A motorist who was hurt in a collision with a wrong-way driver last April has sued a Texas City hospital, claiming her $20,211 bill for a four-hour emergency room stay is excessive.

The motorist, Melissa Torres, actaully filed a lawsuit against Mainland Medical Center in Texas City. Her claim? That  the hospital increased its bill fivefold and made a claim against her insurance settlement. In return the hospital filed a lien on her property in Galveston County to settle the outstanding bill.

What the **** is going on here?

This is what happened:

1. Melissa Torres was hurt in a collision with a wrong-way driver last April
2. She went to the ER for a 4 hour stay
3. The stay in the ER cost her $4,850
4. After her short-stay in the ER Torres hired an attorney
5. The attorney filed a claim against the wrong-way driver, which settled for the driver’s insurance policy limit of $30,000.

Now here comes the messy part:

1. The Hospital learned that Torres was involved in an automobile claim.
2. It simply updated the online billing records to show a new balance of: $20,211.

So there you go. Make sure you have an online billing system. And change the bills on the fly if you think you can get more out of your clients. Or steal some money. Or create a security breach in hospital e-billing system.

Perhaps it is time that their came some quality control on the products and implementations of e-invoicing, e-billing, invoice automation and so on.