Charged $500 out of pocket for routine blood work
I recently went to a new doctor’s office in Chicago and have Cigna healthcare insurance. I had an annual checkup and routine bloodwork done, and to my surprise I’m being charged almost $500 out of pocket deductible. When I asked what was going on they clinic responded saying the following. Is there anything I can do about this? I was expecting there would be no out of pocket cost for this since it was just a routine checkout and blood test.
“I can advise that all completed services through UCM are billed as outpatient and all “outpatient visits are billed as hospital-based outpatient clinics and not private doctors’ visits”. This essentially means that there is a hospital based outpatient facility fee billed in addition to completed services. This also means that all completed services are billed as diagnostic VS a private practice that would require no diagnosis code for preventative services. Unfortunately, this billing standard can not be altered nor removed. We do show preventative diagnosis Z00.00 – Encounter for general adult medical examination without abnormal findings billed in association with these services. With this stated your carrier is essentially expecting us to bill as if we are a private practice by removing the diagnostic status all together to obtain the level of coverage expected to which we can not legally do. This standard does typically initiate the contractual out of pocket rates through most carriers.”