Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

kingsley.sh

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 294 posts

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#271

Post by kingsloi »

lucretian wrote: post #223
selfmodruntime wrote: post #94

I feel a lot of empathy for OP, but there are some choices I find very difficult to understand. > our child, with life-saving intervention, surgeries, and therapy, could, and should live a happy, healthy, fulfilled life, at least until adulthood Sorry, but I can't grasp why you would condemn a 24 weeks old fetus to a life of a) possibly not suffering and b) only living until you're 20 or so years old, when you have t…

> condemn a 24 weeks old fetus diagnosed at 21 weeks, in fact. important because the difference between 21 and 24 weeks crosses the boundary of legality in many states. furthermore, right wing activists are constantly agitating to lower the threshold even further. had that been the case here, this family would have discovered the congenital defect at the anatomy scan only afterwards. > listened to their medical profe…

Thank you, this is exactly my argument. Early COVID, late appointment, we had days to decide, and once the limit had passed, I/we no longer considered it an option and the only other options were to intervene with surgeries, or, to have her live out her natural life.

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#273

Post by Jenk »

iammisc wrote: post #265
Jenk wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gene therapy is available on the NHS in the UK. And the American system that is systematically bankrupting sick people for profit is a damn sight less perfect than the European authorities issues. Yes, it goes both ways, but it goes much further one way over the other.

> Yes, it goes both ways, but it goes much further one way over the other. That's fair. For gene therapy, I was referring to Zolgensma, which was delayed substantially in Europe and forced many to seek treatment in America. The delay was mainly due to cost savings, and the delay was clinically meaningful (since treatment is time sensitive).

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2021/03/nhs-england-strikes-deal-...

That's available too.

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#274

Post by kingsloi »

roland35 wrote: post #191
modin wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And to make it even more annoying, the hospital later changed it's policy on newborns on antibiotics - if they are otherwise healthy they don't need to stay in the NICU anymore. That sounds like a good policy change thou? Whilst I understand it must've been a grave ordeal to sort it out, I'd try to be glad for the families in similar situations now that wouldn't have to suffer from this any more instead of being an…

Yes, sorry I meant it would have made things much easier. My heart goes out to all the families with babies in the NICU. It is beyond stressful and obviously the financial side is nothing compared to the wellbeing of your baby, but then it hits you a few months later.

Yeah, we were there during peak COVID too, so it was our room, her room, and nowhere in between. I worked almost every day from her ICU room. I can still find myself hearing the beeps/alarms without actually hearing them, sort of like symptoms of PTSD.

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#275

Post by kingsloi »

almostvindiesel wrote: post #92

I'm sorry for your loss OP. We had premature twins who both stayed in the NICU for around three months. Our total hospital bills came out to just under five million dollars. Fortunately we also had great insurance and received great care. We fought with the insurance/hospital/vendors for over a year and was on the phone with them every single week for hours to get the covered procedures included. An annoyance, but we…

That's exactly who I am advocating for, not for myself, my wife, child, family were all loved and taken care of, which isn't the case for some children.

My wife and I walked by ICU beds daily that had children just starring at the ceiling, during the peak of their development, they have nothing/no one (except the love of hospital staff), for whatever reason, either in the care of the state, of their parents are at work to afford their child's ICU stay. We learnt we couldn't judge.

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#276

Post by kingsloi »

blakesterz wrote: post #6

Anyone who has ever spent any significant amount of time in any hospital knows just how crazy & broken the system is. It's absolute madness. Sometimes it seems like the worse part comes in the months after you get out when random bills start coming and other random bills end up in collections for no apparent reason. I see at the bottom of this article they "are creating a charity to help bring awareness to the issue,…

hey, thank you for this! I didn't want self promote, and CTA's just seems sleazy in this sense, but I'd be lying if I didn't want people to read about the charity, because we want change!

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#277

Post by kingsloi »

cheaprentalyeti wrote: post #50

My mom was in an ICU quality rehab hospital for six weeks while recovering from covid. The nominal cost was some 200,000.00, which they settled with medicare as per a long-running contract for 60,000.00. Somewhere in the medical cost bureaucracy is a lump of pitchblend hooked up to a geiger counter being used as a random number generator.

I'm sorry buddy, getting COVID & having a sick child, as the insurer, was my worst nightmare. I feel for you.

For sure, it could well be a lil

    Math.floor(Math.random() \* 999999999);

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#278

Post by lucretian »

kingsloi wrote: post #271
lucretian wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> condemn a 24 weeks old fetus diagnosed at 21 weeks, in fact. important because the difference between 21 and 24 weeks crosses the boundary of legality in many states. furthermore, right wing activists are constantly agitating to lower the threshold even further. had that been the case here, this family would have discovered the congenital defect at the anatomy scan only afterwards. > listened to their medical profe…

Thank you, this is exactly my argument. Early COVID, late appointment, we had days to decide, and once the limit had passed, I/we no longer considered it an option and the only other options were to intervene with surgeries, or, to have her live out her natural life.

are you the parent in the link? i'm sorry you went through this. nobody should judge you for your choice. it is exactly that - your choice - which pro-choice people advocate for. for you and other parents in these incredibly difficult circumstances to be fully educated, fully informed, and empowered to make whatever decision is right for you.

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#279

Post by shados »

stackbutterflow wrote: post #136
shados wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because in the US, if you're reasonably healthy, employed, live in a city with good hospitals and have private insurance, it "feels" better. It's easier to get better care. I'm Canadian, now living in the US, and I'll be honest: for the first couple of years, where I had some medium sized health issues, the US system felt so much better. The hospital I was treated at was leagues better than anything I saw in Canada.…

What if you want to start a business and have no significant other? Do American entrepreneurs bet that they won't fall sick before they strike gold?

You can get your own insurance in a state exchange thanks to Obama care, but thats expensive as F......

Re: The cost of two weeks in an pediatric/infant ICU

#280

Post by shados »

refurb wrote: post #234
shados wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because in the US, if you're reasonably healthy, employed, live in a city with good hospitals and have private insurance, it "feels" better. It's easier to get better care. I'm Canadian, now living in the US, and I'll be honest: for the first couple of years, where I had some medium sized health issues, the US system felt so much better. The hospital I was treated at was leagues better than anything I saw in Canada.…

Having experienced both system as well, the Canadian system is much less burdensome, but if I had serious cancer I’d take the US system any day. They throw the kitchen sink and more at you in the US and insurance will pay for most of it. My grandmothers neighbor is in her 70’s and not great health. She needs a hip transplant and the doctor is basically like “nope, you don’t have many years left, better to prioritize…

> insurance will pay for most of it.

Ehhh. Insurance will pay for what they want to pay. That means some treatments will be completely covered, and other treatments that your doctor really think should happen, won't be approved. Sometimes its because the doctor's out of wack and the insurance is calling bullshit on them (that's good!), sometimes insurance are just cheap (that's bad).

The biggest issue to me is getting far enough to even diagnose the cancer. In the US, they tend to just want to go through as many patients as possible. Maybe toss you some pills, but that's it. It's hard to get doctors to go through the more advanced diagnostics.

I had gallbladder stones for a while and it took FOUR YEARS of every doctor I talked to dismissing it as GERD (wtf) and countless ER visits before one lost patience and did the ultra sound here and there. "Oh, look at that, its not just plain stomach pain".

But who cares about finding the root cause when you can just keep billing patients after patients for GR visits where all you do is take their vitals and prescribe PPIs. If I had cancer, I'd be dead.

But yes, on the other end of the spectrum, my grandmother in Canada almost died because of critical and time sensitive heart surgery she needed that got cancelled and rescheduled over and over and over...

Post reply on HN