$44 million hospital bill highlights overbilling problems

The escalating costs of healthcare have been widely reported, but a bill for a three-week hospital stay left one New Yorker reeling when he was charged $44.8 million, according to The New York Daily News.

Alexis Rodrieguez had been treated for pneumonia at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital.

PHY Services said the pricey hospital bill was a mistake resulting from human error when the invoice number was entered into the amount due field.

The issue calls attention to an ongoing problem in healthcare services — overbilling. It also raises questions about training, how health IT is implemented, the approaching deadline for electronic medical records, and what it will take to improve the error rate — a number Stephen Parente, a professor of health finance at the University of Minnesota, estimates to be 30 percent to 40 percent.