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You are here: Experts > Health/Fitness > Women's Health > Family, Internal Medicine, General Medical Questions > Ultrasound general question
Expert: Robert Borucki - 10/30/2009
Question
QUESTION: Can an Ultrasound of ONLY the gallbladder be performed...or does a Doctor have to order an Ultrasound of the Abdomen and or Abdominal Venous Ultrasound, in order to look at the gallbladder ?
ANSWER: you get into a $$$$ issue.. yes the GB can be done, but the people who do those tests, bundle the whole abd into it so they can charge more $$$$..... it is typically an US of the upper abd, a separate test is ultrasound of the aorta to look for an aneursym and separate is US of the kidneys.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Yes...$$$$ issues are why I'm asking this question. A year ago, my PCP at the time ordered an U/S of Abdomen because of some symptoms I was having back then. They, of course, checked my gallbladder, kidneys, etc...and the only abnormality was two 5mm polyps in my gallbladder, nothing that my MD was worried about. Recently, it had been a year since that scan and I took it upon myself to ask my new PCP to order follow-up U/S of the gallbladder, to see if the polyps have grown any. I sent a fax to him with my request and his RN called to schedule it to be done in their office. I had it done and recently received the EOB from my ins. co. and it had two procedure codes...one listed as ULTRASOUND and it was $180...and the other code said VASCULAR STUDY, and it was $450 !! This alarmed me because I didn't have vascular issues and I had been the one to request this procedure in the first place... and so I called my MD's office and got the run around and finally the office mgr. is researching my question and I'm waiting on her to call me back again. In the meantime, I contacted you here to do my own research before they call me again. IF a gallbladder U/S can be done alone without all the other stuff they did, then they should have done it that way and not charged me $450 more than necessary (my part will be $82.00). So...do you know for sure that U/S of gallbladder can be done alone ? I hope so ! Thanks for your input. Have a nice day...
Answer
I hate to say this.... but with insurance companies... offices get creative to be able to survive... things are a lot tighter in offices than you would think. Billing is sometimes creative and billing individual items can net more $$$.... but... if something was not indicated and you had no idea it was ordered or done, you should complain and get that removed from you bill... esp if you don't have insurance. PS... if you don't have insurance and you need those tests... find out what medicare reimburses a doctors office for a particular test and offer them that price plus 10 or 20%.... I readily accept that from patients, because these procedures are marked up soooo much, because we know they will get discounted heavily by the insurance companies. Typically, medicare reimbursement for a procedure is about 25% of the cost!
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