On Facebook, we recently asked the question; Have you ever paid a medical bill online, and/or would you be comfortable doing so. Our sample of users was very small, with only 5 people participating, but you all marked that you have not paid a medical bill online, but would be willing to do so without reservation.

My next question for you is:

Why haven’t you paid a medical bill online? Is it because your physician doesn’t offer it as a payment method? Please leave your answer in the comments below.

If you haven’t joined us on Facebook please do so by clicking here.

Thank you to everybody that participated in our poll on Facebook. We appreciate every response we get to a question or poll posted on our business page. Our goal is to create a community of users that can help us provide better billing solutions for patients and physicians. If you have have any confusion about a medical bill or think something in the billing process is confusing please let us know and maybe we can help you understand what is being done.

As always please keep any confidential information to yourselves. This is a public website and anything you write can be viewed by anyone.

The NWI Times is reporting that Porter County has officially broken ground on the site of the new Porter Hospital. The new facility is being moved from downtown Valparaiso to a more centralized location in order to better serve the entire Porter community.

Photo and quotation are property of the NWI Times

Dr. Douglas Mazurek, who serves as president of the hospital’s medical staff, said the new facility is slated to open its doors in 2012.

Read the full story here.

The flu season is in full swing and from the looks of things it is spreading very quickly. With the the current flu flare-up and the threat of the swine flu hovering around us all of the time Porter decided it was in the best interest of their patients and the community to disallow children under the age of 18 to visit patients in the hospital.

A quote from Taffy Arias, Porter’s Chief Nursing Officer:

“Children and young adults are particularly vulnerable to this new flu, and we know from seasonal flu that children are often the source of influenza outbreaks,” explains Taffy Arias, Porter’s Chief Nursing Officer. “By limiting child visitors, we are attempting to protect vulnerable patients from exposure to H1N1 and thereby complicating their hospital stay.”

I don’t have a particularly strong feeling on this subject either way, but do feel that this is a bit much. I believe that asking all visitors to wear masks and to sanitize their hands before entering a patient’s room would be sufficient. I am not sure that stopping a few cases of the flu is worth banning children from the hospital especially if the patient is the parent or guardian of a child that simply wishes to see their loved ones.

I can see that this could be a polarizing debate and would love to hear what you have to say about it. Leave a comment below to discuss your thoughts.

Thanks to ValpoLife for bringing this article to my attention. If you don’t already follow them on twitter @valpolife I suggest you start.