Saturday, September 10, 2005
For Once...
...a class action lawsuit I can get behind.
A lawsuit spawned by a $1,133 bill to clip a toenail and run some tests at a hospital has been certified as a class action.Years ago, I had a huge dispute over the excessive bill I was charged by an emergency room when I woke up in the middle of the night with a eye infection, what they did for me would have cost 25% as much at the doctor the next day --problem was I was in pain at 2 in the morning. I paid them double what the doctor would have charged if I could have waited until morning and told them to come get the rest. They never did.
The ruling this week in King County Superior Court could raise the stakes by millions of dollars in a consumer protection case brought by Lori Mill against Virginia Mason Medical Center.
Mill is challenging a $418 fee included in the bill for "miscellaneous hospital charges" because she had the work done at Virginia Mason's downtown complex rather than at one of the medical center's satellite clinics.
