Probably a DFT^P03 message caused an issue somewhere...
Or this was to be...
"CDPH does not have a role in setting charge limits or ranges for services."
Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
51–60 of 135 posts
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#52This is another of those cases which seem to be very clearly price gouging, which is illegal, unless you're a hospital. The hospital should be subpoena'd to get the actual cost of treatment - both the vaccination, the amount paid to the ER staff during the time the patients were there, etc. Also this BS where they can just say "out of respect for patient privacy we don't discuss billing matters", when the patient has…
I won't attempt to defend the hospital but even outside of healthcare, price gouging is almost always legal. There are only a few limited circumstances where it is banned in a subset of US states.
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#53TIL Vacaville is considered Bay Area... that's a pretty far drive from SF.
Cow city. It's a shithole halfway to Sacramento.
A woman crashed her car into my vehicle there. She didn't stop. A cop was right there and did nothing. I called 911. The county or city didn't have E911 properly configured with Verizon and couldn't get my location. This is how America works. Broken, lawless, and dysfunctional.
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#54I am so happy that I don't have to put up with crazy shit like $200k for a few shots which is NOT just a billing failure, just by not living on the other side of the Atlantic...
Because here where I live, if you walk into an emergency room and walk out a few hours later with two shots and a $200k bill, ... well it's unthinkable, but if it happened anyway and the hospital tried to defend it, the judge would just laugh their lawyers out of the door.
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#55That'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…
My mother got cancer (she survived it, fortunately). She had a fantastic insurance policy, made good money (well above the average income), and had money in the bank.
Her medical costs ended up bankrupting her. That was where the scales fell from my eyes and I learned that what we're taught about the purpose of insurance (to protect us in the case of a catastrophic expense) is just pure BS.
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#56I 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.
Seems pretty remote chance to get rabies without being bit, but did you read the last paragraph? "The Aguilars wound up paying $3,546.64 out of pocket. The insurance company told us Wednesday that they "are reaching out to NorthBay Healthcare... to address these excessive charges."" The shot normally costs ~$600 USD. There is no way the insurance in the end will pay the $54k the hospital tried to get away with.
> Seems pretty remote chance to get rabies without being bit
Just FYI, it's possible to get bit by a bat while sleeping and not realize it. Most bats are small and a bite mark may not be painful or immediately noticeable. There was a case in 2021 in Illinois of a man being bitten by a bat in his sleep; in his case, he realized he'd been bitten, but declined treatment (cost, probably...) and died of rabies a month later. Not a fun way to go.
I've heard the advice before to get a prophylactic rabies shot if you find a bat trapped in your house while you were sleeping. ...in civilized countries, anyway.
edit: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/02/4804145...
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#57So healthcare costs like 500-1k per month for the good stuff. And you still might have to pay through the nose for a £75 vaccine? Or is this a case of bad insurance? That the US can spy on the entire world but can't get its own people basic healthcare is shocking.
No, it depends on your age, health, and coverage. For limited disastrous healthcare coverage, that might get you $1m in lifetime coverage with a $8k deductible if you were 28 and in perfect health.
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#58Brazil here. A few years ago, my wife was bitten by a dog. We simply went to the neighborhood free healthcare clinic, the standard entry point to our free universal healthcare system. After a very short wait they cleaned the wound and administered the first rabies vaccine. We went back there for the next doses. All free of charge, and the only "paperwork" she needed to do was to present her national ID card.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistema_%C3%9Anico_de_Sa%C3%BA...
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Debt collectors, A lien on their house, etc
Dispute the debt. They can't put a lien on property without a court case and I want to see someone stand in front of a judge and justify an un-itemized 100k bill when their own public charge sheet shows that the service should cost <1000.
That doesn't work in the real world. Their army of lawyers can and will outspend you at every turn.
They will force you into bankruptcy when you should've declared bankruptcy to begin with.
Re: Bay Area couple shocked by $200K hospital bill for rabies shots
#60That'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. https://www.cms.gov/hospital-price-transparency
This won't be effective unless the hospital is required to provide prices whenever people ask, such as requesting an estimate from your car mechanic. And not only providing the prices but being required to honor the price they give you, with some reasonable threshold of variance.
These hospitals posting their prices reminds me of this classic section of "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy":
"But the plans were on display..."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That’s the display department."
"With a flashlight."
"Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.'