When Jan Trefzer went to a doctor for back pain, she expected to pay $45—her insurance copay for specialist care. But Lee Health billed her insurance for facility charges both times Trefzer went to the doctor at the Sanctuary, an outpatient center in Fort Myers. Those facility charges added $550 to Trefzer’s total out-of-pocket cost […]
Dr. Rebekah Bernard isn’t just a primary care doctor, she’s an entrepreneur. Fed up with the healthcare system, she opened her own direct primary care practice in 2016 called Gulf Coast Direct Primary Care. “Right now, they say doctors spend more time on paperwork than they do with patients. Direct primary care totally changes that,” […]
It’s a simple question. “What is this going to cost?” But a WINK News experiment found it’s really difficult to get the answer by calling a doctor’s office. WINK News called five primary care and three specialty practices to try to find out what an office visit would cost based on the terms of specific […]
Figuring outpatient out of pocket cost upfront for medical care can be an exhausting exercise, that the Trump administration hopes to streamline. But hospitals are fighting it. Hospital groups including the American Hospital Association are suing the Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services over its price transparency rule. All hospitals in the […]
Jordan Paul had one of the best surprises of her life last summer, waiting throughout her pregnancy to find out the gender of her baby. In June, she gave birth to a happy and healthy little girl named Brynlee. But, next, came one of the worst surprises of her life: An unexpectedly high medical bill […]
A 30-year-old Lee County woman has her whole life ahead of her, but the weight of the world is on her shoulders. Corrine Tempera is $700,000 in debt after surviving a deadly form of cancer. “Every single hour of the day,” Tempera said, “I’m worrying about how I’m going to pay for my next doctor’s […]
A ride to work on his bike, turned into an eight and a half month fight that could have bankrupted him. “It turned my life upside down,” said Brian Gerke, who had recently relocated to Cape Coral from New York when he was hit by a car in September 2018. Gerke was also uninsured at […]