Hospital charges woman $847 for ‘Zoom call’ with doctors

A Colorado children’s hospital charged a woman nearly $850 as a “facility fee” for a telehealth visit via a “Zoom call” for her 3-year-old son, local outlet KDVR reported.

“I can tell you right now I would’ve gone elsewhere if they had told me there was an $850 fee, essentially for a Zoom call,” mother Brittany Tesso told KDVR. She received the bill from Children’s Hospital Colorado after an initial $676.89 charge for a two-hour speech therapy examination, which Tesso “thought was extreme,” but nonetheless paid.

“I was like, ‘Facility fee? I didn’t go to your facility. I was at home, and as far as I could tell, some of the doctors were at home too.’ And [a hospital representative] said, ‘Well, we charge the same whether you come to the facility or it’s a telehealth appointment,’” Tesso said, KDVR reported.

“This sounds like essentially gouging, it’s really charging for a facility, i.e., the hospital, which they are not even accessing,” Adam Fox, deputy director at the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, told KDVR. – READ MORE