They charged us for a circ and our insurance already paid!!! - Page 2

[brant31]

Originally Posted by nummies

Our twins were born at home, but one needed some care at the local hospital for breathing trouble. We just received the bill and they charged our insurance $745 for a circ that we didn't have done!!!

This reminds me of when a friend of mine (a CPA no less -- she knows her bills and accounting) had her first son several years ago and got a copy of her EOB showing the hospital had been paid for William's circumcision. She immediately followed up and was told (no lie): "You're just the mom and are probably mistaken. Chances are they did it." She was half incredulous, half livid. She continued to argue with her insurer until it got to the point where she offered to visit their office and change her son on the CEO's desk. IIRC, in the end the insurer just said something like, "Look, lady, it's actually easier for us to just pay the circ fee for each boy born in-plan than to try to figure out who was and who wasn't".

As Gillian said, some circ costs can be cleverly buried in the maternity package. And I have had discussions with some insurers who said that administratively it's faster and cheaper (I don't believe it) for them to just total the births related to them by the provider, divide by 2 (assuming half the births are male) and just pay an aggregate circ fee for that half. Insanity!

However they do it, we must never lose sight of the fact that circumcision endures in the US because it is subsidized/insured. When parents are asked to pay, circ stops. What private insurance companies are doing is spreading the cost of RIC among all policyholders, including the childless, and what Medicare -- which accounts for 25% of all infant circumcisions in the US, or about 250,000 operations a year -- is doing is effectively charging taxpayers for what amounts to an elective cosmetic procedure.

Originally Posted by JessicaRenee

SEVEN HUNDRED AND FORTY FIVE DOLLARS?!?!?!

Yeah. Circumcision defenders like to say that RIC costs between $150 and $200. Maybe. Just the operator's fee. In the cheapest areas of the country. But factor in the hospital facilities charge, nurses' time, equipment (circumstraint amortization, Gomco clamp or Plastibell, disposable cover-ups, anesthesia, betadine, gauze, neosporin, etc etc) and it really climbs.

For argument's sake, let's say $500. About a million RICs are performed in the US every year. Follow-up treatment and complications repair costs about another $300-400 million. Pretty soon you're talking about a billion dollars a year that could so much more effectively be applied to cancer, diabetes and Alzheimers research. More insanity! This is the part about routine American circumcision that really torques me.

[RheaSilva]

Although these conspiracy theories are interesting, it sounds like a billing error. Call your insurance company, let it know, and move on.