NJHCQI In The News
New Jersey Hospital Price Transparency Report
Dec/13/2009
NJHCQI 
Sticker-shock treatment: N.J. hospital bills highest in nation
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Susan K. Livio
STAR-LEDGER STAFF
The pain in Dan Abrams' leg throbbed so much he could barely stand.
Still, the 60-year-old Somerville resident, who friends say had just canceled his health insurance because of the tough economy, debated from a hospital emergency room whether he should stay and run up thousands of dollars in debt, or take antibiotics from home and hope they arrested the mysterious infection in his leg.
Fearing he could lose his home and flooring business, Abrams chose to leave Somerset Medical Center after a hospital physician said staying would "run him a lot of money," said Connie Dodd, a close friend who drove him to the hospital and heard the conversation. "I begged him to stay. But Dan's a proud man. Talk of all the bills got him scared."
When Connie and her partner, Cindy Weiss, brought Abrams dinner the next night, July 29, they found his lifeless body in bed. Weiss performed CPR but it was too late. "It was a nightmare," Dodd said.
For people without health insurance, few things are more intimidating than the arrival of a hospital bill.
Nowhere is the sticker shock worse in the country than in New Jersey, according to health experts and a new report by the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute, a prominent health care policy group based in Trenton.
Again, the full Transparency Report can be downloaded by clicking here.
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Ridgewood Views blog
Vita Advisors blog
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Susan K. Livio
STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Daily Record
Cherry Hill Courier Post
Philadelphia Inquirer
CBS News
Gloucester County Times http://www.nj.com/gloucester/index.ssf?/base/news-1/126129391852340.xml&coll=8
Ridgewood Views blog
Vita Advisors blog