I am seeing something that disturbs me a great deal. I’m not high in the hospital pecking order or chain of command, but I have been working in the field of health care for 30 years. I believe there is something very, very wrong in the current system. Recently our insurance collection personnel have been mandated by a new hospital CEO who was sent specifically to this facility to “improve collections”, the mandate was to utilize already existing software which reports on a patients financial records to see if the patient who is scheduled for a test or surgery has “bad debt” to the hospital, if they do have bad debt and they are a patient without insurance, the staff has been instructed to tell the patient they must pay in full when being admitted. If the patient says they cannot do so the collections personnel are instructed to call the doctor and ask if the test or surgery must be done at that time. If the doctor says it is not necessary to do the test immediately. The collections personnel ask him to cancel the test or surgery to “later” Does anyone else out there feel as uncomfortable as me with the possible scenarios or situations this collections policy might instigate? As a long time nurse, as a human being, and as a employee who previously believed in the American Health Care system, I now find myself with some heavy duty questions about Health Care in America.