Billing practices by medicalcare providers. Administering forms without any apparent concern for law. Are these different things perhaps connected somehow?
Three times in the past ten or eleven months, I have been handed many forms to sign by medical offices before I could get treatment.
I signed all their forms but I balked at first, and I continue to balk at signing one of their forms until they comply with law, otherwise their practices would make every one of their patients become liars, including me. This is why.
They hand the patient a "Notice of Privacy Practices Acknowledgment Form." The form itself is not objectionable; in fact, it would be easy to administer. But corporate medicalcare providers have not shown a lot of evidence that they know how to administer them.
To be clear, I sign the acknowledgement form once the medicalcare provider shows me their notice of privacy practices. It really is as easy as that. Why they choose to make providing medicalcare difficult is a mystery known only to them, although they often blame other people for having to do what they do not do.
Their form -- and I do not where this language comes from, but they obviously pay somebody to write it for them, and I suspect they pay somebody actually to copy the law and then bill them for it -- advises every patient that each patient has a right to see the Privacy Practices and that by signing this form, the patient acknowledges receiving a copy. The language goes like this:
You have the right to review our notice before signing this form. Your signature below acknowledges that you have received a copy of the notice of privacy practices.
The actual business practice at work in these examples goes like this instead, however. They tell you that you have a right to review the notice of privacy practices. They tell you that by signing their Acknowledgement Form that you are saying that you received a copy of their notice. Then they do not show you a copy of their notice of privacy practices.
This is not compliance with law. This is scofflaw. The purpose is to make money by keeping costs down. Here's how.
Most people sign the darn acknowledgement form and have done with it. That means fewer notices printed on paper, and so fewer costs to pay for printing multiple copies. There is probably a notice sitting around in every medical office or the hospital somewhere, but good luck finding it.
Every time a medical office makes a patient say that they gave the patient a notice of privacy practices when they didn't, the medical office violates the law. Every time a patient signs a form saying that the patient received something which they did not in fact receive, it is at least a lie, perhaps worse.
So, here are some other possible insurance coverage implications. Another one of the medical office forms they require every patient to sign is a form that assigns the patient's rights to government programs that pay for medical care.
This may be why medical care is so expensive. The problem with medical care may not be in our stars, so to speak, but in the back offices of our corporate medicalcare providers.
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