ER treatment can lead to surprise medical bills

Having good insurance doesn’t always mean that a patient won’t be caught with a huge surprise medical bill they didn’t expect and don’t know where to turn. But politics and self-interest on the part of insurers and health care providers have gotten in the way of a workable solution.

Such bills result when someone goes to the emergency room and the physicians treating them – primarily ER doctors, anesthesiologists and radiologists – don’t belong to a patient’s insurer’s network of providers. In other words, those providers are out-of-network and can bill what they please. And they do.

What happ...