Hello I am your nurse, and how will you be paying for this?

[renerian, BSN, RN]

Aussie -A grand for that..............wow that is good. I had my hysterectomy in 99, two nights stay with complications for a total of 30,000. I had insurance but my portion took a payment schedule to cover........

renerian

[OC_An Khe]

If you were getting paid directly from the patient / insurer carrier instead of by your employer, wouldn't you want to have the information on how the patient will pay? I don't know a MD or any other healthcare professional or institution who don't know or ask this question.

Does the US ration healthcare this way or not treat uninsured? You bet we do and everyone of us is involved in these practises. Conflict of interest goes on everyday. You may not be aware that it does (although you should be) as most places gather this information before the patient hits the floor. What do you think RN case managers do?

All RNs should be aware of the money aspect of the profession, unless you want to work for free, or non liveable wage, with no respect given to the profession. This is how our system works.

Now if you want to change the system....well, that's a different thread.

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Grommett= Eustacian tubes in US language and they sure did help my then 18 month old!

[sjoe]

ocankhe writes: "If you were getting paid directly from the patient / insurer carrier instead of by your employer, wouldn't you want to have the information on how the patient will pay? I don't know a MD or any other healthcare professional or institution who don't know or ask this question."

It seems to me that most of us realize that healthcare has to be paid for one way or another (and we are usually NOT donating our own time and skills in order to keep costs down).

But for many nurses the question is whether we are to serve as billing clerks or financial screeners as well as nurses.

In other words, are these duties a legitimate part of nursing responsibilities, or is the facility obligated to provide clerical employees to perform these tasks? As ocankhe indirectly points out, we are NOT getting paid directly by the patient/insurer carrier, so why would we be involved in financial screening?

I don't think anyone argues that, given our present "system," these tasks do not need to be performed, but many nurses believe they already have enough things to do without getting involved in this.

One of the things I liked about working for the VA, corrections, and later, Kaiser, was the fact that insurance and financial matters were NOT a part of anything I did and I did not have to even think about them. (I had enough other things to do, goodness knows.) The facilities dealt with these matters, which was IT'S proper responsibily, and NOT a responsibilty of nursing.

IMHO.

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

I think that in some cases the patient would be reluctant to reveal information that would be pertinent to the nursing diagnosis (homelessness, unable to pay for meds) if nurses also act as stand ins for the financial dept. It could ultimately create enough readmissions to make it worthwhile to add the extra person on nights to seperate care issues from payment issues.

[renerian, BSN, RN]

I wanted to add in home health I have had to collect money from clients as well as checking their medicare/medicaid/insurance card and do indigent work ups. Came with my job. Alot of nurses did not like doing it. It did not bother me.

renerian