Reesha Ahmed was on cloud 9.

It was January and Ahmed was at an OB-GYN’s workplace close to her house in Venus, Texas, for her first prenatal checkup. After an ultrasound, getting anti-nausea remedy, and discussing her being pregnant care plan, she mentioned, a nurse made a handy suggestion: Head to the lab simply down the corridor for the standard panel of assessments.

The lab was inside Texas Well being Hospital Mansfield, which opened in December 2020 in a Dallas-Fort Value suburb. Ahmed, simply eight weeks pregnant, mentioned the physician advised her every thing in regards to the go to was routine. “Nothing actually stood out,” Ahmed mentioned. “And, in fact, there’s simply quite a lot of pleasure, and so I actually did not suppose twice about something.”

Her blood assessments checked for a number of sexually transmitted infections, her blood kind, and varied hormones. Inside days, Ahmed started bleeding and her pleasure turned to concern. A repeat ultrasound in early February confirmed no fetus.

“My coronary heart type of fell aside at that second as a result of I knew precisely what that meant,” she mentioned. She would have a miscarriage.

Then the payments got here.

The Affected person: Reesha Ahmed, 32, has an Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Defend coverage via her employer.

Medical Providers: An evaluation of Pap smear outcomes and several other blood assessments in tandem with Ahmed’s preliminary prenatal go to, together with full blood depend, blood kind, and testing for STIs comparable to hepatitis B, syphilis, and HIV.

Service Supplier: Ahmed bought her assessments at Texas Well being Mansfield, a tax-exempt hospital collectively operated by Texas Well being Assets, a faith-based nonprofit well being system, and AdventHealth, one other spiritual nonprofit.

Complete Invoice: The hospital charged $9,520.02 for the blood assessments and pathology companies. The insurer negotiated that all the way down to $6,700.50 after which paid $4,310.38, leaving Ahmed with a lab invoice of $2,390.12.

What Provides: Ahmed’s state of affairs reveals how hospital-based labs typically cost excessive costs for assessments. Even when suppliers are in community, a affected person might be on the hook for 1000’s of {dollars} for widespread blood assessments which might be far cheaper in different settings. Analysis exhibits hospitals usually cost far more than physicians’ workplaces or impartial business labs for a similar assessments.

The state of affairs was notably troublesome for Ahmed as a result of she had misplaced the being pregnant.

“To come back to phrases with it mentally, emotionally, bodily — coping with the ramifications of the miscarriage — after which having to muster up the preventing energy to then begin calling your insurance coverage, and the billing division, the supplier’s workplace, making an attempt to combat again a invoice that you do not really feel such as you have been accurately despatched? It is simply, it is rather a lot,” she mentioned.

In Texas, the identical lab assessments have been a minimum of six occasions as costly in a hospital as in a health care provider’s workplace, in response to analysis from the Well being Care Price Institute, a nonprofit that examines well being spending.

The markup might be even larger relying on the take a look at. HCCI knowledge, primarily based on 2019 costs, exhibits the median worth for an entire blood depend in Texas was $6.34 at an impartial lab and $58.22 at a hospital. Texas Well being charged Ahmed $206.69 for that take a look at alone.

“It’s handy to get your lab achieved proper in the identical constructing,” mentioned Jessica Chang, a senior researcher at HCCI, however “many sufferers should not excited about how extremely marked up these lab assessments are.” Chang mentioned she suspects many hospitals tack on their overhead prices once they invoice insurance coverage.

Anthem additionally charged Ahmed for a minimum of 4 assessments that almost all insurance policy would contemplate preventive care and subsequently coated for free of charge to sufferers underneath the Inexpensive Care Act’s necessities for masking preventive care, which incorporates elements of prenatal care. Her EOBs, or “rationalization of advantages” notices, present she paid out-of-pocket for a take a look at figuring out her Rh issue — which detects a protein on the floor of pink blood cells — in addition to for assessments for hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and syphilis.

Requested to evaluation Ahmed’s assessments, Anthem spokesperson Emily Snooks wrote in an electronic mail to KFF Well being Information that the claims “have been submitted as diagnostic — not preventive — and have been paid in response to the advantages within the member’s well being plan.”

There “undoubtedly should not be” out-of-pocket prices for these screenings, mentioned Sabrina Corlette, co-director of Georgetown College’s Middle on Well being Insurance coverage Reforms.

The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention recommends screening pregnant sufferers for a number of infectious ailments that pose main dangers throughout being pregnant. Ina Park, a professor of household group drugs on the College of California-San Francisco and an professional on STIs, mentioned the assessments Ahmed acquired did not increase pink flags from a scientific perspective. “It is actually extra what the precise lab charged primarily based on what the assessments truly value,” Park mentioned. “It is a actually exorbitant worth.”

For instance, Ahmed paid $71.86 in coinsurance for a hepatitis B take a look at for which the hospital charged $418.55. The hospital charged $295.52 to display screen for syphilis; her out-of-pocket value was $50.74.

“You simply marvel, is the insurance coverage firm actually negotiating with this supplier as aggressively as they need to to maintain the reimbursement to an affordable quantity?” Corlette mentioned.

The Decision: Ahmed refused to pay the payments and Texas Well being despatched the debt to collections. When she tried to get solutions in regards to the prices, she mentioned she was bounced between the physician’s workplace and the hospital billing division. Ahmed submitted a grievance to the Texas legal professional basic’s workplace, which handed it to the Texas Well being and Human Providers Fee. She by no means heard again.

In response to Ahmed, a hospital consultant instructed her bloodwork might need been coded incorrectly and agreed the fees “have been actually unusually excessive,” Ahmed mentioned, however she was advised there was nothing the hospital might do to vary it. The hospital didn’t touch upon the rationale behind the excessive cost. And in a March 7 electronic mail, an AdventHealth worker advised Ahmed the physician’s workplace had “no management” over the hospital’s billing.

Ahmed filed an enchantment with Anthem, nevertheless it was denied. The insurance coverage firm acknowledged the claims have been processed accurately underneath her advantages, which cowl 80% of what the insurer agrees to pay for in-network lab companies after she meets her deductible. Ahmed has a $1,400 deductible and a $4,600 out-of-pocket most for in-network suppliers.

“We rely on well being care suppliers to submit correct billing info relating to what medical care was wanted and delivered,” Snooks mentioned. Requested about reimbursements to the Texas Well being lab, she added, “The declare was reimbursed primarily based on the laboratory’s contract with the well being plan.”

After a KFF Well being Information reporter contacted Texas Well being on Oct. 9, the hospital referred to as Ahmed on Oct. 10 and mentioned it will zero out her payments and take away the fees from collections. Ahmed was relieved, “like a large burden’s simply been lifted off my shoulders.”

“It’s simply been preventing this for 10 months now, and it is lastly gone,” she mentioned.

Texas Well being Assets and AdventHealth declined to reply to detailed questions on Ahmed’s expenses and the assessments she was directed to acquire.

“We’re sorry Ms. Ahmed didn’t get readability on her care with us. Our prime precedence is to offer our sufferers with protected, efficient and medically applicable care,” Laura Shea, a spokesperson for the hospital, mentioned in an emailed assertion.

The Takeaway: Ahmed’s drawback demonstrates the pitfalls of utilizing a hospital lab for routine testing.

For traditional bloodwork “it is actually onerous to argue that there is a high quality distinction” between impartial labs and hospitals that may warrant larger costs, Chang mentioned. That holds true for different companies, too, like imaging. “There’s nothing particular in regards to the machines that hospitals use for a CT or MRI scan. It is the identical machine.”

Broadly, state and federal lawmakers are taking note of this concern. Congress is contemplating laws that may equalize funds for sure companies no matter whether or not they’re offered in a hospital outpatient division or a health care provider’s workplace, though not lab companies. Hospitals have tried to fend off such a coverage, generally known as “site-neutral funds.”

For instance, the Decrease Prices, Extra Transparency Act would require the identical costs underneath Medicare for physician-administered medicine no matter whether or not they’re given in a health care provider’s workplace or an off-campus hospital outpatient division. That invoice additionally would require labs to make public the costs they cost Medicare for assessments. One other invoice, the Bipartisan Major Care and Well being Workforce Act, would ban hospitals from charging business well being plans some facility charges — which they use to cowl working or administrative bills.

In response to the Nationwide Convention of State Legislatures, Colorado, Connecticut, Ohio, New York, and Texas have restricted suppliers’ means to cost privately insured sufferers facility charges for sure companies. Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, and New York require well being services to reveal facility charges to sufferers earlier than offering care; Florida instituted related necessities for free-standing emergency departments.

Sufferers ought to hold copies of itemized payments and insurance coverage statements. Whereas not the one proof, these paperwork will help sufferers keep away from out-of-pocket prices for really useful preventive screenings.

For now, sufferers can proactively keep away from such excessive payments: When your physician says you want blood assessments, ask that the requisition be despatched to a business lab like Labcorp or Quest Diagnostics that’s in your community and have the assessments achieved there. If they cannot do it electronically, ask for a paper requisition.

“Do not all the time simply go to the lab that your physician recommends to you,” Corlette mentioned.

Stephanie O’Neill reported the audio story.