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Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

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Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#331

Post by merpnderp »

nickjj wrote: post #112
merpnderp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a deep split over my eye (metal ring tossed while I was still down range) and knew going to the ER for stitches would end up costing thousands for a five minute stitch job, so I pinched it together and put on superglue. Healed better than stitches and cost me nothing. I hate our medical system too.

When you say superglue, do you mean an off the shelf superglue that you would pick up at a hardware or craft supplies store? Did it just dissolve on its own after X number of days?

Yes I used some old super glue lying around the house. I was worried at first because even though I pinched it together, a large amount of glue went into the gash and so I was left with a hard shell over the wound and a clump of glue in the gash. But after 4-5 day the shell peeled off and the clump of glue fell out and even though the cut was completely through the skin, it healed perfectly. It was like the skin bitter together under the lump of glue until the clump was pushed out. I’m no doctor and only know about the glue because my mechanic brother in law uses it for every cut and gash he’s ever had.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#332

Post by chachachoney »

asguy wrote: post #99
chachachoney wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loctite (blue package) works as good as superglue but stings a lot less.

You mean Loctite’s blue-package cyanoacrylate right, not their thread locker. Right?

Absolutely.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#333

Post by isostatic »

sarcasmOrTears wrote: post #174
ianmcgowan wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from the UK, but live in the SF Bay Area, and this is the single biggest thing I don't get about the US (with education costs being second). I kind of get the libertarian view of not wanting to trust the government but when the alternative is some kind of Mad Max dystopian hellscape (where people are literally dying), surely looking around the world for alternatives that actually work makes sense?

It's not libertarian. The US system is cronyism, statism at its finest, possibly illegal. Honestly, I think with current US laws and a willing political force, a lot of top players in the current US healthcare system could be punished, even with the death penalty (especially if reinstated at the federal level). Dreams aside, in order to have a free market healthcare, which is what informed libertarians want, you need…

Just like the USSR wasn't communist.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#334

Post by brandoncordell »

arbuge wrote: post #93

I was charged $50 for 2 tylenol when I had my appendix taken out. The CVS down the street would sell you a 24-pack for $5. Of course, that was just a minor component of the final $50,000 bill ($4k for me after insurance), but it still sticks out in my mind many years later because it was an easily comparable baseline. Health insurance companies get alot of the blame for the broken healthcare system in America but I p…

The hospital charged me $1,700 for 1.5mg of xanax during a 3-day stay. It's utterly ridiculous what they're allowed to get away with.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#335

Post by dragonwriter »

MegaButts wrote: post #194
dragonwriter wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, but when you pay for services you don't expect to have to write checks for every subcontractor your service provider users. Well, yeah, that's true by the definition of “subcontractor”, which doctors in hospitals often are not. OTOH, healthcare isn't the only place where you might pay a fee to a facility for use of the facility and a fee to a service providers associated with the facility for services they pr…

> OTOH, healthcare isn't the only place where you might pay a fee to a facility for use of the facility and a fee to a service providers associated with the facility for services they provide in the facility. Where else does this occur?

> Where else does this occur?

Event facilities (for weddings, etc.) often have established partners for various event services that you pay directly rather than through the facility, which you also rent.

Dance studios where the dance instructor is affiliated but not an employee of the studio (especially where the affiliation is non-exclusive) will sometimes (especially for private lessons rather than group classes) charge a floor fee which you will pay to the studio, while the instructor is paid directly.

Fairs, etc., often charge you a gate fee, while you pay for goods and services inside to vendors directly (which vendors are also paying the fair for the privilege of being there, too.)

Arguably, residential real estate leases without included utilities is a closer analogy than any of those: there are a number of non-optional service providers you pay separately, on top of paying the landlord to occupy the premises.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#336

Post by jen_h »

sizzle wrote: post #300
jen_h wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young and middle-aged people need to vote. I've been in and out of hospitals for the last few years, months, days, hours with relatives, and guess what they don't ever worry about: medical bills. Like never. And guess what they won't ever vote for: Those of us younger than 65 ever having the same luxury. We may be visiting them in the hospital every day, but they don't really see us. And it's hard, because our genera…

Are you referring to Medicare part A and B coverage? They paid out the whole $50k bill for triple coronary artery bypass. Apparently they cover 60 days of inpatient hospital stay for any health issue. I hope I have this coverage when we hit 65....

It is amazing...then, if you ever get alllll the way down to their private insurance policies, you find that they are nothing like our generation's insurance policies...they actually pay for stuff and have low deductibles!

I try not to get too bitter about it, though, because their great coverage means we don't go bankrupt trying to help them: we're very lucky for that (although eldercare is a whole other ball of wax)...

It just kills me to see all of these young people begging on GoFundMe just to afford insulin -- and dying! Over insulin! -- while it's stockpiling pretty nicely in Medicare-recipients' closets thanks to overzealous pharmacies that know Medicare will pay for whatever they keep shipping, and seeing young people cobbling together their own makeshift slings for broken bones while so many nonagenarians are technically part-robot thanks to Medicare's great coverage.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#337

Post by dredmorbius »

Bootwizard wrote: post #322
ttul wrote: post #195

My son broke his femur at school. He was transported to hospital where he underwent surgery to insert rods. He stayed for four nights in a state of the art, brand new children’s hospital, brimming with wireless tech. The nursing care was top notch. I had to pay for parking. Once he was back at school, the school district brought out occupational therapists who assessed his new disability and provided extra assistance…

Is the parking $20,000?

Canadian. So, about $2.50 US ;-)

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#338

Post by jen_h »

oppositelock wrote: post #86
brink wrote: post #4

I just got an itemized bill today for a minor fall I took a couple months back.. On top of the nearly $6k in other charges from the hospital, they charged $531 for one dab of superglue or "liquid stitches" on my forehead for something that would have healed by itself. One of my friends died two years ago from pneumonia. He didn't go to the hospital when symptoms first started because he was afraid of the bills that w…

I went to the ER with chest pains seeming like a heart attack. They did an EKG, determined it wasn't a heart attack, then a blood test, which determined it was low potassium, and did a chest x-ray just in case. I received a saline IV and potassium pills as treatment, and went home after a couple of hours. The bill was about $18,000 for this. The insurance negotiated rate was about $1,500, of which I had to pay about…

I once went to the ER and the FIRST bill I received was from a law firm/collection agency. They actually employed a law firm to do first-line billing (which they of course double-billed, sending the bill to the insurance company and the threat to me at the same time!).

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#339

Post by grok2 »

zaroth wrote: post #110
rwcemergency wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got an emergency room bill. I had a severe sore throat and fever for 2 weeks, step tests came back negative. Then at night my back side started hurting so I went to the ER. I paid $850 at the ER and today I received another bill for $850. The only thing on the Bill just says > "Charges": $11,680 > "Adjustmnets: $9,980 I just got off the phone with them and they say that it will take 10 business days to receive…

A couple things you should know. First, there is no such thing as late fees or interest on a hospital bill. Second, if you have called to question the bill, they cannot send it to collections until they have fulfilled your reasonable requests for more information. If you really did just get the bill it will be several months (and several more copies of the bill sent to you) before a final bill would show up that woul…

Re. the comment about ER equipment costs, I think people wouldn't be so mad if ER's didn't amortize the cost over every service they provide during a stay (like charging $40 for a tylenol equivalent) and instead billed simple services as reasonably as possible and put the bulk of the cost into the stay itself. Is there any reason why they don't do that? If they do that, then people can easily see that an ER costs money to operate due to the equipment and that the bulk of the payment they are making is towards that.

Re: Medical equipment pricing is completely broken when a sling costs $200

#340

Post by ecf »

oppositelock wrote: post #86
brink wrote: post #4

I just got an itemized bill today for a minor fall I took a couple months back.. On top of the nearly $6k in other charges from the hospital, they charged $531 for one dab of superglue or "liquid stitches" on my forehead for something that would have healed by itself. One of my friends died two years ago from pneumonia. He didn't go to the hospital when symptoms first started because he was afraid of the bills that w…

I went to the ER with chest pains seeming like a heart attack. They did an EKG, determined it wasn't a heart attack, then a blood test, which determined it was low potassium, and did a chest x-ray just in case. I received a saline IV and potassium pills as treatment, and went home after a couple of hours. The bill was about $18,000 for this. The insurance negotiated rate was about $1,500, of which I had to pay about…

Because if they were truly investigated, our dire need for universal health care would become kite apparent and the party in power just can't have that can they?
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