NAPLES, FL—Consejo de
Latinos Unidos, a national non-profit organization that educates
and assists uninsured Hispanics and others, announced today that
the Consejo was able to secure a “golden fair pricing policy”
for the uninsured with Health Management Associates (HMA), the
third largest for-profit hospital system in the nation.
“This victory for the
uninsured would not have happened without the outstanding legal
work of nationally recognized healthcare attorney Archie Lamb,”
said K.B. Forbes, Executive Director of the Consejo. “In 2004,
we established an alliance with Lamb to help those who did not
have a voice—uninsured minorities. Today, together, we can claim
a resounding victory for uninsured patients and applaud HMA for
turning a potential black eye into a golden fair pricing policy.”
Under the settlement,
uninsured patients who receive services from an HMA facility
will now be charged the average managed care rate by hospital.
When calculating the average managed care rate, the rate will be
weighed by the volume of business that each managed care company
provides to the HMA hospital. “The average rate being weighed
accordingly establishes a truly fair and equitable pricing
structure,” said Forbes. According to published reports, HMA
will offer discounts and refunds of up to 60 percent.
Hospitals traditionally
have charged uninsured patients three or four or five times more
than what they would accept as payment in full from an insurance
company. Jose Manuel Quintana, who contacted the Consejo in 2003
and attended a Consejo workshop in Miami, was charged $3,040 by
an HMA hospital after visiting the hospital for chest pain. An
insurance company would have paid no more that $1,000 for the
exact same care. Quintana was the class representative in the
class action lawsuit that was filed in 2005 by Lamb.
Four years ago, in
January of 2003, the Consejo made national headlines after
forcing the nation’s second largest for-profit hospital system,
Tenet Healthcare to change its aggressive pricing policy against
the uninsured. The Consejo was profiled on CBS’ 60 Minutes
last March for its work against hospital abuses. The
organization was founded in 2001.
Print
Ads:
Radio Ads: