A listener’s doctor wanted her credit card info up front — before her appointment. She wondered: Do I need to give it to them? We did too. After all, who wants the risk of being overcharged — and then having to fight for money back? Experts gave us their best advice, including a couple of tricks to try, and a legal protection you may be able to rely on. Meanwhile, Elisabeth Rosenthal, senior contributing editor at KFF Health News, filled us in on the rapid growth of medical debt as a financial p...
Jun 15, 2023•22 min•Season 9Ep. 8
When a New York doctor tweeted recently about “payday loans” for doctors from a branch of UnitedHealth Group — which operates the giant insurance company UnitedHealthcare — we were intrigued. Especially when we saw that the loan product — a “cash flow solution” for health care providers — was real. The doctor’s tweet essentially accused UHG’s insurance arm of causing cash flow problems for providers in the first place, by denying claims and delaying payments — which echoes complaints we’ve heard...
May 25, 2023•23 min•Season 9Ep. 7
For lots of people, trying to access mental health treatment — like a therapist or a psychiatrist —is nothing short of a horror story. You could even call it a ghost story. A “Ghost network” is what researchers and journalists call it when your insurance plan offers a list of “in-network” providers that turns out to be bogus. Attorney Abigail Burman has studied this haunted phenomenon , and she’s become a part-time volunteer ghostbuster for people in her life. She’s here to share her tactics wit...
May 03, 2023•25 min•Season 9Ep. 6
Before her surgery, a hospital told Lisa French she would end up owing them $1,337. After insurance paid them — more than they’d expected — the hospital billed her $229,000. And sued her for it. Her case went all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court. The questions before the court, and how they ruled, have potentially major implications for our legal rights when it comes to fighting unfair medical bills — and how some hospitals might be thinking about their next move. Here’s a transcript of the...
Apr 13, 2023•27 min•Season 9Ep. 5
What if we had a decent, publicly-funded health system — available to everybody, with or without insurance? We’ve got one, says Dr. Ricardo Nuila. It’s where he works. And it could be a model for the whole country. Yes, really. That’s the pitch he makes in his new book, The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine . It’s a love letter to Houston’s Ben Taub hospital, and an argument for bringing Ben Taub’s model — efficient, innovative, and cheap —to the rest of the country. And if ...
Mar 23, 2023•29 min•Season 9Ep. 4
The ER visit was quick and uneventful. The bill was $1,300. Our listener decided to push back. He didn't win, but he learned a lot — and so did we. We had help, from an expert we met by visiting a Renaissance Fair — which we did in this very fun early episode . Kaelyn Globig, head of advocacy for the Rescu Foundation , is a medical-bill wizard, and no one has taught us more. In this story, she teaches us how to find out what Medicare pays for a given procedure — here’s the guide she shared with ...
Mar 02, 2023•20 min•Season 9Ep. 3
“I sued a hospital in small claims court and lost — here’s what I learned.” That was the subject line for an email we got from listener Lauren Slemenda. She wrote: “I feel like I won” — and we knew we needed to talk with her. She wants to encourage more people to try taking providers to court over unfair bills. “If everybody that they screw stands up,” she says, “They can't afford to pay a lawyer to defend against all of those [cases].” It’s an interesting idea for sure — What if more people use...
Feb 09, 2023•26 min•Season 9Ep. 2
We’re kicking off the year with a throwback. We revisit a 2019 episode that opened up new possibilities for fighting back against outrageous medical bills — a theme we’ll spend a lot more time exploring this year A listener named Miriam got a bill from a medical testing lab she’s never heard of, for $35. Then, a follow-up bill said if she didn’t pay up right away, that price was going up — WAY up: to $1,287. Which raises the kind of question that comes up a LOT with medical billing: Can some ran...
Jan 19, 2023•21 min•Season 9Ep. 1
The Arm and a Leg editorial team gathered to talk about the moments from 2022 that we’ll never forget — including when work collided with real life. We’re so lucky we get to do this work, and we couldn’t do it without our community. From sending us your stories and questions, to supporting the show financially, our listeners and subscribers are what this show runs on. Thank you. If you want to help us take on 2023, now is a great time to contribute. This month, every dollar you donate is DOUBLED...
Dec 29, 2022•14 min•Season 8Ep. 8
When a car hit Susan and knocked out a bunch of teeth, her health insurance was supposed to pay for her oral surgery, and she knew it. So why has she had to chase them for 18 months and counting? Getting insurance to pay for anything dental is usually hard, but this had us asking ourselves… is it usually this hard? We connected Susan with law professor Jacqueline Fox — who, when she was practicing law, fought insurers on behalf of patients. And who says Susan has “done everything right.” We’ve s...
Dec 19, 2022•26 min•Season 8Ep. 7
A couple months ago, we started getting messages from listeners telling us: you gotta watch this video. It’s a thirty minute YouTube video from a creator named Brian David Gilbert, and it’s probably the best video about health insurance we’ve ever seen. Brian David Gilbert is best known for his highly-detailed, hilarious videos for Polygon, a media company about video games. But when he left that job to strike out on his own, he needed new health insurance. We talked with him about how that expe...
Dec 01, 2022•19 min•Season 8Ep. 6
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion has been banned in more than a dozen states. As you choose your insurance plan for next year, you might be wondering: How does that affect my insurance plan? We learned two big things. First: There’s no one answer (and few answers are settled yet). A lot depends on where you live, and where you work. But second: For lots of people, for a long time, insurance has rarely been a help in accessing abortion. Most people pay cash. And lots of pe...
Nov 17, 2022•26 min•Season 8Ep. 5
It’s open enrollment for 2023 health insurance for lots of folks — a time when you might find yourself asking: what good is health insurance anyway? One listener wrote to us about his son, a student with no income. Dad asks, If the son could get charity care (financial assistance) at his local hospital…. should he bother getting health insurance? The big picture question: If you’re broke, and can’t get insurance from work, what are your best options? The big picture answer: It totally depends! D...
Nov 03, 2022•27 min•Season 8Ep. 4
Hey there, You may have noticed, we've been keeping a slower pace for the last few months — publishing every three weeks instead of every two — since Dan recovered from COVID. And every-three-weeks is gonna stay our default for now. Putting out the show more often was wrecking Dan's health, and some important behind-the-scenes work just wasn't getting done. When we slowed down the podcast release schedule, we also suspended the First Aid Kit newsletter, which compiles our most-useful information...
Oct 20, 2022•5 min•Season 8Ep. 3
This year, the state of California put up $100 million to produce its own insulin, and sell it for cheap. How’s it going to work? (Is it going to work?) The price of insulin could be the starkest example of our out-of-control health care system: More than 7 million Americans need it to survive, and some die because they can’t afford it— medicine that’s been around for 100 years, medicine its discoverers didn’t want to patent. We look at how California’s plan came to be, and what might stand in t...
Sep 29, 2022•19 min•Season 8Ep. 2
Lots of seniors have to pay thousands of dollars for drugs—even tens of thousands—or do without life-saving medicine. That’s finally going to change. The new Inflation Reduction Act will set a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors. (Yes, it’ll do a bunch of other stuff too.) It took a long time. Folks like researcher Stacie Dusetzina spent years building evidence about how Medicare prescription drug policy was failing people with cancer and other conditions. The pharmaceutical indus...
Sep 08, 2022•26 min•Season 8Ep. 1
It’s often possible to negotiate medical bills. It sounds hard — and it can be — but what if we got it down to a science? Mapped out all the moves ahead of time? Jared Walker and his team at the nonprofit Dollar For are running a big experiment to see if they can do just that. And we got to visit the lab. The folks at Dollar For caught our attention — and lots of other people’s—when they went super-viral on TikTok with a 60-second recipe for crushing medical debt by accessing charity care, finan...
Aug 18, 2022•24 min•Season 7Ep. 9
Is it possible for a health care company to make enough people mad about their billing practices that it hurts their business? For one genetic testing company, maybe so. An Arm and a Leg listener Jessica got a test that’s become routine in early pregnancy: non-invasive prenatal testing. It was supposed to be $99. But then — after she took the test — that turned into $250. And when she asked questions, she was told it could go up to $800 if she didn’t pay up quick. , Jessica looked up the testing...
Jul 28, 2022•18 min•Season 7Ep. 9
Thomas Fisher is an emergency room doc in Chicago. His book, The Emergency , is an up-close chronicle of the COVID pandemic’s first year in his South Side ER. It also zooms out to tell the story of his journey as a doctor: How his upbringing on the South Side fueled his desire to become a doctor. And how the realities and inequities of American health care limited his ability to help. He details how the failures of the American health care system — and the racial inequities it perpetuates — leav...
Jul 07, 2022•21 min•Season 7Ep. 7
About a third of ER doctors now work for companies backed by private equity. A lot of those docs do not like the arrangement, which they say puts profits ahead of patients. Now, a group of ER docs are suing to kick one of those private-equity owned companies out of their hospital-- and all of California. They see it as the first step in a long, long fight. The suit cites California’s ban on the “corporate practice of medicine” — which is supposed to outlaw situations where non-doctors tell docto...
Jun 16, 2022•22 min•Season 7Ep. 7
Credit reporting bureaus announced in April that they would start taking most medical debt off of people’s credit reports. At first, we weren’t sure that would be such a huge deal. After all, the medical debt would still exist, people would still get harassed by debt collectors, or even sued over it. But it turns out, there’s a bunch of reasons why these changes could be life-changing, and we want to give credit (the good kind) where it’s due. The changes include: Paid-off medical debt disappear...
May 26, 2022•18 min•Season 7Ep. 6
A new golden age is dawning, and it starts where the sun don’t shine. A listener got a pricey quote for her colonoscopy, but the medical practice behind it seems like “the only game in town.” We scope it out and learn the surprising reason why: Investors have decided your butt is a goldmine. Private equity investors have made their way into many areas of our lives. Now, they’re at the gastroenterologist’s —and lots of other medical specialists, too. We learned why these doctors are selling their...
May 05, 2022•20 min•Season 7Ep. 5
Dan’s COVID has hung on there for a while, kept him SUPER tired. Yoinks. Back in a couple weeks! Meanwhile, as always, we'd love for you to: Get in touch to share a story or your thoughts. Subscribe to First Aid Kit , our newsletter about how to survive the health-care system Support us : Your donations are this show's biggest source of income. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Apr 21, 2022•59 sec•Season 7Ep. 4
Hey there — I got COVID a little before we were scheduled to tape this week's episode. Whoops! I'm fine now, but kinda tired. Just to be on the safe side — some people stay tired for a while — let's give me two weeks before we come back with a full episode. Meanwhile, I'll share this: I think one reason I got better quick was, I was able to get anti-viral meds. (Paxlovid, in my case.) And I mention this because: There's a new variant going around, BA.2, which looks like it's going to bring on a ...
Apr 07, 2022•2 min•Season 7Ep. 3
It’s illegal to advise someone who’s being sued for medical debt, unless you're a lawyer. Yep, really. Even in its most basic form (like helping people fill out a checklist) it’s considered the “unlicensed practice of law.” And it’s a crime. As in, you could go to jail. So some New Yorkers are suing to get that changed. The non-profit Upsolve wants to help people represent themselves in court when they’re being sued over debt. Their plan is to train people like pastors, social workers, and libra...
Mar 24, 2022•19 min•Season 7Ep. 2
Pharma and insurance companies play devious, clever games, competing for dollars. They’re sharks! It’d be fun to track, but they’re eating us alive. If anyone could beat the sharks at this game, we’d pick Lillian Karabaic , who runs the personal finance show/community called Oh My Dollar! — and is SUPER on-top-of her stuff. But Lillian recently got socked with an unexpected $3,000 charge— and expects to lose her very-organized fight against it. Understanding how Lillian got here — how pretty muc...
Mar 10, 2022•26 min•Season 7Ep. 1
Last year we brought you the story — part caper, part tragedy — of how Philadelphia tried to hand off its COVID vaccination program to a wannabe tech bro right out of college. We built on the work of reporter Nina Feldman and her colleagues at WHYY. Now, they've laid out the entire thing in a podcast of their own, called Half Vaxxed . It’s terrific. Funny in places, horrifying in others, and full of lessons. We'll be back in a few weeks to start the next batch of Arm and a Leg episodes. Meanwhil...
Feb 24, 2022•25 min•Season 6Ep. 15
Stephanie Wittels Wachs has made the show about a topic that's actually too enraging, terrifying, and depressing for An Arm and a Leg : the opioid crisis. And it's as entertaining, empowering and useful as we could ever want. It's called Last Day . Here's episode 1. (In case you need convincing that it's entertaining, we'll tell you: In this episode, she interviews comedians Sarah Silverman and Aziz Ansari at length.) Part of what makes Last Day so good is that Stephanie is a great storyteller —...
Feb 10, 2022•41 min•Season 6Ep. 14
The No Surprises Act — a new law that protects us from some outrageous out-of-network hospital bills — takes effect this month. That's great news, but (and there’s always a but) there are some important caveats to know about. Like, for instance: these protections only apply to care you get in a hospital. Then there’s the deceptively-named Surprise Billing Protection form they might ask you to sign. And there’s more. We break down what you need to know about your rights under this new law, what t...
Jan 27, 2022•18 min•Season 6Ep. 13
COVID testing—the kind they send to a lab— is supposed to be free in the U.S. But it’s never been quite that simple. We’re revisiting our sadly-still-relevant interview with Sarah Kliff from the New York Times , who joined us in November 2020 to share what she learned from reading hundreds of COVID testing bills. Her advice ? Avoid the ER, do some research ahead of time, and ask if they’re going to do any other tests (which may not be covered 100%). We summed up some of her advice in a recent Fi...
Jan 13, 2022•23 min•Season 6Ep. 12
