{"id":3216,"date":"2016-05-06T10:04:37","date_gmt":"2016-05-06T14:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?p=3216"},"modified":"2016-05-06T10:04:37","modified_gmt":"2016-05-06T14:04:37","slug":"a-tale-of-trust-blizzards-babies-and-a-broken-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trustacrossamerica.com\/blog\/?p=3216","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Trust, Blizzards, Babies and a Broken System"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TAA_R2_EDIT-CS3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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When a baby decides it is time to be born\u2026\u201dthe show must go on.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Such was the case on January 23, 2016 when approximately 103 million people were affected by a blizzard that hit the east coast of the US, requiring eleven states to declare emergencies, including New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Assisted by local EMTs, the healthy baby was delivered at home on the living room couch, the second child of a couple with a fully paid health insurance policy. But the extreme weather conditions and treacherous roads required both the healthy mother and her new baby to be transported to the closest hospital, not one designated by the family\u2019s insurance plan, and certainly not through any special requests\u00a0on the family’s part.\u00a0In less than 24 hours, both mother and child were released from the \u201cunaffiliated\u201d hospital, returning home to celebrate their new arrival.<\/p>\n

But the biggest\u00a0surprise for this family was yet to arrive.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The following week a hospital bill was delivered\u00a0for $53,000. And in case you are not totally shocked by that number, it didn\u2019t include subsequent invoices from the EMTs, emergency room doctors, nor the $39.00 adult diaper that was \u201csold\u201d to the mother following delivery, to name just a few \u201cincidentals\u201d that brought the total “hit” to over $60,000.<\/p>\n

Now this family, who should be bonding and celebrating the birth of their healthy second child, is instead:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1) Faced with a daunting bill that no insured young middle class family could ever possibly pay, and mounds of paperwork and invoice totals that change with every postal delivery.<\/p>\n

2) Spending countless hours away from their children and professional obligations listening to prerecorded messages claiming \u201cour menus have changed,\u201d \u201cyour call is important to us\u201d and \u201cwe are experiencing unusually high call volume.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following are some not so simple questions for insurance companies, hospitals, doctors, miscellaneous health services providers and any other parties who would like to weigh in on this story:<\/strong><\/p>\n

What responsibility, if any,\u00a0do organizations\u00a0have to ensure their customers\u00a0are treated fairly, ethically and in a trustworthy manner?<\/p>\n

Has corporate greed and the \u201cmaximization of shareholder value\u201d permanently replaced\u00a0doing what\u2019s right?<\/p>\n

If this child had been born to a family with no health insurance what would their bill be?<\/p>\n

How can this\u00a0family, who believed they had done everything \u201cright\u201d except better timing the birth of their baby, expeditiously resolve this and “get on” with what matters and their daily lives?”<\/p>\n

I suppose the moral of the story is “buyer beware:”\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even under the most extreme circumstances caused by acts of nature, thousands of dollars in monthly health insurance premiums don\u2019t \u201ccut it\u201d once companies are asked to honor their obligations and do the right thing. Why is this so?<\/p>\n

Please send any suggestions or advice to barbara@trustacrossamerica.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Barbara Brooks Kimmel<\/strong>\u00a0is the CEO and Cofounder of\u00a0Trust Across America-Trust Around the World<\/a>\u00a0whose mission is to help organizations build trust. Now in its seventh year, the program\u2019s proprietary FACTS\u00ae Framework<\/a> ranks and measures the trustworthiness of over 2000 US public companies on five quantitative indicators of trustworthy business behavior. Barbara is also the editor of the award winning\u00a0TRUST INC.<\/a>\u00a0book series and the Executive Editor of\u00a0TRUST! Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2016, Next Decade, Inc.<\/span><\/p>\n

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