Medical offices bill patients for PPE; other clinics eat the cost

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — Patients at some medical offices around Colorado Springs are being billed for masks, gloves, and COVID-19 cleaning. 

People tell KRDO Newschannel 13 they’ve been charged anywhere from $10 to $75 for PPE per visit. But some offices are handling the expenses differently.

Chera Hope owns Hope Physical Therapy and Wellness in the Springs.

She says gloves and masks are selling for three to four times as much as they did before the pandemic. Still, Hope is trying to prevent her patients from footing the extra bill.

 “I really don’t want to charge patients for the gloves that we’ve always used and never charged them for or the masks that we have to wear now as a precaution,” Hope said. “So yeah we just basically eat that cost.”

Sometimes insurance will cover some or all of the charge, but not always.

Hope got excited when the Physical Therapy Association notified her there was an insurance code she could bill to be reimbursed for some of the company’s PPE expenses. However, nothing changed with the code.

“Not one insurance company has paid a penny for that,” she said.