In practice the insurance companies can and do sometimes pay their portion of the bill before the deductible is paid. I think (guess) it may depend on the aggressiveness of the bill collecting dept. of the hospital.
It really gets fun when the doctor wants you to pay your deductible up front, of course you have no control over how the insurance applies it .... often times you're trying to recover overpayment from the doc while another service wants their remaining balance. A few months ago I split my head open driving fence posts, wife hauled me into the ER, i was there literally 15 minutes, took 7 staples and back out the door after paying a $250 ER deductible.... later received a bill from the ER doc for $1235.00, for his services alone! They never billed my insurance. I told them good luck getting that bill paid and gave them the number for who to call. Next time I'll do it myself.
LOL, should be both..... for $1235.00 I'd sew it up myself, only reason I went in, Wifey thought my skull was cracked.
Docs and hospitals are f*ing crooks. Ask them how much it costs and they get that far away look in their eyes. Then the HUGE fake bill comes, knowing they are overbilling but also knowing if they send out a enough HUGE fake bills a few people will write a check for the full amount. Professionals my ass.
1) They get that far and away look in their eyes because it's not really part of their job and they don't know. That's a billing and insurance issue which is completely separate from the provision of care. 2) somebody has an axe to grind
hmm , concussion ,especially hematoma, intercranial bleed are all very serious potential conditions. If you don't know how to check for outward signs of this, probably a good thing you went . If they didn't teach you it was a waste of your money.
1) you are wrong Phoenix, I've asked the billing people about how much the PT would cost because workers comp wasn't going to pay for the therapy that was working. They refused to quote me a price. This has happened in a different instance with a hospital. 2) yeah I do, they are F*ing crooks and liars. The hospitals and insurance are in competition in seeing who can be the biggest con.