Sign in and pay now: Insured patients finding they must put down higher fees upfront for care (USA)

"Patients who need medical procedures are accustomed to following a familiar pattern: Talk to a doctor, schedule it at a hospital, have the procedure done and then get a bill in the mail a month later for your share of the cost. But in South Florida and nationwide, some insured patients are being asked by hospitals to pay larger portions of their bills upfront - and sometimes hospitals will not do the procedures until they get their co-payments. Hospitals administer emergency treatment without asking for payment first, but elective or scheduled procedures - anything from nose jobs to chemotherapy - can be withheld depending on a patient's ability to pay. An informal survey of 22 hospitals in Broward and Palm Beach counties found that all have required upfront payments for elective surgeries for several years. The change that might shock patients, hospital officials said, is the larger amounts requested as insurance companies require patients to make higher out-of-pocket payments." - SunSentinal