Hospitals on average bill uninsured patients 2.5 times more than they bill health insurers and three times more than they bill Medicare for medical services, according to a study published on Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs, the Los Angeles Times reports (Yi, Los Angeles Times, 5/8). For the study, Gerard Anderson, director of the Center for Hospital Finance and Management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, examined hospital bills between 1984 and 2004 (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 5/8).
The study found that the difference in the amount hospitals bill uninsured patients and the amount they bill health insurers and Medicare more than doubled between 1984 and 2004. The largest differences in 2004 occurred at hospitals in California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and the smallest differences occurred at facilities in Idaho, Montana, Vermont and Wyoming, according to the study. Hospitals on average receive only $39 of every $100 they bill uninsured patients, the study found (Armour, USA Today, 5/8).
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