Doctor says billing irregularities at Medina hospital

Editor:

To the patrons of Orleans Community Health, formerly Medina Medina Hospital, I am writing to make you aware of billing irregularities going on at the Medina hospital.

I recently had a colonoscopy at the facility. Seven weeks later I received a bill for $4,700 – the full hospital charge. I have Community Blue insurance and my full deductible had been met. Yet, I received the bill. It was billed wrong to the insurance and instead of rebilling, they sent the bill to me, the patient. Since they have a contract with the insurance this was illegal.

You see, Ms. Horvath out-sourced the billing to a company in Texas. She “had worked with before and they were excellent” was what she told the staff. I have never had so many complaints from patients of mine regarding billing errors.

Most people are not insurance savvy and merely paid the bill, when actually if billed properly would have been paid in full by the insurance. My daughter had a co-pay for emergency room care which she paid, then was turned over to collections because of incompetence. Do you get the picture? So, buyer beware, and if you have any questions regarding your hospital bill please call the hospital to clarify before you pay anything.

I would also like to take this opportunity to respond to a letter by Dawn Meland praising Ms. Horvath. I have been at the hospital for 33 years. I have supported the hospital and defended the hospital to patients that have complaints about the hospital – our hospital.

Ms.Horvath has set our hospital back by outsourcing our billing to an inept company. I brought this to her attention six months ago. My complaints were ignored. She never took them to the person in charge of billing.

Patients came to me in the office asking for an explanation of their bills. $300 for a doctor fee in the emergency room for a sore throat and $936.00 for an emergency doctor charge for COPD-Pneumonia. It was hard to give an answer to those bills.

Ms. Horvath also replaced our long-standing group of emergency physicians with a different group that she had previously worked with and were “excellent.” This was without any input by the medical staff. The hospital was paying her consulting company $20,000 per month for this kind of poor advice.

The hospital board needs to look at itself for allowing these travesties to occur. After two months, at a medical staff meeting, I brought to her attention the shortcomings of the emergency room situation. I was told to shut up and mind my own business by Ms. Horvath.

Now, one year later, she is gone and the emergency room fiasco is admitted and a new group will replace them by the end of March. My wife tells me that I have to keep this under 500 words so I will leave it at these two examples of poor decision-making by Ms. Horvath and ultimately the board of directors.

Sincerely,

Dr. David Stahl
Medina