An Insiders Guide to Understanding Your Hospital Bill [Paperback]

Nancy Collins (Author), Jan Sedoris (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Two nurses with over twenty years of combined experience tell consumers how to understanding the maze of billing codes used by hospitals in this title. This focuses on common areas of overcharging and misunderstanding, examining common types of errors, presenting easy-to-under-stand explanations, and including real-life stories of patient/hospital financial interactions. -- Midwest Book Review

Product Details

• Paperback: 70 pages
• Publisher: Eggman Pub; . edition (May 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1886371091
• ISBN-13: 978-1886371095
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,878,511 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars You owe $ to a hospital, don't waste any on this book., March 4, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: An Insiders Guide to Understanding Your Hospital Bill (Paperback)

I'm serious. Do NOT buy this book. The positive reviews on this page must be for some other book. I just read this book (took me about 20 minutes). It is a skinny, flimsy, 'See Jane Run' book with no serious content. I have a very real problem - a hospital bill, and I wasn't insured. Hospitals price gouge the uninsured, especially if they are middle class. They expect higher payments from uninsured patients then they get from insured patients or patients with Medicare. I am busy educating myself on my bill with the help of friends who work in the medical industry. I thought this book would be useful in my education, it is not. It's just an additional waste of money. The font in this book must be 14 point (very large), and everything they have to say was either common sense, or simply not useful. I need industry-specific knowledge to better arm myself to fight/negotiate my real medical bill. This book did not offer that. With my level of medical knowledge (an average individual) plus a tiny bit of research, I could have written this book. I don't always write book reviews, but this book really steamed me because I felt simply publishing this book was an insult to everyone's intelligence. Don't buy it online - if you think you need this book, please walk into a book store and flip through it - you'll see instantly it's a waste of your time.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At Last, A Weapon To Fight High Medical Bills!, November 7, 1998

By 

Harvey L. Gardner ([e-mail]) (Hendersonville, Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Insiders Guide to Understanding Your Hospital Bill (Paperback)

An "Insiders Guide to Understanding Your Hospital Bill" ought to be on your bookshelf if you sincerely want to reduce your hospital bill. You may not need it now, but odds are you or a family member will need it in the future. It's easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to use. The authors know their business. In fact, the title of the book IS their business. The easy-to-read, non-technical style makes the book work for anybody who wants to have some control over their own hospital costs. If I sold medical insurance, I'd see that every policyholder had a copy of this book. If I administered a hospital, I'd give one to every single patient who came there. At last somebody has given us a weapon with which we can fight high medical costs. It's terrific!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book if you pay any part of your hospital bill, May 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: An Insiders Guide to Understanding Your Hospital Bill (Paperback)

This book warns you to check your hospital bill because it often contains billing errors -- and, since most of us have to pay something (after the insurance pays), it's good to know where to look for the errors to save money! The book is filled with detailed examples and suggests you keep a diary of your hospital stay so you can compare your entries to the final bill. Some are human errors, but most are not -- and this book lists the common areas where hospitals overcharge. More importantly, Chapter 6 tells you how to go about getting the hospital to correct your bill. And, if you don't want to do it yourself (or are too ill to do it yourself), the authors will (for a small fee). Overall, this is an excellent "How to..." book that gives you the option of letting the authors help you... when was the last time you had an author use their expertise for you? Most "How to..." books tell you what to do, but leave you hanging when you get in trouble. Not these authors!