How much does it cost to get tested for COVID-19? The answer is complicated. “We have the most unpredictable and expensive health care system in the world, and injecting the chaos of an epidemic into it is going to expose every weakness and fallibility.'
Public health officials are warning Americans to brace for the spread of the coronavirus, and many are wondering about the best way to prepare — and whether they have enough money to get tested and treated.
“ ‘You don’t want people who should go and seek care to not go because they’re concerned about costs.’ ” “My first reaction was to laugh in disbelief,” said 27-year-old Tyler Prochazka of the moment he saw the bill. In his case, a nurse had taken a nose swab and told Prochazka it would be sent to the CDC, which would cover the cost of testing the specimen, he said. That didn’t end up happening. “I wasn’t entirely surprised because I cannot think of a single encounter with the American health care system that didn’t have a similar outcome,” Prochazka said.
The new billing code is a positive development, because it will eventually help standardize the test price and prevent a situation where hospitals make up a price for the procedure on the fly, said Caitlin Donovan, spokeswoman for the National Patient Advocate Foundation, a nonprofit that pushes for affordable access to quality medical care.
In Washington State where local news outlets reported 10 deaths from the coronavirus as of Wednesday the state health care authority said it’s working with insurers for public employees and Medicaid recipients to ensure both testing and treatment will be covered “when determined necessary by a health care provider.”
Taxpayers could pay to treat uninsured patients Half of U.S. adults said they or a family member either postponed or skipped going to the doctor in the last year because of the cost 2019 polling by the nonprofit health research group Kaiser Family Foundation found. How to keep costs down for the coronavirus test One key consideration for people thinking about getting tested for the coronavirus: insurers will generally only cover tests if the test is deemed medically necessary which usually means a doctor has to recommend the test. So call your doctor first, Donovan said.
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