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The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

thecity.nyc

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Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#131

Post by kyleee »

lostgame wrote: post #123
munk-a wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work adjacent to the industry and can clearly see what a rotten pile of crap it is - I'm also actually a US/Canadian border straddler, I emigrated from the US to come up here in fact. Please don't take any of my statement above as any sort of excuse for the market's behavior, these companies hold profit over the well being of patients - otherwise they wouldn't be so willing to stick poor people with such high bills…

I literally knew you must’ve been part of the industry. You might want to think your word ‘unavoidable’. It caused me so much rage I literally couldn’t make it through the rest of your post until after I made mine. I completely inteperet your post as an excuse - the word unavoidable alone gives that away. Canada’s system isn’t perfect - but it also isn’t literally raping the lower class on purpose. Just look up Marti…

You are not parsing the original post you replied to very well, you should read it a few times more and ask questions to the person who wrote it instead of going off the rails with hasty conclusions

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#132

Post by munk-a »

lostgame wrote: post #123
munk-a wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work adjacent to the industry and can clearly see what a rotten pile of crap it is - I'm also actually a US/Canadian border straddler, I emigrated from the US to come up here in fact. Please don't take any of my statement above as any sort of excuse for the market's behavior, these companies hold profit over the well being of patients - otherwise they wouldn't be so willing to stick poor people with such high bills…

I literally knew you must’ve been part of the industry. You might want to think your word ‘unavoidable’. It caused me so much rage I literally couldn’t make it through the rest of your post until after I made mine. I completely inteperet your post as an excuse - the word unavoidable alone gives that away. Canada’s system isn’t perfect - but it also isn’t literally raping the lower class on purpose. Just look up Marti…

"Unavoidable" was probably a poor word choice, "Unintended" would likely have been better.

That all said, the system is broken, the reasons it is broken are pretty clear to me sitting where I am and I think the comment above lays out just why this system is terrible in a clear and relatively neutral tone which I consider to be the most productive manner in which to highlight just how terrible the system is and open up a discussion on how these issues effect us and might be addressed.

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#134

Post by sudders »

swozey wrote: post #27
platetone wrote: post #15

We decided (slash "made the mistake") of going to the emergency room last summer. Spent less than two hours in an exam room before being dismissed with no conclusion and referral to another doctor. Got a $9500 bill about six months later and have been billed a 10% copay on that (insurance paid $5500 already at their negotiated rate). Still fighting it as absolutely absurd, but there's really no hope. This country is…

I paid something like $800 for one crutch when I sprained my ankle once. Think another $300 for ibuprofen. Now I know why there's a crutch market on craigslist/thrift stores. Not sure what my insurance paid for xrays, etc, but my tab was something like $1100 for that ER rendezvous. Thought I broke my leg. I had a laparoscopic surgery a few years ago that was $35k.

To put it in perspective, I broke my ankle 3 years ago, and in the end, I paid, from my own pocket, 45EUR. For 1 ER visit, x-rays, cast, a few follow-up consultations and renting crutches for a few weeks.

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#135

Post by AOsborn »

jariel wrote: post #87
munk-a wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That ambulance bill is insane. Up here in Canada ambulance charges are paid out of pocket but my wife had a low blood pressure emergency and got an ambulance called and was only out 300$ for a three mile drive (through dense city streets even). I'm even of the opinion that that bill was a bit excessive.

$300 seems low. 'The distance' is basically irrelevant. You're paying for a highly available, rapid response team to be prepared for almost any medical emergency, 24/7, literally almost at the press of a button. 'Preparedness' is expensive. What happened if the Ambulance broke down? Or a medic decided to say f-it and skipped a day. Or the phone didn't work. Or the critical piece of gear didn't work. Or ooops ran out…

Different country, but pointing out some reported data on actual costs:

https://www.stjohn.org.nz/news--info/news-articles/st-john-a...

In New Zealand one of the major ambulance services reports costs of around $615 including taxes per callout.

However, the charge passed onto the customer is set at $98 for medical emergencies. This is waived for accidents (covered by the government).

A $4000 ambulance bill is offensive and I don't think justifiable in any way.

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#136

Post by kyleee »

munk-a wrote: post #132
lostgame wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally knew you must’ve been part of the industry. You might want to think your word ‘unavoidable’. It caused me so much rage I literally couldn’t make it through the rest of your post until after I made mine. I completely inteperet your post as an excuse - the word unavoidable alone gives that away. Canada’s system isn’t perfect - but it also isn’t literally raping the lower class on purpose. Just look up Marti…

"Unavoidable" was probably a poor word choice, "Unintended" would likely have been better. That all said, the system is broken, the reasons it is broken are pretty clear to me sitting where I am and I think the comment above lays out just why this system is terrible in a clear and relatively neutral tone which I consider to be the most productive manner in which to highlight just how terrible the system is and open u…

No reason to change your wording on account of someone who has clearly not read your post closely.

As you've noted the intention of the parties involved is to extract as much money as possible from payors, thus the word "unintended" is clearly a poor fit.

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#137

Post by dhuduehe »

platetone wrote: post #15

We decided (slash "made the mistake") of going to the emergency room last summer. Spent less than two hours in an exam room before being dismissed with no conclusion and referral to another doctor. Got a $9500 bill about six months later and have been billed a 10% copay on that (insurance paid $5500 already at their negotiated rate). Still fighting it as absolutely absurd, but there's really no hope. This country is…

What made you decide to go to the ER instead of scheduling an appointment with your GP out of curiosity?

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#138

Post by lultimouomo »

joe_the_user wrote: post #98
lultimouomo wrote: post #52

Side note: if you suspect a COVID-19 infection, DO NOT GO TO THE ER. Contact a physician by phone, get instructions. By going to the ER you put a lot of people at risk.

At some point, the people who suspect COVID-19 infection are going to be people who have full-on pneumonia. They would need to go to ER under normal circumstance but indeed, that will have a bad result. Basically, we desperately need a special COVID-19 program, not simply a person's regular physician giving instructions. How many physicians are going to be getting calls soon and how much time does that take important…

> Some multi-track system like this is going to be necessary or more desirable than Italy, which has shut down the part of its health care system not treating COVID patients and is still mostly watching them die.

Please don't spread disinformation, this absolutely not what is happening in Italy.

ERs are working, hospitals are working.

Planned and elective procedures have been delayed, to spare personnel and rooms and to avoid creating new emergency cases in case the procedure goes wrong.

Italy has less than 7000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Dealing with those is not a problem. Even the 1000 people in ICU are not a problem themselves, the 600 in Lombardy are. Lombardy had around 900 ICU beds before the crisis (they now have more but the extra ones are makeshift); this means that 2/3rds of the bed are needed for COVID-19 patients only, which is obviously a huge problem. In Bergamo, the city with the worst situation, some people cannot be tubed because of lack of equipment will get will get a NIV instead, which is very very bad, but it's not "wathich people die".

BTW, Italy has enforced the dual track system for suspect COVID-19 cases since at least two weeks ago.

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#139

Post by jfk13 »

bluntfang wrote: post #115
outworlder wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish that was the case. If you sort the line items by cost, I would be surprised if labor was on top. Maybe for surgeries, but I doubt that. My insurance got billed 6k for a chest ultra-sound. They paid 4k. Hospital still wanted around 2k, had to negotiate and pay a little over 1k at the end. The line item for physician cost (billed separately) had 2 digits.

>If you sort the line items by cost.. Do you really think current health care is giving accurate line items on your bill?

Wouldn't a bill with inaccurate line items amount to a form of fraud?

Re: The Cost of Not Getting Tested for Coronavirus: A $10K ER Bill

#140

Post by dhuduehe »

tialaramex wrote: post #112
______---______ wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Guess which country has better health outcomes. The US, by all objective measures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_o... It's actually not uncommon for Brits to travel to America to pay for treatments not available on the national health or to avoid the often years-long waiting lists.

Here "Not uncommon" means "Very uncommon" because of course as this story illustrates US medicine is _ludicrously_ expensive and so the only reason you'd _travel_ there to get medical treatment is because that's the only place offering some obscure treatment you want. Also is that list of really weird stats "all objective measures" ? No. It's just "Here are some numbers somebody seemingly randomly picked from a _vast…

>... so the only reason you'd _travel_ there to get medical treatment is because that's the only place offering some obscure treatment you want. When is this not true though? Of course traveling farther would be less desirable when moving between developed countries, it adds burden and costs on top of whatever you were already going to have to pay without offering much opportunity for recouping costs. The only exception might be traversing the EU but that's because of geographical convenience more than anything else. America is literally across the sea, if we're cheaper for someone in the UK then someone fucked up somewhere at the NHS.
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