By JoNel Aleccia MARCH 22, 2019
The
first surprise was the massive heart attack, which struck as Debbie Moehnke
waited in a Vancouver, Wash., medical clinic last summer.
“She
had an appointment because her feet were swollen real bad,” said Larry Moehnke,
her husband. “But she got in there and it was like, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t
breathe!’”
Her
life suddenly at risk, the 59-year-old was rushed by ambulance, first to a
local hospital, where she was stabilized, and then, the next day, to Oregon
Health & Science University across the river in Portland for urgent cardiac
care.
That
meant heart bypass surgery, replacement of one valve and repair of another.
Just as she recovered from that, Debbie Moehnke developed a raging infection
that required powerful IV antibiotics to treat. She spent a month in the
hospital, some of it in intensive care, before she was discharged home.
That’s
when she got the next surprise: Bills totaling more than $454,000 for the
medical miracle that saved her life. Of that stunning amount, officials said,
she owed nearly $227,000 after her health insurance paid its part.
“I wish
I would have known. I would have said ‘no’ to life support,” said Debbie
Moehnke, a former cocktail waitress who suffers from signs of early-onset
dementia. “We’ll lose everything.”
Large
“surprise bills” like the Moehnkes received have become a national epidemic
outraging patients and politicians alike. Solutions have been elusive to date,
even in a progressive state like Washington.
Lawmakers
in Olympia this year are trying for the fourth time to pass legislation banning the practice that
leaves consumers with huge out-of-pocket costs.
“Everybody
agrees we’ve got to get the consumer out of being stuck in between,” said Mike
Kreidler, the state insurance commissioner who has repeatedly backed the
proposals.
While
the protection would be beneficial to patients, there has been formidable and
effective pushback from insurers, hospitals and doctors.
The
central issue is money. Such surprise bills, or “balance bills,” typically
occur when a patient’s insurer and a hospital or doctor not in its network
don’t agree on what treatment is worth. The insurer — LifeWise Health Plan of
Washington, in this case — pays what it judges to be fair. Providers then bill
patients for the balance, which can easily tally tens if not hundreds of
thousands of dollars.
As of
December, 25 states had laws providing
protection against balance bills, according to the Commonwealth
Fund. Those laws take consumers out of the middle in billing disputes and force
providers and insurers to negotiate directly for payment.
When an
insurer and a provider disagree about how much a service is worth, who decides
the legitimate charge? The proposed bills in Washington state use a
“commercially reasonable” rate as the standard. But what does that mean in a
country where medical prices are so variable?
“We
need to make sure that any law that is enacted doesn’t tilt the scale toward
one side or another,” said Chelene Whiteaker, senior vice president of government
affairs for the Washington State Hospital Association.
The
Washington state legislation borrows from a 2015 New York law that sends
insurers and providers to baseball-style binding arbitration if they can’t come
to an agreement about costs. Both parties remain cautious.
“I hope
they will give up the idea that this is a chance to stick it to doctors,” said
Dr. Nathan Schlicher of the Washington State Medical Association.
Leonard
Sorrin, vice president of congressional and legislative affairs for Premera
Blue Cross, which operates LifeWise, said in a statement that his organization
is working for legislation that prevents balance billing, but also “maintains a
contracting balance that allows health plans to build networks for members and
pays the provider a fair rate.”
While
patients can generally avoid balance billing by staying in-network, a
life-or-death emergency such as Debbie Moehnke’s can make that impossible.
Also, many in-network hospitals often use out-of-network doctors, leaving
patients vulnerable to surprise charges.
So much
money is at stake that, even when they exist, laws are filled with loopholes
and offer only patchwork protection. For example, hospitals are not prohibited
from sending balance bills; patients have to know they’re protected by law and
go to considerable effort to contest them.
And
about 60 percent of employer-based plans are governed by federal rather than
state law. There is currently no federal prohibition against balance billing,
although a bipartisan bill to end the practice was proposed last year.
Oregon,
where Debbie Moehnke was treated, does have a law banning surprise bills, which took effect last year.
But it applies only to out-of-network charges sent to a patient who received
care at an in-network provider. And it covers only insurers regulated in the
state, which excludes the Moehnkes’ plan, according to state insurance
officials.
The
proposed Washington legislation would ban balance billing for most of the
state’s nearly 6 million insured consumers under age 65. But it could skip
about 2 million people who get coverage through employers with self-funded plans.
Those plans are regulated by a federal law, called ERISA, shorthand for the
Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which doesn’t prohibit balance
billing.
Self-insured
employers would be allowed, but not required, to participate in provisions of
the new law, if approved.
So far,
however, change has come too slowly for families like the Moehnkes, who found
themselves facing crushing bills, despite buying a well-subsidized plan on the
state’s insurance exchange. In Debbie Moehnke’s case, the full bill from OHSU
and affiliated providers was $454,550.54. Her insurance paid $227,959.19.
That
left the Moehnkes with bills totaling $226,591.35.
“What
do you think you’re going to do, squeeze blood out of a turnip?” said Larry
Moehnke, 70, a big-rig truck driver.
Married
32 years, the Moehnkes and their two dogs, Coco and Belle, live in a
47-year-old mobile home in rural southwestern Washington. Larry Moehnke hasn’t
been able to work since health problems of his own developed after his wife’s
heart attack. They’re getting by on his Social Security income of $1,884 a
month.
LifeWise
spokesman Bo Jungmayer said the insurer paid for her emergency care to the
extent required under the Affordable Care Act.
Debbie
Moehnke was hospitalized at OHSU from Aug. 14 to Sept. 12, 2018. She was
initially admitted for her emergency heart treatment. While there, she developed
an unidentified infection that required two additional weeks of care.
Only
later did the couple learn that she could have been transferred to an
in-network hospital, potentially saving tens of thousands of dollars.
“They
never said anything about not being ‘in network’ or anything,” Larry Moehnke
said.
Debra
Tomsen, OHSU’s director of hospital billing and coding, said LifeWise officials
should have notified the Moehnkes after receiving bills for nearly $250,000
halfway through her stay.
“Insurance
should tell them they’re incurring out-of-pocket costs,” she said.
Jungmayer,
of LifeWise, said it was up to OHSU to let Debbie Moehnke know about the high
bills — and about the option to transfer to another hospital.
“Typically
we allow that conversation between the provider and the patient while they’re
there,” he said. “I don’t know why OHSU didn’t ask them.”
Early
this month, after repeated inquiries about Debbie Moehnke’s care — first from a
reporter, then from a patient advocate alerted by the Washington state
insurance commission — the couple’s outstanding bills were resolved.
With
the help of Jared Walker, who runs Dollar for Portland, a
nonprofit group, the couple applied for a medical charity care waiver, in
itself a complicated process. OHSU officials granted the waiver, erasing the
sky-high debt.
“Their
balance is now zero,” OHSU spokeswoman Tamara Hargens-Bradley confirmed in an
email.
The
Moehnkes are relieved, but they said they resent that they endured the stress
of mounting bills and collection calls for six months when there was a solution
available.
“Nobody
ever said anything about charity care,” said Larry Moehnke.
That’s
not how the process should work, said Kreidler.
“It
shouldn’t be one where the squeaky wheel gets help,” he said. “There should be
fairness and equality in the system. You shouldn’t have to file a complaint.
This should be ingrained into the system so that when you have a problem and
you’re due relief, you get it.”
JoNel Aleccia: jaleccia@kff.org,
@JoNel_Aleccia
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