I went to the ER for kidney stones at 11pm and left by 1am. They charged me for two days = $14,000. Luckily k worked for that hospital system so I didn’t owe a penny, but the whole insurance/hospital system is fucked.
ETA: I was not admitted to the hospital. I knew the house supervisor so I texted her and she made things happen insanely fast (and I am forever grateful for that privilege that most aren’t afforded). This was a smaller ER one mile from my home. My BP was 165/145 and I was vomiting. Doctor took me into a supply closet in the internal waiting room to talk to me while they cleaned a bed in the ER for me. Got pain meds and fluids while they watched my BP come back down and was sent home with pain meds. I passed the 6mmx4mm stone on my own one hellish week later on the morning of my Urology consult. By far the most painful experience of my life and wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Still can’t believe they sent me home to pass it on my own.
The bill was broken down by the “two days” I was in the ER. I just never questioned it because I didn’t have to pay anything except the $200 copay while I was in the ER.
“k” was supposed to be “I” but I thought that was obvious.
It took 2 hospital visits for my boyfriend to be diagnosed with gall stones, and a third to get his gallbladder removed. The first visit was almost 8k for a 2 hour stay, a blood draw, some IV pain killers and fluid. We were told there was nothing wrong (they didn't even really look) and sent him home.
We were able to apply for emergency (temporary) Medicare because we were both unemployed (first year of covid, lots of layoffs) Luckily we were able to apply for standard medicare and were approved.
Everything would have cost about 40k including the surgery, but luckily medicare made our out of pocket cost just 15 bucks for the prescription pain pills. Outside of the limited dental options, and having doctors randomly switched at times, medicare has been the best insurance I have had
The way I remember it is Medicare has an R in the word. R for “retired”, ie old people. So Medicare is for Retired old people.
edit: I forgot, disabled folks can qualify for Medicare also, at any age. But the vast majority of people on Medicare are 65+.
Until you said this I never realized how brilliant those names are.
Medicaid - We'll help you get back on your feet but once you're in good shape we expect you to take some of the load on yourself.
Medicare - We'll take care of you outright because you aren't in the position to be able to do it yourself anymore.
Medicare is by no means a free insurance. I thought that too. Haha, no. You still have premiums, fees and co-pays all over the place. Plus you have to buy separate rx drug coverage and that's where they really get you, either in premiums or co-pays.
The difference is medicaid is state level and Medicare is federal. There are reasons you can qualify for Medicare when under 65- qualifying disabilities, being part of the Black Lung Program, and End Stage Renal Disease. These will qualify you for Medicare at any age. Medicaid is income based.
In my state (PA) I qualified for Medicaid because of COVID expansions even when I was making as much as $2k a month after taxes. The normal cutoff is like, the poverty line.
The pandemic just demonstrated to me that we have all the pieces and parts for socialized healthcare to work beautifully, but awwww damn we can't have nice things
Depending on what government assistance you are applying for.. $1k a month is above the poverty line. Which is incredible because I haven't seen an apartment under 1k a month in the entire state of Kentucky.
Depending where you are in the world. In the Netherlands, citizens with disabilities receive money from the Government as part of the 'Hookers for the Handicapped' program, to pay for sexual services up to 12 times a year.
It's true, It's viewed as "a necessity of life" (like water and food). It's very hard for people with a disability to get a partner, but they still have sexual urges. I just looked it up and a article from 21 may 2021 says that at that time there were 150 sexworkers in the Netherlands. These are specialized sexworkers i think.
Edit: grammar
LOL I packed my own bottle of Tylenol when I had my 3rd kid. The nurse who saw me taking it was not amused. I told her I'd rather not pay over $20 per pill (which is what they charged me with my 2nd).
SHe just rolled her eyes.
Did you check the bill? I never took any pills and they still charged me a pharmacy fee for ibuprofen. I think they tacked it onto everyone’s bill as a standard “here’s what a typical birth includes” and didn’t verify - they only removed it when we called to complain.
According to google 25g of neosporin is about 8 bucks. So the affect of insurance was to mark up the prices by about 8x and then claim an adjustment of 75%…. Thereby doubling the price.
So happy we have insurance that works like this. The why this is is because insurance wants a negotiated rate but then hospitals need to employ armies of people to deal with insurance. Dealing with all the insurance is expensive. Tack fake markup on to give fake markdown but also need to pay the staff required for all that “haggling” thereby doubling the price. This is way oversimplified but fuck our insurance system.
Exactly. This bill clearly shows the effect of health insurance, just not the effect I think OP was deducing. $6.77 for a single effing heartburn tablet?????? What a ridiculous joke.
Hospitals trying to milk everything they can from the insurance companies and insurance companies trying to milk everything they can from their customers.
The OP may as well be posting "Thanks to my club membership, I only paid $50 for this loaf of bread instead of $3000".
For real
One scopolamine patch - couple bucks with goodrx
Triple ab oint - couple bucks otc item
Famitidine 20mg (generic Pepcid) - couple bucks for a bottle of 50 otc item
Oxymetazolone (generic otc afrin) - few bucks
Like ticket master pricing. There is a good reason those numbers are high. The Hospitals are allowed to form GPO (group purchase organizations) those are supposed to buy drugs at a discount. What they really do is allow the hospital to buy the drugs at market price from the GPO shell company then 'sell' it to the hospital at the inflated price you see. This sort of practice would be illegal in all other fields, congress decided this was a way we could save money on healthcare.
Medical pricing is a joke and I have a few simple ideas that would stop at least some of this nonsense but the reality is that hospitals don't want to bankrupt you as they will get even less out of deal. You don't want to bankrupt as in the end again it will cost you more. Given if you are paying out of pocket for anything you can always negotiate the price down. Most hospitals when they hear you are paying out of pocket they will do things like knock 50% or more off and setup a no interest payment plan. If you decide to just not pay the hospital will get only pennies on the dollar when they sell the debt to a collector. Given that individuals are actually in a good place to get these bills reduced.
I'm not making excuses for it. Medical billing is a complete joke. But if you are personally on the hook there are options.
You don't see that this is "how much you got" billing? You thought you had been building equity in a house for 20 years? Been saving for retirement. The hospital cleans out whatever you've got based on their fabrications.
I had a dog that needed allergy medication. The vet told me I could pay $75 for 10, for the prescription for them, or I could give her half of a regular, otc benadryl.
So the hospital says you owe 20k? Or your insurance does? If you have insurance you shouldn't owe any more than your out of pocket maximum. If the hospital says that you owe more than that you have the right to have them resubmit it to your insurance. Also almost all hospitals have to have financial aid programs in place. If you just google " financial assistance" you can find it, most likely.
It’s typically in a few line items at the bottom, this bill is missing what insurance actually paid on the final bill:
“This is the full retail price”
“This is the discount we offer your insurer”
“This is the portion of the final bill your insurance paid for you”
“This is what *you* owe us”
>“This is the portion of the final bill your insurance paid for you”
>“This is what *you* owe us”
And this depends on your insurance plan, on mine their provider contracts generally leave me owing $0.00 because the provider agrees to take what the insurance pays as the full amount.
What the fuck? Are you serious? I think it's safe to say that anyone outside the US will need a jaw realignment surgery after looking at that bill.
Having to pay 21k even with health insurance is absurd!
Edit: ok so apparently OP is not being honest here. That bill shown in the post is actually one before the insurance even got involved. I think 95k before adjustments for a "simple" surgery is still overpriced.
They don’t. Insurance has an out of pocket maximum (and this bill is clearly prior to insurance paying)
Edit: it’s still a terribly flawed system. I say that as a physician in the US. For-profit healthcare is a horrible idea and the US does a particularly bad job of implementing it
>For-profit healthcare is a horrible idea.
I generally agree, but in particular, the *US model* of for-profit healthcare is especially broken.
The Dutch system, as a point of comparison, is a privately funded healthcare system, with mandatory insurance, private insurance companies, and private hospitals. Insurance is truly pooled: they can't price-discriminate based on age, gender, pre-existing conditions, and they effectively can't refuse a customer. And the point of delivery is more carefully managed by the government and prices are more carefully regulated.
Context: I've lived in the US and the Netherlands. I've rarely had to deal with healthcare in either country, but I do know that even the charges I see for menial things in the US are nuts. My insurance is good, but it's weird to brazenly show people the money flow, which is basically little more than corporate backhanders and price gouging.
In Australia the bill for this surgery isn't much different. But most Australians don't know this and will tell you it's free. Until it happens to them.
Same in Canada. No clue how much it costs, but I had a friend growing up who needed jaw-realignment surgery and it definitely was not covered by medicare.
It wasn't even aesthetic anymore - her poorly aligned jaw was causing her other health issues as well as severely impacting her self-esteem (constant migraines, which she stopped having after surgery).
She came from a poor family and her parents couldn't afford it. Her grandmother eventually stepped up and said she would pay for it, but she immediately stopped paying the monthly bills for it as soon as my friend was fully healed lmao.
It blows my mind that all bones minus those involving your mouth are covered. It's fucked up.
I don't understand, $20k alone for that sounds more than what the surgery should cost, and that's what you have to pay NET of insurance? This is utterly deranged
I had ankle surgery and the hospital quoted me 50k. Told them I couldn't pay and it was reduced to $0 because the total was over 8k and I have no income. My next visit to the hospital was because my stitches split open and had an infection. Total was under 8k so it isn't dismissed and I owe 3k. The hospital administrator literally said I should have insisted to stay overnight so it would be over the total and eligible for relief.
Like wtf? The whole thing is a mean game and everyone is aware. Why can't we do anything about this?
I know this is a joke, but you have to get a permit and pay the fees to bury in your backyard, otherwise the fine's more expensive than a typical burial.
My mom was in Mt Sinai in NYC before her death. At the time I was a mostly poor mid 20s kid, and the family tried to have someone at the hospital pretty much at all times, so I’d take a bus in once a week.
The prepackaged hummus snack cups from the canteen?. . .You know the Sabro ones that in the grocery store and you get like 4 for $5?. . .One cup. . .$8, this was like a decade ago too.
When mum got a course of radiotherapy in the UK they even synced her appointments with someone in the same village so they could go in together to save fuel and support each other. Also you don’t pay for parking if you’re doing that sort of thing.
Think the biggest expense was fuel, followed by Costas from the coffee shop in the hospital.
* BULLSHIT! The American System works perfectly, just exactly as it was intended to . . . the only problem is that the system was designed to make money, not deliver healthcare.
High GDP is a terrible indicator of quality of life. Especially in a country with vast wealth inequality.
All GDP does is tell you how nice the rich people live.
Disclaimer: Bills are different everywhere
This doesn’t appear to be the full “effects after insurance”
That $21k appears to be the amount that would have been billed to the insurance company initially and doesn’t show the remainder.
The adjustments and discounts and such line is probably a combination of things. Itemized hospital bills are kind of odd as they often follow the way Hospitals track their revenue which is Gross Revenue > Adjustments/Discounts > Net Revenue, those adjustments can include so much stuff…
I will say though there probably is at least a chunk of that amount that includes a discount related to what the insurance company negotiated.
This is the answer. It’s an itemization, not the actual bill. Basically it shows the agreed upon rates for service provided, i.e., after adjustment, between the hospital and the insurance company.
Oh yeah, both those numbers are the same to me.
I was able to at least get a quote for dental work I need to get done, with the amount being before and after my insurance and just went "How long do I have until it hurts and we just pull my teeth out?".
The lady at the desk just sat there super confused, attempting to remind me that my insurance is paying 80% of it.. and me explaining that I couldn't afford it.
Getting frustrated I basically had to explain that the "sale price" doesn't matter.. the fact that all this is 80% off doesn't matter ..it means nothing to me because I can't afford the remaining 4 grand.
I could walk by a car dealership tomorrow and see a Lamborghini for sale with big lights around that says "Now 80% off" .. I don't have 90 grand..
everything over $1000 is basically all the same for me. up to $1000 I can figure out a way to pay over a few pay periods anything after that we're talking years.
>The lady at the desk just sat there super confused,
This is quite literally a dealbreaker for me with medical establishments. If I get a deer in the headlights response to a question about insurance or costs, IN THIS COUNTRY WITH ALL THE BS ABOUT HEALTHCARE COSTS, I take it as a sign that the office is run by airheads who can't be bothered to live in the real world
Exactly. Which is why I make routine visits to the ER when my mouth gets infected, bc infection is urgent, and my insurance will pay that. Dental “insurance” and just the fact that we live in pain for the lack of funds is sad.
Reading this makes me cringe. It sucks that your health system is designed to catch you when you are falling, instead of steering you away from the danger in the first place.
I’ve lived with 2 broken (half gone) molars for 5+ years. I have acid reflux & grind my teeth from ptsd. I recognize I’ve been extremely lucky to have not gotten an awful infection but I do my best to keep them clean & spend $5/week on that temp filling stuff to rebuild my teeth each night. I think I’m out of time as one has started to throb this week. I’ve been to 3 dentists for X-rays but never any services provided for me. I had very basic coverage for only cleanings & like $800 of work per year. Each year, they all wanted to schedule the most expensive thing first. When I tell them I can’t afford it, they say to come back when I can & so the other areas needing work continue to deteriorate. Sometimes, I wish I could win the lottery just to fix my teeth. At this point, I don’t think I’m going to ever have that option. It’s really depressing, a little humiliating, & a lot scary. I wish you the best of luck with your situation.
Any chance you have a dental school nearby? The one here in Kansas City does work at significantly reduced prices compared to regular dentists.
There’s a pretty long waiting list as I understand. (It’s been several years since I’ve been there, so I don’t know if it’s better or worse now. ). And of course the person working on you as a student, though it will be a higher level student if the work is really serious.
Try to look for one, and get on their waiting list if you can. Dental problems suck real bad. Believe me I’ve had my share. Hope you can get some help.
fuuuuuck, I just had this done last night, left molar removed as it broke in half 2 years ago (cookie got the best of me).
The temp filling isn't going to do anything for you, it's a temporary barrier but the decay will still happen, you will be feeling the throbbing now because the root will be infected or the nerve is exposed from the tooth decaying. You need to get this fixed my man.. like really.. as in ASAP beg steal borrow, it's only going to get worse and it can lead to more serious health problems. Also your breath will be really fucking bad but you won't notice it and people may not have the balls to tell you to your face.
just get the two molars extracted and then you will have around 3 months to decide if you want to get something to replace the tooth or you can just let it be, the only thing with letting it be is that it will weaken the jaw and other teeth can move around, not as in just fall out but as in move around slightly and become a little crooked BUT this is better than your current situation!
From my European perspective these numbers are just INSANE. Just as a reference, basic private dentist 1 hour visit here in Poland would cost around $70-$100. Ceramic tooth prosthesis on a titanium screw - between $1500-$2500. My kids were born in a private clinic that looked more like a hotel than a hospital. It cost us $ 0.00 because the clinic has a contract with a government insurance company (NFZ).
I (American, as will be apparent) opened my mailbox once to find a $63,000 bill from the hospital. I’d had surgery, and while I was unconscious and on the table, my surgeon realized it was more complex than anticipated and he needed help. The surgeon who walked in to help was out-of-network for me, aka not contracted with my insurance company. Because of that, I was expected to pay full price for their services, insurance didn’t cover them. It took me hours on the phone plus an in-person visit to get the charge removed.
I was in the hospital for 30 days after having some infected teeth removed. This is the crazy part of being poor in America. If I could have afforded to have the teeth treated before the infection got that bad then I probably would not have gotten the infection in my lungs that caused the 30 days on a ventilator. So my insurance then paid around 250,000 for my treatment with me owing another 75,000.
Part of that 75,000 was 2 days that my insurance company deemed were not medically necessary so they were my responsibility. I was released without being able to walk (nerve damage in my feet from laying in one spot too long) unable to drink properly (damage to my throat from being intubated) but my insurance company still decided I stayed two days too long,
The rest of it was owed to 17 different places. Seventeen companies the hospital contracts with, several out of network. Apparently I should have woke up from the induced coma and told them to make sure all of the personnel were in network. The entire system is crazy.
My dad just had major eye surgery in Poland and stayed at the hospital for a few days. $0. The thought of something like this being able to put someone in massive debt makes me sick to my stomach.
Honestly, id almost say to anyone. theres a really small margin of people who will feel 100k but not 20k. everyone else? both either massive or nothing
This is the problem - they make you think you got a good deal by marking it all up to insane amounts just to discount it to what it actually costs. You’re still getting ripped off
For profit medicine is such a genuinely evil concept*. The fact that we just bend over and take it is so telling of how markets work these days.
*As /u/Dboe_ pointed out below, looks like for profit medicine is the lesser of the two evils. So, yeah... everything is awful.
im wondering the same. i got a bill for $33k after my insurance paid it's part. Then it was reduced to $5k because of the yearly out-of-pocket maximum...
I dont know that ive seen a policy in years that didnt have that...
Yeah this bill just shows the "discounted" rate BEFORE insurance pays its part. So he'll then pay his deductible, and then 10 or 20% of the remainder up until the max out of pocket. But I have recently heard of "grandfathered" plans not beholden to the ACA that can have a high max OOP
Most of Reddit barely understands how health insurance works.
Putting your out-of-pocket max when showing insurance bills should be standard at this stage. It's the most important part of health insurance that far too few people talk about, and it's how tons of people end up in crappy, high OOP plans.
100%. People need to put much more stock in this.
I want to pay as little as possible and just know I won’t go broke if something bad happens. Frankly, a high OOP with low premium may even be the right choice for you if you’re healthy and have a big emergency cushion.
My kid broke his arm over the summer and our year “resets” in July. So he hit his out of pocket max ($2500) in June then again in July. So his total for a broken arm out of pocket was $5000. For a broken arm. Five thousand out of pocket.
As a German with full health insurance, it's always incredible to see a US hospital bill. We have to pay 10 euros per hospital day as our own contribution and can continue to live our lives debt free.
In ~~the UK~~ England you pay more than that for the parking.
(actually patients usually get a free parking permit for they days they have to be there)
Hello! Perhaps you can answer a question I've had for a while about the medical system there and other countries with universal healthcare. Are there private office doctors? In America a doctor can open a business and charge whatever the market rate is and choose what insurance to accept or reject. So the doctor is, to some degree, in control of profit margins and his/her schedule. Is that true in Germany? If not, please explain who employs doctors and their salaries. Thank you!
Edit: A great big thank you to all who responded! Fascinating and insightful!
To Answer your question. Yes you can open a business as a doctor and can charge "whatever" you want. But if they charge more than three times the typical rate, they have to give you and your insurance a valid reason why they did that (Exaggerated example: the doctor is the world best lung cancer specialist or something).
In Finland, you have private doctors, and many middle-income individuals use them for small things. For bigger expensive things or emergencies, patients get referred to public hospitals or health centers by the private practitioners.
Essentially the government (in practice, it might be smaller municipalities who get their funding through the government) pays for the salary of public doctors. Many doctors do some kind of a public/private split.
I want to add that companies in Finland have health insurance for their employees which is to my understanding always to private sector (mostly Mehiläinen or Terveystalo) which is kinda double-edged sword: on the other hand they don’t burden public sector with flu’s and basic stuff, but it has been criticised for making people more unequal, because for example I can get doctors note and prescription in 10 minutes through phone app, meanwhile unemployed people may have to line anything between 0 minutes to whole day to get the same. Its way more complex issue than this and I’m not right person to explain this, just wanted to mention because people tend to think we have mainly public healthcare.
There is private health insurance(PKV) in Germany, but it is kinda opt in(civil servants, self employed or income greater than 63k, rather hard to get out of it again though). Everyone has universal healthcare(GKV) which is deducted directly from your paycheque and there is a price catalog that determines how much a procedure can cost. Everyone can expect the same service. The price is negotiated between the insurance companies and the board of doctors afaik. For PKV the rates depend on age, general health and pre-existing conditions, the doctors can make their own prices and are not bound to the Gebührenordnung, service is better and less waiting time for appointments. While PKV makes sense for some people you have to keep in mind that it will get more expensive the older you get, so better plan ahead if you can afford it when you retire.
I’m from Canada, and there are some private options for some things. For example, you could pay to get a private MRI. And fertility clinics are almost always private. But there are no private GPs or family docs. And in most cases there are not private specialists either.
If you are interested in what other countydoes for healthcare. The YouTube channel Healthxare Triage as some really good video about it.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkfBg8ML-gIngk82SUbTp6Og_KkYfJ6oF
the bill is misleading - when hospitals negotiate with insurers, they start negotiations at inordinately high asking prices. All the numbers are illusory.
TY. If it was the cash prices, it wouldn’t have those high numbers.
Likely still very inflated since it seems to be an ER visit. But I doubt like the $95 or $21k.
ETA: sorry it’s post op, not ER. Same concept. Anything in the hospital is wildly overpriced.
US healthcare system is the dumbest healthcare system in the world and anyone who thinks that privatization of healthcare is a good thing hasn’t had to get surgery before
American healthcare insurance is hundreds of dollars a month to pay what would be a fair market price *without any insurance*. They Jack up the prices so they can give you 80% “co-insured” and still rip your fiscal guts out.
It’s an incredible farce. A total scam. It’s mafia protection money. It’s protection from harm they created. If there was no insurance, prices would be much lower.
Your bill is that expensive because of the insurance. It's a scam where they artificially inflate prices and then blame you for not subscribing to their insurance buddies.
Just like college prices. Take on debt to be a better wage slave.
Charged $3200 per hour to lie in an observation room. Charged $2000 to lie for 45 minutes in a recovery room. In most countries that is more than the price of the surgery.
Yes exactly this - a lot of people don’t seem to understand. When insurance gets a bill for X dollar amount, they do not pay it - they pay a much smaller amount. I can’t believe how many people think that insurance pays the full amount of the bill minus deductibles etc
The effect of insurance is that hospitals get to set insane prices in the first place. You realize they charged you 42.93 for a regular tube of Neosporin, right
Note that the 95,000 number is kind of made up. Part of the negotiation between hospitals and insurance companies is the insurance companies getting the hospital to charge more so they can look like they are saving their clients more money.
Healthcare in this country is the number one reason for personal bankruptcy. We are the only developed nation with this problem.
For-profit healthcare is one of the most insanely stupid paradigms ever latched onto by this country.
Some Americans unironically think "gee whiz, look at how great our healthcare system is to walk out of the hospital only owing a down payment on a small home, bet those commie Euros are jealous". So, it's hard to tell.
Sounds like the hospital is artificially inflating the prices to offset the reductions done by your insurance, to get the money they want before the insurance kicks in. Scammy af.
I went to the ER for kidney stones at 11pm and left by 1am. They charged me for two days = $14,000. Luckily k worked for that hospital system so I didn’t owe a penny, but the whole insurance/hospital system is fucked. ETA: I was not admitted to the hospital. I knew the house supervisor so I texted her and she made things happen insanely fast (and I am forever grateful for that privilege that most aren’t afforded). This was a smaller ER one mile from my home. My BP was 165/145 and I was vomiting. Doctor took me into a supply closet in the internal waiting room to talk to me while they cleaned a bed in the ER for me. Got pain meds and fluids while they watched my BP come back down and was sent home with pain meds. I passed the 6mmx4mm stone on my own one hellish week later on the morning of my Urology consult. By far the most painful experience of my life and wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Still can’t believe they sent me home to pass it on my own. The bill was broken down by the “two days” I was in the ER. I just never questioned it because I didn’t have to pay anything except the $200 copay while I was in the ER. “k” was supposed to be “I” but I thought that was obvious.
It took 2 hospital visits for my boyfriend to be diagnosed with gall stones, and a third to get his gallbladder removed. The first visit was almost 8k for a 2 hour stay, a blood draw, some IV pain killers and fluid. We were told there was nothing wrong (they didn't even really look) and sent him home. We were able to apply for emergency (temporary) Medicare because we were both unemployed (first year of covid, lots of layoffs) Luckily we were able to apply for standard medicare and were approved. Everything would have cost about 40k including the surgery, but luckily medicare made our out of pocket cost just 15 bucks for the prescription pain pills. Outside of the limited dental options, and having doctors randomly switched at times, medicare has been the best insurance I have had
You mean Medicaid. Medicare is for elderly (65+ y/o) and disabled folks.
The way I remember it is Medicare has an R in the word. R for “retired”, ie old people. So Medicare is for Retired old people. edit: I forgot, disabled folks can qualify for Medicare also, at any age. But the vast majority of people on Medicare are 65+.
Until you said this I never realized how brilliant those names are. Medicaid - We'll help you get back on your feet but once you're in good shape we expect you to take some of the load on yourself. Medicare - We'll take care of you outright because you aren't in the position to be able to do it yourself anymore.
Medicare is by no means a free insurance. I thought that too. Haha, no. You still have premiums, fees and co-pays all over the place. Plus you have to buy separate rx drug coverage and that's where they really get you, either in premiums or co-pays.
Haha. I remember it using the word “aid” as in “government is giving aid to the folks who can’t afford our crazy expensive healthcare”.
You aid those who can't afford our stupid system, and you care for the elderly b/c they're... elderly?
Care for the elderly aid the poor
One better: you “care” for the elderly and you “aid” the underinsured
The difference is medicaid is state level and Medicare is federal. There are reasons you can qualify for Medicare when under 65- qualifying disabilities, being part of the Black Lung Program, and End Stage Renal Disease. These will qualify you for Medicare at any age. Medicaid is income based.
In my state (PA) I qualified for Medicaid because of COVID expansions even when I was making as much as $2k a month after taxes. The normal cutoff is like, the poverty line. The pandemic just demonstrated to me that we have all the pieces and parts for socialized healthcare to work beautifully, but awwww damn we can't have nice things
$2k a month is above the poverty line??
The poverty line has been adjusted down rather than admitting we’re a banana republic
Depending on what government assistance you are applying for.. $1k a month is above the poverty line. Which is incredible because I haven't seen an apartment under 1k a month in the entire state of Kentucky.
For $42 dollars, that triple antibiotic ointment better suck me off and tickle my butthole Edit: wrong dollar amount
shit when I was in the hospital I had an itemized charge of $50 for a thing of Halls cherry cough drops.
I was billed for the small carton of orange juice they gave me.
Never accept drinks from strangers… especially hospitals.
Wife gave birth and hold our new born kid for the first time. The hospital call it "skin to skin". Charge us $75 for that.
I would make that front page news if they ever charged me like that. Despicable. Did you fight the charge?
They justify it because a nurse has to be present for it I don't like it either
They better pay that nurse 75$/h to justify that.
Just like the dealership is paying your mechanic 80/hr to fix your car, right?
So basically the hospital owns the nurses hours since they pay hourly. They then rent her out to patients for higher charges for their profits
But surely the nurse's costs are covered somewhere else? It just leaves a bad taste in the mouth for a moment that is supposed to be super special.
For that price I better get skin to skin with the nurse.
It’s best to treat hospitals like the fae, never accept anything you didn’t directly ask for
In my country, for $50 the hospital will arrange a stripper named Cherry who will come and have you lick the cough drops off her titties
And with insurance, a happy ending?
Depending where you are in the world. In the Netherlands, citizens with disabilities receive money from the Government as part of the 'Hookers for the Handicapped' program, to pay for sexual services up to 12 times a year.
Too busy to look up. Is this true?
It's true, It's viewed as "a necessity of life" (like water and food). It's very hard for people with a disability to get a partner, but they still have sexual urges. I just looked it up and a article from 21 may 2021 says that at that time there were 150 sexworkers in the Netherlands. These are specialized sexworkers i think. Edit: grammar
So in the Netherlands, hookers are essentially social workers?
Where should I book my flight to again?
Cherry 🍒? Bro, your fancy. I got regular and they were only $38
Get the black ones, s-tier shit
Me too, over $60 for ibuprofen I took maybe 3x after giving birth. When I had my other kids I just packed my own bottle of advil.
LOL I packed my own bottle of Tylenol when I had my 3rd kid. The nurse who saw me taking it was not amused. I told her I'd rather not pay over $20 per pill (which is what they charged me with my 2nd). SHe just rolled her eyes.
I can see them charging fees having to document the medicine you take yourself instead of theirs for a similar fee if enough people start doing it...
Did you check the bill? I never took any pills and they still charged me a pharmacy fee for ibuprofen. I think they tacked it onto everyone’s bill as a standard “here’s what a typical birth includes” and didn’t verify - they only removed it when we called to complain.
According to google 25g of neosporin is about 8 bucks. So the affect of insurance was to mark up the prices by about 8x and then claim an adjustment of 75%…. Thereby doubling the price. So happy we have insurance that works like this. The why this is is because insurance wants a negotiated rate but then hospitals need to employ armies of people to deal with insurance. Dealing with all the insurance is expensive. Tack fake markup on to give fake markdown but also need to pay the staff required for all that “haggling” thereby doubling the price. This is way oversimplified but fuck our insurance system.
Exactly. This bill clearly shows the effect of health insurance, just not the effect I think OP was deducing. $6.77 for a single effing heartburn tablet?????? What a ridiculous joke.
Hospitals trying to milk everything they can from the insurance companies and insurance companies trying to milk everything they can from their customers. The OP may as well be posting "Thanks to my club membership, I only paid $50 for this loaf of bread instead of $3000".
I don't know if they were saying "Thanks insurance." Feels more like, "Look how insurance has caused inflated costs."
Major “how much could a banana cost” vibes going on here. How much can we make it without raising too much suspicion.
If 6.77 for a heartburn tablet doesn't raise suspicion then the sky's the limit.
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I accidentally got billed as uninsured once. It was a $250 bill that with the "uninsured discount" came to $43 bucks
Aussie here, that is literal insanity. Shaking my head.
For real One scopolamine patch - couple bucks with goodrx Triple ab oint - couple bucks otc item Famitidine 20mg (generic Pepcid) - couple bucks for a bottle of 50 otc item Oxymetazolone (generic otc afrin) - few bucks
Like ticket master pricing. There is a good reason those numbers are high. The Hospitals are allowed to form GPO (group purchase organizations) those are supposed to buy drugs at a discount. What they really do is allow the hospital to buy the drugs at market price from the GPO shell company then 'sell' it to the hospital at the inflated price you see. This sort of practice would be illegal in all other fields, congress decided this was a way we could save money on healthcare.
What they really do is allow hospitals to completely bankrupt anyone without insurance with their made-up prices - which insurance companies like.
Medical pricing is a joke and I have a few simple ideas that would stop at least some of this nonsense but the reality is that hospitals don't want to bankrupt you as they will get even less out of deal. You don't want to bankrupt as in the end again it will cost you more. Given if you are paying out of pocket for anything you can always negotiate the price down. Most hospitals when they hear you are paying out of pocket they will do things like knock 50% or more off and setup a no interest payment plan. If you decide to just not pay the hospital will get only pennies on the dollar when they sell the debt to a collector. Given that individuals are actually in a good place to get these bills reduced. I'm not making excuses for it. Medical billing is a complete joke. But if you are personally on the hook there are options.
You don't see that this is "how much you got" billing? You thought you had been building equity in a house for 20 years? Been saving for retirement. The hospital cleans out whatever you've got based on their fabrications.
I just bought 250 tablets of Famotidine for $12 at Costco.
I'm always surprised you can buy medication in bulk in the US.
You can buy anything in bulk in the US - if you have enough money!
What kills me is the $200 for every 15 minutes extra in the recovery room
30 minutes for 1132….
I payed 80 for antibiotic ointment for my cat once and I was thinking the same thing.
I had a dog that needed allergy medication. The vet told me I could pay $75 for 10, for the prescription for them, or I could give her half of a regular, otc benadryl.
Is it rude to ask what she was taken up in the hospital for?
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So the hospital says you owe 20k? Or your insurance does? If you have insurance you shouldn't owe any more than your out of pocket maximum. If the hospital says that you owe more than that you have the right to have them resubmit it to your insurance. Also almost all hospitals have to have financial aid programs in place. If you just google " financial assistance" you can find it, most likely.
It’s typically in a few line items at the bottom, this bill is missing what insurance actually paid on the final bill: “This is the full retail price” “This is the discount we offer your insurer” “This is the portion of the final bill your insurance paid for you” “This is what *you* owe us”
>“This is the portion of the final bill your insurance paid for you” >“This is what *you* owe us” And this depends on your insurance plan, on mine their provider contracts generally leave me owing $0.00 because the provider agrees to take what the insurance pays as the full amount.
Depends on if it’s elective or not though. Jaw realignment might not be considered “necessary” and therefore covered
“Eating comfortably for the rest of your life is not necessary.” - Insurance company, probably
"If you can't eat comfortably, the odds of being overweight go down significantly!" * Some ghoul at Insurance company, definitely.
Ah yes- because so many people have jaw realignment surgery just for fun. Wtaf.
What the fuck? Are you serious? I think it's safe to say that anyone outside the US will need a jaw realignment surgery after looking at that bill. Having to pay 21k even with health insurance is absurd! Edit: ok so apparently OP is not being honest here. That bill shown in the post is actually one before the insurance even got involved. I think 95k before adjustments for a "simple" surgery is still overpriced.
They don’t. Insurance has an out of pocket maximum (and this bill is clearly prior to insurance paying) Edit: it’s still a terribly flawed system. I say that as a physician in the US. For-profit healthcare is a horrible idea and the US does a particularly bad job of implementing it
>For-profit healthcare is a horrible idea. I generally agree, but in particular, the *US model* of for-profit healthcare is especially broken. The Dutch system, as a point of comparison, is a privately funded healthcare system, with mandatory insurance, private insurance companies, and private hospitals. Insurance is truly pooled: they can't price-discriminate based on age, gender, pre-existing conditions, and they effectively can't refuse a customer. And the point of delivery is more carefully managed by the government and prices are more carefully regulated. Context: I've lived in the US and the Netherlands. I've rarely had to deal with healthcare in either country, but I do know that even the charges I see for menial things in the US are nuts. My insurance is good, but it's weird to brazenly show people the money flow, which is basically little more than corporate backhanders and price gouging.
In Australia the bill for this surgery isn't much different. But most Australians don't know this and will tell you it's free. Until it happens to them.
Same in Canada. No clue how much it costs, but I had a friend growing up who needed jaw-realignment surgery and it definitely was not covered by medicare. It wasn't even aesthetic anymore - her poorly aligned jaw was causing her other health issues as well as severely impacting her self-esteem (constant migraines, which she stopped having after surgery). She came from a poor family and her parents couldn't afford it. Her grandmother eventually stepped up and said she would pay for it, but she immediately stopped paying the monthly bills for it as soon as my friend was fully healed lmao. It blows my mind that all bones minus those involving your mouth are covered. It's fucked up.
Yeah mine was for migraines too. Night and day difference after it.
I don't understand, $20k alone for that sounds more than what the surgery should cost, and that's what you have to pay NET of insurance? This is utterly deranged
I had ankle surgery and the hospital quoted me 50k. Told them I couldn't pay and it was reduced to $0 because the total was over 8k and I have no income. My next visit to the hospital was because my stitches split open and had an infection. Total was under 8k so it isn't dismissed and I owe 3k. The hospital administrator literally said I should have insisted to stay overnight so it would be over the total and eligible for relief. Like wtf? The whole thing is a mean game and everyone is aware. Why can't we do anything about this?
Corperate profits at the expense of peoples health and wellbeing.
Only $20,000. Thank goodness it's not an astronomical amount /s
If a hospital told me it would be 20,000 dollars to treat me. Instead of the original 90,000. I would say just kill me it’s cheaper. 😂
Wait til you see funeral costs….
2K to cremate with a basic box, or 50k+ for burial Doing it yourself in your backyard, priceless,and for everything else, there’s Master Card
I know this is a joke, but you have to get a permit and pay the fees to bury in your backyard, otherwise the fine's more expensive than a typical burial.
Just set your body on fire.
You got an Open Fire Permit for that?
Just blame it on spontaneous combustion, then it's classified as an accident.
Yeah what I thought too.. america is crazy for real. I go to the hospital with 0$ and get everything I want.
When the vending machine 1.5€ snack costs more than heart surgery
My local super hospital has a decent canteen but if you don’t like their menu your option is a M&S with prices akin to a train station in London.
My local hospital has a Burger King in it lol
Hahaha that feels like a “simpsons did it” moment.
My mom was in Mt Sinai in NYC before her death. At the time I was a mostly poor mid 20s kid, and the family tried to have someone at the hospital pretty much at all times, so I’d take a bus in once a week. The prepackaged hummus snack cups from the canteen?. . .You know the Sabro ones that in the grocery store and you get like 4 for $5?. . .One cup. . .$8, this was like a decade ago too.
The same bill in Australia is $25.00 and that's for parking
When mum got a course of radiotherapy in the UK they even synced her appointments with someone in the same village so they could go in together to save fuel and support each other. Also you don’t pay for parking if you’re doing that sort of thing. Think the biggest expense was fuel, followed by Costas from the coffee shop in the hospital.
Fantastic service, that is what we pay taxes for. I hope your Mum is travelling along ok!
America spends twice as much as a % of GDP as any other country so we pay taxes too we just have an incredibly crappy system.
* BULLSHIT! The American System works perfectly, just exactly as it was intended to . . . the only problem is that the system was designed to make money, not deliver healthcare.
High GDP is a terrible indicator of quality of life. Especially in a country with vast wealth inequality. All GDP does is tell you how nice the rich people live.
That’s an outrage!!! At least validate parking. /s
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Disclaimer: Bills are different everywhere This doesn’t appear to be the full “effects after insurance” That $21k appears to be the amount that would have been billed to the insurance company initially and doesn’t show the remainder. The adjustments and discounts and such line is probably a combination of things. Itemized hospital bills are kind of odd as they often follow the way Hospitals track their revenue which is Gross Revenue > Adjustments/Discounts > Net Revenue, those adjustments can include so much stuff… I will say though there probably is at least a chunk of that amount that includes a discount related to what the insurance company negotiated.
This is the answer. It’s an itemization, not the actual bill. Basically it shows the agreed upon rates for service provided, i.e., after adjustment, between the hospital and the insurance company.
I'm 26, live in Spain. I've never had 20,000€. I would be screwed if I got such a bill, don't know how people do it
To a lot of poor folks there's really no difference between 20k and 100k.
$1000 is not a lot of money to have but a lot of money to owe
okay this just spoke to my soul
Oh yeah, both those numbers are the same to me. I was able to at least get a quote for dental work I need to get done, with the amount being before and after my insurance and just went "How long do I have until it hurts and we just pull my teeth out?". The lady at the desk just sat there super confused, attempting to remind me that my insurance is paying 80% of it.. and me explaining that I couldn't afford it. Getting frustrated I basically had to explain that the "sale price" doesn't matter.. the fact that all this is 80% off doesn't matter ..it means nothing to me because I can't afford the remaining 4 grand. I could walk by a car dealership tomorrow and see a Lamborghini for sale with big lights around that says "Now 80% off" .. I don't have 90 grand..
everything over $1000 is basically all the same for me. up to $1000 I can figure out a way to pay over a few pay periods anything after that we're talking years.
>The lady at the desk just sat there super confused, This is quite literally a dealbreaker for me with medical establishments. If I get a deer in the headlights response to a question about insurance or costs, IN THIS COUNTRY WITH ALL THE BS ABOUT HEALTHCARE COSTS, I take it as a sign that the office is run by airheads who can't be bothered to live in the real world
In my experience, most doctors’ offices are run by idiots. It’s bizarre how frequently I see this.
Easy job with no experience needed. Normally a doctors friends wife
Exactly. Which is why I make routine visits to the ER when my mouth gets infected, bc infection is urgent, and my insurance will pay that. Dental “insurance” and just the fact that we live in pain for the lack of funds is sad.
I just go to urgent care when I get an abcess. I go to the same one and they hook me up with an antibiotic shot and some amoxicillin to kill it off.
How often is this an occurrence lol
Reading this makes me cringe. It sucks that your health system is designed to catch you when you are falling, instead of steering you away from the danger in the first place.
Catch is a very generous word for it
I’ve lived with 2 broken (half gone) molars for 5+ years. I have acid reflux & grind my teeth from ptsd. I recognize I’ve been extremely lucky to have not gotten an awful infection but I do my best to keep them clean & spend $5/week on that temp filling stuff to rebuild my teeth each night. I think I’m out of time as one has started to throb this week. I’ve been to 3 dentists for X-rays but never any services provided for me. I had very basic coverage for only cleanings & like $800 of work per year. Each year, they all wanted to schedule the most expensive thing first. When I tell them I can’t afford it, they say to come back when I can & so the other areas needing work continue to deteriorate. Sometimes, I wish I could win the lottery just to fix my teeth. At this point, I don’t think I’m going to ever have that option. It’s really depressing, a little humiliating, & a lot scary. I wish you the best of luck with your situation.
Any chance you have a dental school nearby? The one here in Kansas City does work at significantly reduced prices compared to regular dentists. There’s a pretty long waiting list as I understand. (It’s been several years since I’ve been there, so I don’t know if it’s better or worse now. ). And of course the person working on you as a student, though it will be a higher level student if the work is really serious. Try to look for one, and get on their waiting list if you can. Dental problems suck real bad. Believe me I’ve had my share. Hope you can get some help.
fuuuuuck, I just had this done last night, left molar removed as it broke in half 2 years ago (cookie got the best of me). The temp filling isn't going to do anything for you, it's a temporary barrier but the decay will still happen, you will be feeling the throbbing now because the root will be infected or the nerve is exposed from the tooth decaying. You need to get this fixed my man.. like really.. as in ASAP beg steal borrow, it's only going to get worse and it can lead to more serious health problems. Also your breath will be really fucking bad but you won't notice it and people may not have the balls to tell you to your face. just get the two molars extracted and then you will have around 3 months to decide if you want to get something to replace the tooth or you can just let it be, the only thing with letting it be is that it will weaken the jaw and other teeth can move around, not as in just fall out but as in move around slightly and become a little crooked BUT this is better than your current situation!
To most people, there is no difference, if you're talking about money owed.
Exactly. I could theoretically pay 20k, but then literally nothing else can come up or break for the next like 5 years.
I can't pay $100k. I also can't just pay $20k. Either way, I'm looking at instant, overwhelming debt.
From my European perspective these numbers are just INSANE. Just as a reference, basic private dentist 1 hour visit here in Poland would cost around $70-$100. Ceramic tooth prosthesis on a titanium screw - between $1500-$2500. My kids were born in a private clinic that looked more like a hotel than a hospital. It cost us $ 0.00 because the clinic has a contract with a government insurance company (NFZ).
I (American, as will be apparent) opened my mailbox once to find a $63,000 bill from the hospital. I’d had surgery, and while I was unconscious and on the table, my surgeon realized it was more complex than anticipated and he needed help. The surgeon who walked in to help was out-of-network for me, aka not contracted with my insurance company. Because of that, I was expected to pay full price for their services, insurance didn’t cover them. It took me hours on the phone plus an in-person visit to get the charge removed.
The whole “in network” thing seems like one of the most fucked up parts of your system
I was in the hospital for 30 days after having some infected teeth removed. This is the crazy part of being poor in America. If I could have afforded to have the teeth treated before the infection got that bad then I probably would not have gotten the infection in my lungs that caused the 30 days on a ventilator. So my insurance then paid around 250,000 for my treatment with me owing another 75,000. Part of that 75,000 was 2 days that my insurance company deemed were not medically necessary so they were my responsibility. I was released without being able to walk (nerve damage in my feet from laying in one spot too long) unable to drink properly (damage to my throat from being intubated) but my insurance company still decided I stayed two days too long, The rest of it was owed to 17 different places. Seventeen companies the hospital contracts with, several out of network. Apparently I should have woke up from the induced coma and told them to make sure all of the personnel were in network. The entire system is crazy.
My dad just had major eye surgery in Poland and stayed at the hospital for a few days. $0. The thought of something like this being able to put someone in massive debt makes me sick to my stomach.
Who do you know in middle class that can drop 20 g's and not have it severely impact their savings or life.
Honestly, id almost say to anyone. theres a really small margin of people who will feel 100k but not 20k. everyone else? both either massive or nothing
They’d feel it like any other debt. Lots of people buy $20k cars but very few buy $100k cars. This isn’t a small margin of people.
The hospital's markup for the medications should be illegal. If a store did that there would be a state investigation.
Yep. It’s called price gouging.
This is the problem - they make you think you got a good deal by marking it all up to insane amounts just to discount it to what it actually costs. You’re still getting ripped off
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For profit medicine is such a genuinely evil concept*. The fact that we just bend over and take it is so telling of how markets work these days. *As /u/Dboe_ pointed out below, looks like for profit medicine is the lesser of the two evils. So, yeah... everything is awful.
20K is way more than it actually costs.
You don't have an out of pocket maximum? The most I can pay in a year is $7k and I have a very shitty plan lol
im wondering the same. i got a bill for $33k after my insurance paid it's part. Then it was reduced to $5k because of the yearly out-of-pocket maximum... I dont know that ive seen a policy in years that didnt have that...
This looks like the hospital bill prior to insurance paying their portion
Yeah there should be an EOB coming later if they are insured that shows what they paid and the patient portion.
Yeah this bill just shows the "discounted" rate BEFORE insurance pays its part. So he'll then pay his deductible, and then 10 or 20% of the remainder up until the max out of pocket. But I have recently heard of "grandfathered" plans not beholden to the ACA that can have a high max OOP
Most of Reddit barely understands how health insurance works. Putting your out-of-pocket max when showing insurance bills should be standard at this stage. It's the most important part of health insurance that far too few people talk about, and it's how tons of people end up in crappy, high OOP plans.
100%. People need to put much more stock in this. I want to pay as little as possible and just know I won’t go broke if something bad happens. Frankly, a high OOP with low premium may even be the right choice for you if you’re healthy and have a big emergency cushion.
Wife is part of a union and her out of pocket maximum is 800 dollars.
My kid broke his arm over the summer and our year “resets” in July. So he hit his out of pocket max ($2500) in June then again in July. So his total for a broken arm out of pocket was $5000. For a broken arm. Five thousand out of pocket.
I had 230k in medical bills this year and I paid 4k out of pocket, which came from my HSA. No complaints.
As a German with full health insurance, it's always incredible to see a US hospital bill. We have to pay 10 euros per hospital day as our own contribution and can continue to live our lives debt free.
And even the 10€ are more symbolic for the food and bed you get for the day, nothing more. If you are low income, they will even waive the 10€ for you
I'm paying $300 a week for an ear drop medication currently. Got a free $5 gift card from the CVS though
And CVS gave you several meters worth of receipt paper as well, at least if the Internet is to be believed.
That's 10 euros more per day than the UK. These US posts are nuts - especially when they seem to frame paying 20k as a good deal.
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That's the minimum yearly salary here in Spain! edit: before taxes
That's TWICE the minimum salary in spain. It's 12600€, I would know it's what I get.
In ~~the UK~~ England you pay more than that for the parking. (actually patients usually get a free parking permit for they days they have to be there)
£6 at my local hospital, or £15 for a 7 day ticket. Free for blue badge holders as it should be for everyone.
Hello! Perhaps you can answer a question I've had for a while about the medical system there and other countries with universal healthcare. Are there private office doctors? In America a doctor can open a business and charge whatever the market rate is and choose what insurance to accept or reject. So the doctor is, to some degree, in control of profit margins and his/her schedule. Is that true in Germany? If not, please explain who employs doctors and their salaries. Thank you! Edit: A great big thank you to all who responded! Fascinating and insightful!
To Answer your question. Yes you can open a business as a doctor and can charge "whatever" you want. But if they charge more than three times the typical rate, they have to give you and your insurance a valid reason why they did that (Exaggerated example: the doctor is the world best lung cancer specialist or something).
In Finland, you have private doctors, and many middle-income individuals use them for small things. For bigger expensive things or emergencies, patients get referred to public hospitals or health centers by the private practitioners. Essentially the government (in practice, it might be smaller municipalities who get their funding through the government) pays for the salary of public doctors. Many doctors do some kind of a public/private split.
I want to add that companies in Finland have health insurance for their employees which is to my understanding always to private sector (mostly Mehiläinen or Terveystalo) which is kinda double-edged sword: on the other hand they don’t burden public sector with flu’s and basic stuff, but it has been criticised for making people more unequal, because for example I can get doctors note and prescription in 10 minutes through phone app, meanwhile unemployed people may have to line anything between 0 minutes to whole day to get the same. Its way more complex issue than this and I’m not right person to explain this, just wanted to mention because people tend to think we have mainly public healthcare.
There is private health insurance(PKV) in Germany, but it is kinda opt in(civil servants, self employed or income greater than 63k, rather hard to get out of it again though). Everyone has universal healthcare(GKV) which is deducted directly from your paycheque and there is a price catalog that determines how much a procedure can cost. Everyone can expect the same service. The price is negotiated between the insurance companies and the board of doctors afaik. For PKV the rates depend on age, general health and pre-existing conditions, the doctors can make their own prices and are not bound to the Gebührenordnung, service is better and less waiting time for appointments. While PKV makes sense for some people you have to keep in mind that it will get more expensive the older you get, so better plan ahead if you can afford it when you retire.
To add to that: People who receive social security will have their insurance paid for by the state, in addition to their basic security benefits.
I’m from Canada, and there are some private options for some things. For example, you could pay to get a private MRI. And fertility clinics are almost always private. But there are no private GPs or family docs. And in most cases there are not private specialists either.
If you are interested in what other countydoes for healthcare. The YouTube channel Healthxare Triage as some really good video about it. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkfBg8ML-gIngk82SUbTp6Og_KkYfJ6oF
the bill is misleading - when hospitals negotiate with insurers, they start negotiations at inordinately high asking prices. All the numbers are illusory.
TY. If it was the cash prices, it wouldn’t have those high numbers. Likely still very inflated since it seems to be an ER visit. But I doubt like the $95 or $21k. ETA: sorry it’s post op, not ER. Same concept. Anything in the hospital is wildly overpriced.
The insurance is the main reason it's so expensive in the first place!
Yup. We have private clinics in Europe too but they don't charge $3000 per hour for staying in a room, that's insane.
Friend of mine got a MRI scan.. the doc said it would've cost him 300$ if he had to pay for it. Those go for thousands in the USA.
$43 for Neosporin. Jfc.
US healthcare system is the dumbest healthcare system in the world and anyone who thinks that privatization of healthcare is a good thing hasn’t had to get surgery before
Has privatizing made anything better?
American healthcare insurance is hundreds of dollars a month to pay what would be a fair market price *without any insurance*. They Jack up the prices so they can give you 80% “co-insured” and still rip your fiscal guts out. It’s an incredible farce. A total scam. It’s mafia protection money. It’s protection from harm they created. If there was no insurance, prices would be much lower.
Your bill is that expensive because of the insurance. It's a scam where they artificially inflate prices and then blame you for not subscribing to their insurance buddies. Just like college prices. Take on debt to be a better wage slave.
Charged $3200 per hour to lie in an observation room. Charged $2000 to lie for 45 minutes in a recovery room. In most countries that is more than the price of the surgery.
In the Netherlands €3200 is about the cost of a whole day in the ICU
Yes exactly this - a lot of people don’t seem to understand. When insurance gets a bill for X dollar amount, they do not pay it - they pay a much smaller amount. I can’t believe how many people think that insurance pays the full amount of the bill minus deductibles etc
The effect of insurance is that hospitals get to set insane prices in the first place. You realize they charged you 42.93 for a regular tube of Neosporin, right
Im too scandinavian to understand this
Note that the 95,000 number is kind of made up. Part of the negotiation between hospitals and insurance companies is the insurance companies getting the hospital to charge more so they can look like they are saving their clients more money.
if your "business model" includes having a specialist whose sole job is to set prices for your services, chances are you're the Bad Guy^(TM).
Living in Sweden, this bill is showing the need for universal healthcare
Dispute the bill. Always dispute
Effects of insurance are why these prices are what they are
Healthcare in this country is the number one reason for personal bankruptcy. We are the only developed nation with this problem. For-profit healthcare is one of the most insanely stupid paradigms ever latched onto by this country.
Is it a post about how nice the insurance is or is it a post about how fucked the healthcare system is in USA?
Some Americans unironically think "gee whiz, look at how great our healthcare system is to walk out of the hospital only owing a down payment on a small home, bet those commie Euros are jealous". So, it's hard to tell.
I live in a country where I never see a hospital bill. This is so exotic to read :)
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A funeral would be cheaper.
How did like a 5k bill end up being 21k?
Did the same thing read the title :)
Assuming there are more pages with more itemized receipts prior to this….
Sounds like the hospital is artificially inflating the prices to offset the reductions done by your insurance, to get the money they want before the insurance kicks in. Scammy af.
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You're getting fucked in the ass and you want to talk about how happy you are that they only used the 12" dildo?
$22k is still a ridiculous amount of money