{"id":20661,"date":"2019-07-26T16:19:03","date_gmt":"2019-07-26T16:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2019\/07\/26\/dialysis-firm-cancels-524600-17-medical-bill-after-journalists-investigate\/"},"modified":"2019-07-26T16:19:03","modified_gmt":"2019-07-26T16:19:03","slug":"dialysis-firm-cancels-524600-17-medical-bill-after-journalists-investigate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/dialysis-firm-cancels-524600-17-medical-bill-after-journalists-investigate\/","title":{"rendered":"Dialysis Firm Cancels $524,600.17 Medical Bill After Journalists Investigate"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jenny Gold<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Sovereign Valentine, a personal trainer in Plains, Mont., needs dialysis for his end-stage renal disease. When he first started dialysis treatments, Fresenius Kidney Care clinic in Missoula charged $13,867.74 per session, or about 59 times the $235 Medicare pays for a dialysis session.<\/p>\n

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Tommy Martino\/Kaiser Health News<\/p>\n

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Tommy Martino\/Kaiser Health News<\/p>\n

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Fresenius, one of the two largest dialysis providers in the U.S., has agreed to waive a $524,600.17 bill for a man who received 14 weeks of dialysis at a clinic in Montana.<\/p>\n

NPR<\/a>, Kaiser Health News<\/a>, and CBS This Morning<\/a> told Sovereign Valentine’s story this week, as part of the “Bill of the Month” series, a crowdsourced investigation that seeks to understand the exorbitant health care bills faced by ordinary Americans.<\/p>\n

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On Thursday, a representative from Fresenius told Sovereign’s wife, Dr. Jessica Valentine, that the company would waive their unpaid bill. Instead, they will be treated as in-network patients, and Fresenius will seek to negotiate with their insurer a rate higher than what the insurer has already paid. The Valentines are responsible only for their $5,000 deductible, which Sovereign, who goes by “Sov,” has already hit for the year. That leaves them with $0 left to pay on their in-network deductible.<\/p>\n

“It’s a huge relief,” Sov said. “It allows me to put more energy back into just taking care of my health and not having stress hormones raging.” Sov said he hopes his experience will shed light on the problem of balance billing and help other patients in similar situations.<\/p>\n

A 50-year-old personal trainer, Sov was diagnosed with kidney failure in January and sent for dialysis at a Fresenius clinic 70 miles from his home in rural Plains, Mont. A few days later, Sov and Jessica learned that the clinic was out-of-network and that they would be required to pay whatever their insurer didn’t cover.<\/p>\n