{"id":44405,"date":"2014-06-03T01:14:43","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T01:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/local_paper_medicare_leaves_some_observation_patients_on_the_hook_for_huge_\/"},"modified":"2014-06-03T01:14:43","modified_gmt":"2014-06-03T01:14:43","slug":"local_paper_medicare_leaves_some_observation_patients_on_the_hook_for_huge_","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=44405","title":{"rendered":"(Local paper) Medicare leaves some &#39;observation&#39; patients on the hook for huge bills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When 83-year-old Maybell Prewette spent one night in an Eden, N.C., hospital a few years ago because she felt dizzy, she was stunned to find out that a couple puffs of allergy nasal spray cost her more than $600.<\/p>\n<p>Medicare didn&#8217;t cover the prescription because Prewette was never admitted as a patient at the hospital.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, she was kept overnight for observation. The federal Medicare program doesn&#8217;t cover the cost of drugs self-administered by &#8220;observation status&#8221; patients.<\/p>\n<p>Prewette called her local pharmacy after she was discharged and discovered it charges $30 for the same nasal spray. The hospital marked the medicine up 2,000 percent.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.postandcourier.com\/article\/20140601\/PC16\/140609943\/1006\/medicare-rule-could-mean-big-bill-for-you\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When 83-year-old Maybell Prewette spent one night in an Eden, N.C., hospital a few years ago because she felt dizzy, she was stunned to find out that a couple puffs of allergy nasal spray cost her more than $600. Medicare<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=44405\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,40,582,589,149,168,104,675,593,584,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-watch","category-economics-politics","category-consumerconsumer-spending","category-corporationscorporate-life","category-economy","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-health-medicine","category-medicare","category-personal-finance","category-the-u-s-government","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}