LEE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 After a Lee Health doctor’s office was not following the health system’s process for warning patients about potential facility fees, more patients reached out saying they had been hit with similar charges.<\/p>\n
Now, WINK News has checked more Lee Health offices and dug into the federal rules surrounding hospital-based facilities.<\/p>\n
Some Lee Health doctors’ offices are designated as hospital outpatient departments, or HODs. They may look like regular doctors’ offices, but they are considered part of a hospital.<\/p>\n
Depending on a patient’s insurance, that can mean a separate facility fee on top of the cost of seeing the doctor.<\/p>\n
Lee Health says its HOD locations operate under additional hospital-level requirements and that services at those locations are billed as hospital outpatient care.<\/p>\n
WINK News finds warning sign in a drawer<\/p>\n
Cathy Kaiser first brought the issue to WINK News after receiving a $59 facility fee on top of her copay at Lee Health Adult Endocrinology on Colonial Center Drive.<\/p>\n
Lee Health spokesperson Jaclyn Bevis told WINK News its HOD offices have signs posted warning patients that a facility fee may apply.<\/p>\n
But when WINK News anchor Claire Galt went to Kaiser’s office, there was no sign posted.<\/p>\n
When Galt asked staff where it was, an employee pulled the sign out of a drawer.<\/p>\n
After Galt brought what she found to Lee Health’s attention, a sign was posted at the office.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy fight today is not so much the extra $59 over and above my copay. It\u2019s the lack of transparency.\u201d Kaiser said.<\/p>\n
More patients reach out<\/p>\n
After Galt’s first story aired, her inbox filled with messages from patients who said they had also received facility fees they did not expect.<\/p>\n
Some said the additional charges caused them to switch doctors or offices.<\/p>\n
A day after the report, Galt visited additional Lee Health HOD locations on Bass Road and Summerlin Road.<\/p>\n
This time, every office she checked had a warning sign posted.<\/p>\n
WINK News does not know when those signs were put up.<\/p>\n
What do federal Medicare rules require?<\/p>\n
WINK News also reviewed federal Medicare regulations governing provider-based facilities.<\/p>\n
, hospital-based offices must make patients aware that they are part of the hospital system and that they will be billed accordingly.<\/p>\n
The federal rule does not specifically require that notification to come in the form of a facility-fee warning sign.<\/p>\n
Lee Health, however, has told WINK News that signs are posted at its off-campus HOD offices to notify patients that a facility fee may apply.<\/p>\n
Some states go further<\/p>\n
Some states have passed additional laws specifically addressing facility fees.<\/p>\n
20 states have passed laws addressing facility fees. Florida is not among the states identified by the group.<\/p>\n
Colorado, for example, has requirements addressing facility-fee notifications, including signs in common areas and notification when an appointment is made that a facility fee may be charged.<\/p>\n
WINK News has continued communicating with Lee Health about facility fees and has requested an on-camera interview to discuss its process for notifying patients. We will continue requesting one.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lee Health publishes a list of Lee Physician Group locations designated as hospital outpatient departments.<\/p>\n
To find the list of Lee Health HOD offices, click .\u00a0 Scroll down to Frequently Asked Questions on Billing Resources and select the drop-down bar: ‘Which LPG locations are Hospital Outpatient Departments (HOD)?’\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 After a Lee Health doctor’s office was not following the health system’s process for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,325,115],"class_list":["post-403138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-lee","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}