She adjusted the colorful scarf on her head, turned on her computer and pulled out a pen. Some days she spends hours trying to clarify and fix medical bills. &#8220;But I don&#8217;t do that frequently because it is so fruitless and it is stressful,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n<p>Often, she is just trying to figure out what different bills mean. &#8220;Even as a nurse, I feel like it&#8217;s impossible to understand,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I can&#8217;t make heads or tails of it.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Sometimes there are errors.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the problem, she contends, is that one insurance company covers visits with Ascension providers and hospitals and another company covers pharmacy claims, specialty drugs and providers outside Ascension&#8217;s network. Some of the bills, including a $1,400 one from an ER visit \u2014 were sent to the wrong insurer, she says.<\/p>\n<p>Carol cites other issues. An $18,400 chemotherapy bill was submitted with missing information and then denied because it arrived late. An $870 MRI bill was denied because the provider said there was no pre-authorization. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not any one individual. It&#8217;s not any one system or provider,&#8221; she says. &#8220;The whole system is messed up. &#8230; There&#8217;s no recourse for me except to just keep making phone calls.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>On this particular afternoon, Carol has a long list of calls to make. One to figure out why she couldn&#8217;t access her insurance claims online. Another to a medical provider that urged her to pay $380, even though it acknowledged that it owed her about $80 of that total.<\/p>\n<p>Someone who answers the phone suggests again that Carol pay the entire amount. &#8220;Once it&#8217;s posted to your account and it goes through, we would send you a check,&#8221; the woman says.<\/p>\n<p>Carol shakes her head. &#8220;I&#8217;m sure y&#8217;all are fine people over there, but I&#8217;m not trusting a refund to come,&#8221; she responds, reflecting on her experience as a consumer of cancer care. &#8220;The problem is, they want their money and they are going to get it one way or the other.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As for her hospital bills, Ascension declined to comment, citing protected health information. But spokesman Nick Ragone said, &#8220;The matter at issue was favorably resolved.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He didn&#8217;t say which issue was resolved.  <\/p>\n<p><em>Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation and is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blockads.fivefilters.org\/\">Let&#8217;s block ads!<\/a><\/strong> <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blockads.fivefilters.org\/acceptable.html\">(Why?)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}