These sort of stories like these go viral. The amount paid is nowhere close to that, sometimes nothing is paid. The final price is always negotiated vastly lower. The patient often pays a tiny fraction of this. It's bad that this happens in the first place though. There is something wrong when people getting these outrageous bills in the first place. Hospitals send out these bills in the hope a tiny fraction of people pay in full.
Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
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Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#22I encountered a bat many years ago acting erratically inside the house. It had evidently entered in my sleep. I looked up the cost, and found out the household would be bankrupted by the shots and we would end up homeless. I calculated the danger from homelessness outweighed the risk of rabies. I guess the bet paid off, as we're now well past the 99th percentile of incubation period.
Can you get rabies still, theoretically, from this event?
Theoretically, yes. The infection can lie dormant for an exceptionally long period of time in an exceptionally small percent of cases and can be triggered by unrelated external factors.
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#23That's a shitty bill. It's also insane that US doctors and hospitals aren't required to post prices, keep prices reasonably within an allowed range, and are allowed to price gouge customers for however much they want without limit. In Redding CA, I ran across a woman with a nasal infusion pump tube taped to her face in a coffee shop. She was hurriedly collecting paperwork for a hearing across the street. It turns out…
> The hospital is required to make its charges public. NorthBay Health's online listing shows $547.65 for a rabies vaccine.
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#24That's a shitty bill. It's also insane that US doctors and hospitals aren't required to post prices, keep prices reasonably within an allowed range, and are allowed to price gouge customers for however much they want without limit. In Redding CA, I ran across a woman with a nasal infusion pump tube taped to her face in a coffee shop. She was hurriedly collecting paperwork for a hearing across the street. It turns out…
Hospital administrators don't take a hippocratic oath, unless they happened to also be doctors too.
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#25What happens if you refuse to pay?
https://news.gallup.com/poll/317948/fear-bankruptcy-due-majo... https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/16/americans-medical-de... https://www.retireguide.com/retirement-planning/risks/medica...
It really bothers me that none of these stories seem to describe what legal theories are used to enforce these fabricated "debts" against the victims. It would seem there must be a whole collection of state laws that enable these practices, and I would think they would be a prime area of reform - if they were eliminated, providers would have to publish prices and form an actual contract (including a lack of duress and well-defined consideration), instead of being able to play this game of "nobody can tell you how much anything costs until the billing extorts you".
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#26These sort of stories like these go viral. The amount paid is nowhere close to that, sometimes nothing is paid. The final price is always negotiated vastly lower. The patient often pays a tiny fraction of this. It's bad that this happens in the first place though. There is something wrong when people getting these outrageous bills in the first place. Hospitals send out these bills in the hope a tiny fraction of peopl…
Looks like there was already an outrageous payment:
> Even with plan discounts, United Healthcare still paid more than $58,000 for the couple's rabies treatment.
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#27How is that legal? What is stopping the hospital from charging 200 million dollars for the rabies shots?
If I hired someone to fix my plumbing and they wouldn't give me an estimate and then decided to charge me $20k/hr I don't think a court would honor that contract.
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#28The insurance company paid $58000 for the treatment? How the hell did they not get the hospital to get things fixed? My insurance made me submit proof, rejected it, submit proof again, partially approve, call them and then finally reimburse my $18 covid take home tests. But somehow they don’t do the same to hospitals?
What's their incentive to reduce the cost?
They make money as a % of care paid out (max profit is capped).
More costs == more profits and the costs are just passed onto the people paying for insurance (both employees and employers)
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#29I encountered a bat many years ago acting erratically inside the house. It had evidently entered in my sleep. I looked up the cost, and found out the household would be bankrupted by the shots and we would end up homeless. I calculated the danger from homelessness outweighed the risk of rabies. I guess the bet paid off, as we're now well past the 99th percentile of incubation period.
Can you get rabies still, theoretically, from this event?
I believe it’s only transmissible through saliva. Unless you are bitten by the infected animal you will be fine.
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#30That's a shitty bill. It's also insane that US doctors and hospitals aren't required to post prices, keep prices reasonably within an allowed range, and are allowed to price gouge customers for however much they want without limit. In Redding CA, I ran across a woman with a nasal infusion pump tube taped to her face in a coffee shop. She was hurriedly collecting paperwork for a hearing across the street. It turns out…
Hospitals have been required to post price lists for several years.