I'm sure by now you're familiar with our Thanksgiving-Eve visit to the emergency room when John developed kidney stones.
Before we went to the ER, we had gone to the Immediate Care Center located next door, not realizing how serious his situation was, thinking perhaps he had a stomach flu or some virus. And neither of us are the types to go to an E.R. unless we feel it's a major emergency, thus the reason for going to the ICC.
When we arrived at ICC, there was nobody ahead of us, so they took John directly back. Other than taking his temperature (which was normal) and his blood pressure, they did nothing to him. The doctor asked him a couple of questions and told him he would be better off going to the E.R. next door. Before leaving the building, they did not give us a copy of the patient services page that the doctor normally marks on to show what tests were run, a diagnosis, etc. The doctor basically waved us away and told us not to worry about stopping at the front desk on our way out, so we felt he was just brushing the incident aside as if it had never happened.
Needless to say, we were wrong.
I received a bill in the mail yesterday.
For the approximately 3 minutes John was there they charged our insurance company $452.00.
Even if we'd been there a full 5 minutes, that's almost a $100 a minute. How on earth do these doctors/companies justify that amount for doing nothing????
Fortunately, our portion of the bill is only $10.26, which I suppose is to cover the use of their thermometer, wear and tear on the bp cuff, and fresh paper on the exam table.
In a separate bill we received this week from the hospital, they charged $6313.75, and that's just the hospital's charges. That doesn't include the lab or the doctor's charges.
We were there for approximately 5 hours, so that's over $1200/hour.
OMG!! I hate to think what it would've been if they'd admitted him for the night.
Geesh, do you think they charge more for holidays and after-hours visits??
5 comments:
Insane. I remember it being over $5,000 when I had my miscarriage. They should totally give you a discount if you don't get to leave with the baby. I once heard an aspirin in the hospital costs $50!
Unbelievable. I was talking with Hubby the other day about how outrageous everything in the hospital costs.
Glad you only have to pay $10.26.
Phew!
Hugs!!
Long live the Australian Medicare system where it is all free (unless you go to a private hospital). Will Obama's new health system change any of this for you poor folks? I know I wouldn't be getting any medical treatment at all if I was in the US - who can afford it?
I keep hearing about foreign countries that have free healthcare, I don't know how they do it! Wish the USA would follow suit. Not sure what the prez's reform will do to us, just have to wait and see I guess.
We pay an additional 1.5% tax each (and for the wealthy that don't have private insurance they may have another 1% added on top). That easy :-) That gives us our free health care as well as subsidized medication - you can get vast majority of prescriptions for about $20 instead of the real cost.
The system isn't perfect (but no one has one of those) but I have no idea why there is all the kurfuffle over there about getting a similar one lol
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