Why didn't your health insurance cover your bill?

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Aug 19 2014

Also, blood test pricing variation in California is examined.

USA Today: 5 Reasons Health Insurance Didn't Pay Your Bill
How many times have you gotten a medical bill for more than you were expecting? Chances are, it's happened before, and you're not the only one who's been shocked at the price tag on a service that your insurance should have covered. Here are five possible reasons ... 1. Your insurance company made an error. ... 2. Your provider "accepts your insurance" -- but isn't in your plan's network. ... 3. Your free annual examination wasn't billed as a free exam. ... 4. Your insurance company practices "bundling." .... 5. There's missing information (Flynn, 8/17).

The Washington Post: A $10,000 Blood Test?!? Yes, Really.
Imagine walking into a hospital and being charged more than $10,000 for a blood test to check your cholesterol level. And going to another hospital in the same state and being charged $10 for the exact same blood test. That's what a team led by a University of California San Francisco researcher found when it looked at the prices California hospitals charge for 10 common blood tests (Sun, 8/15).

Related KHN story: Wide Variation In Hospital Charges For Blood Tests Called 'Irrational' (Rabin, 8/15).

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.