For lots of people, trying to access mental health treatment — like a therapist or a psychiatrist —is nothing short of a horror story. You could even call it a ghost story.
A “Ghost network” is what researchers and journalists call it when your insurance plan offers a list of “in-network” providers that turns out to be bogus. 
Attorney Abigail Burman has studied this haunted phenomenon, and she’s become a part-time volunteer ghostbuster for people in her life. She’s here to share her tactics with us — including some key legal terms that can provide leverage.
Abigail has written up a guide to her strategy, and she’s given us permission to share it. You’ll find it — lightly edited, and with some additional insights from our talk with her, over on First Aid Kit.
Warning: No silver bullets here. It’s still really, really hard. But Abigail has definitely got some hard-won insights we can use. 
Here’s a transcript of this episode.  Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG. And of course we’d love for you to support this show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mental health ‘ghost networks’ — and a ghost-buster

A show about why health care costs so freaking much, and what we can (maybe) do about it. Hosted by award-winning reporter Dan Weissmann (Marketplace, 99 Percent Invisible, Planet Money, Reveal). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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We’re launching a brand new project and need your help!
We’re zooming in on charges that are becoming more and more common on your medical bills: facility fees. 
Facility fees are charges tacked onto your bill for visiting a doctor’s office or clinic related to a hospital or larger health care system… or even talking with a doctor who’s in one of those places on a telehealth visit. 
If you’ve ever seen a charge for a facility fee on your medical bill, we want to hear from you. 
... and if you haven't, we'd love your help spreading the word!
Consider sharing our posts on any of these networks:
Instagram | TikTok | Facebook | Ex-Twtitter | LinkedIn
We’ll be back with more new episodes in a few weeks. 
In the meantime, send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.
And of course we’d love for you to support this show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re digging into “facility fees.” We need your help.

When a subsidiary of the giant UnitedHealth Group got hit by a cyberattack recently, a big chunk of the country’s doctors, pharmacists, hospitals and therapists just stopped getting paid. 
It’s been a huge disruption, with some providers wondering if they can keep their doors open.
But thanks to their huge size and reach, the situation may have had a silver lining — for United.
Which seems like a big problem, and got us wondering: What can we maybe do about it?
The answer turns out to be: Maybe more than we think, via antitrust enforcers at the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice.
Strap in for a wild ride — and then maybe check out FTC Chair Lina Khan’s talk with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. We include some short excerpts, but the whole thing is worth a watch.
Thanks to reporters Brittany Trang (STAT News) and Maureen Tkacik (The American Prospect) for guiding us through their reporting.
And to the novelist/journalist/activist Cory Doctorow, who has been writing about antitrust enforcement for years. Here are a couple of his columns about Lina Khan and what she and other antitrust enforcers are up to.
If you want a deeper dive on the new antitrust movement: It’s summed up in a terrific (and short) book by Tim Wu, a Columbia University law professor and former White House adviser: The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age. 
And you may be able to get it for free! If your local library uses a system called Hoopla, you can borrow it as either an audiobook or an ebook.
Super-fun tangent: Cory Doctorow and Tim Wu went to elementary school together — and apparently played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons — when they were kids in Toronto. 
Here’s a transcript of this episode. 
Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.
And of course we’d love for you to support this show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Hack

Reporter Bob Herman from STAT News unpacks his blockbuster investigation about the country’s biggest health care company.   
Covering the American health care system means we tell some scary stories. But this episode is almost like a horror movie. 
It’s got some of Hollywood’s favorite tropes: Machines taking over. Monsters from separate franchises meeting face to face in a new movie, like Godzilla and King Kong, or Jason and Freddy. And a couple perceptive folks warning everyone, ”Hey, look, something really bad is happening!” 
Those folks are Bob and his STAT News colleague Casey Ross. The monsters are United HealthGroup — a “behemoth” as one expert called them in an episode from last year — and Medicare Advantage, which we looked at in our last episode. And the “machines” belong to United.
Bob describes what some of United’s own employees said about the result: “For some of us, it's creating this moral crisis. Like we know that we are having to listen to an algorithm to essentially kick someone out of a nursing home, even though we know that they can barely walk 20 feet.” 
Scary stuff. But Bob and Casey’s reporting has caught the eye of some powerful people in government, and right now, Medicare Advantage plans are on notice from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the U.S. Senate is holding hearings, and the Department of Justice reportedly has an anti-trust investigation in the works. 
Here’s a transcript of this episode. 
Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.
And of course we’d love for you to support this show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Son of Medicare: Attack of the Machines

Health insurance sucks. Which leaves lots of us counting down the days until we turn 65 and can get on Medicare – the federal government’s health insurance program for seniors. 
But Medicare is a lot more complicated – and costs more money – than a lot of us realize. (Also, it involves insurance companies.) And:t There will be huge, complicated decisions to make when you turn 65, that can have huge consequences. 
The biggest, and most consequential: Choosing between original Medicare and Medicare Advantage – the privatized version sold by health insurance companies that’s advertised everywhere seniors look. 
Some folks who pick Medicare Advantage later regret it — but find there are no do-overs. 
We get the scoop from Reporter Sarah Jane Tribble, who’s been covering the story for KFF Health News and the Washington Post. 
And we get a preview: What do we all need to know before we hit 65 about the choices we’ll face? There are a lot of options, and a lot of price tags. Sarah Murdoch from the Medicare Right Center gives us an outline of those choices and their consequences — and supplies both tips and resources. 
The biggest: When it’s time for you -- or anyone you care about -- to make choices around Medicare, every state has a free source of unbiased advice and information: Here’s a link to find your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (or SHIP).
Here’s a transcript of this episode. 
Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.
And of course we’d love for you to support this show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Medicare Episode

A listener wrote to us at the beginning of the year with a query, “I was just reading the news about the price of insulin going down to $35! Is that for everyone?”
It turns out, there is a lot of good news about the so-called “poster child” for the high cost of prescription drugs. But to say it costs $35 now is an oversimplification – and diabetes activists don’t think this fight is over.
Senior producer and self-proclaimed “insulin correspondent” Emily Pisacreta took a hard look at the recent developments. 
Plus, what does the explosion of drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have to do with the price of insulin? We break it down. 
Here’s a transcript of this episode. 
Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.
And of course we’d love for you to support this show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mental health ‘ghost networks’ — and a ghost-buster

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