Prior to 1994, before Pat Palmer had begun making the public aware of the frequency of medical over-charging and abusive medical billing practices, most Americans had never heard of patient advocacy, let alone medical billing advocacy.
Medical billing advocacy works to educate the public on issues within the medical billing field, such as non-billable items and items already factored into the cost of doing business, unbundling and other outrageous billing errors. Pat has a passion to help all Americans know their rights when it comes to medical billing and to know the steps necessary to protect themselves against abusive medical billing practices.
As founder of two organizations dedicated to these tasks – Medical Billing Advocates of America and Medical Recovery Services – Pat continues to lead the way in this field after 20 years and will continue to do so for years to come.
How Did it All Begin?
Pat worked in a major insurance company in her hometown of Salem, Virginia. Because she worked in the medical billing industry, friends and family would periodically approach her with questions and complaints on their medical bills and insurance reimbursements.
Partly because she loves a challenge but mostly because she has a genuine longing to help others, she began taking on the task of trying to get to the bottom of her loved ones’ bills, only to find an endless black hole of confusion, buck-passing, run-arounds and inconsistencies at the other end.
In 20 years of leading the medical billing advocacy industry, Pat has seen some tremendous over-charges, including a toothbrush with a charge of more than $1,000, a $15 aspirin and $158 for the use of a blanket.
However, Pat knows that erroneous charges have been increasing in frequency over the last few years and that even more serious medical billing complications are coming down the pike. Pat and her team are hard at work warning the public of these occurrences.
The Future of Medical Billing Advocacy
In the last few years, several situations have become more commonplace in medical billing errors. Pat and her team have been hard at work alarming the public of the rapidly increasing frequency of medical billing errors and the appearance of new areas that quickly rack up charges, such as incorrect status (for example, a patient staying in observation status for more than 72 hours) and trauma activation charges for a 45-minute emergency room visit.
Thankfully, though, Pat has been proactive in her thinking and watches for trends in medical over-billing so that she can warn the public and develop a “best-practices” guideline for any of these scenarios.
Hundreds of thousands of clients across the country are thankful for Pat’s expertise and passion for fighting healthcare giants for accurate billing. Not many of us could successfully battle this entity on our own.
But with Pat’s years of experience battling healthcare facilities for “True & Accurate” charges and “Fair & Reasonable” prices, she and her staff of medical professionals are happy to help anyone who believes they have been charged incorrectly or unfairly. Call Pat and her team at Medical Billing Advocates of America and Medical Recovery Services to ease your anxiety about your medical bills.
