'Ridiculous': Doctor charges for surgery after pulling splinter from toddler's hand
When George Lai of Portland, Oregon, took his toddler son to a pediatrician last summer for a checkup, the doctor noticed a little splinter in the child’s palm. “He must have gotten it between the front door and the car,” Lai later recalled, and the child wasn’t complaining. The doctor grabbed a pair of forceps — aka tweezers — and pulled out the splinter in “a second,” Lai said. That brief tug was transformed into a surgical billing code: Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code 10120, “incision and removal of a foreign body, subcutaneous” — at a cost of $414.
https://www.rawstory.com/ridiculous-doctor-charges-for-surgery-after-pulling-splinter-from-toddler-s-hand/Open linkView original on lemmy.zip169
Comments24
They should sue the clinic for the child getting the splinter there. Let the clinic's insurance company fight the health insurance company.
That's genius, pit tweedle bitch against other tweedle bitch and see who is more annoying.
Result: minimum payouts, premiums go up
I originally parsed your comment as saying "they should sue the child", which I took as an ironic joke at litigation culture.
The headline is somewhat misleading. The doctor didn't charge her, the clinic did. Doctors in general (at least in my experience) want to help. The problem is the hospitals and the insurance companies fucking people every chance they get. The people actually providing medical care aren't the problem.
This is a good point. The Doc could have just put a one sentence in the kids chart without a second thought and that triggered a billing admin to code it for maximum stupidity.
Or simply chose the relevant code that the insurance companies usually won't deny.
They may not have even known the code computer charting can be challenging for some people and training is sparse.
Did you read the entire article? Specifically the last paragraph or two? Because it sure looks like the doctor and clinic were together on the splinter charge.
That sounds like “I'm just following orders.” to me.
Have you investigated direct primary care programs as a “subscription” model to the services you provide? Like what’s described here:
https://www.aafp.org/about/policies/all/direct-primary-care.html
I’m not a physician or in medicine at all, so this is genuine curiosity on my part for an idea that was recently described to me. I’m looking for feedback from someone that lives inside the system on if they even think something like this is feasible or has potential to succeed.
Thank you for the detailed response.
I was aware that there were coverage contracts with insurance providers that could potentially get in the way of this, but I hadn’t really thought about the “I already have insurance, why buy this?” aspect, but it seems obvious in hindsight.
The sporadic usage of specialists, which I would qualify mental heath as one, also doesn’t necessarily lend itself to this model.
I think I stand with the majority of people in that all healthcare, of which mental health should be a substantial part, needs an overhaul in the U.S.
It’s the how that becomes the difficult part.
The wart story in the article is even worse than the splinter one. Ointment counts as surgery because the ointment penetrates the skin. That'll be $495, please.
According to their norms, I'm apparently I'm an experienced surgeon myself.
Can I sue for malpractice if my general practitioner is practicing “surgery” while not being a surgeon then?
I don't believe so. As I understand it, all doctors are eligible to perform any procedures. Some of them just decide to get better at it before they do.
The licensing probably allows them to perform virtually any procedure even if they are not qualified.
Well I mean the insurance will pay for most of it.
...
I'm just kidding, fuck you, give me money.
Why does this sound like the plot line to a MASH spin-off about Frank Burns?
We need to start stringing these people up and slitting throats if we want change.
Woah woah woah buddy that is surgery do you know how expensive that is?
$414?
The insurance company, I'm assuming.