r/extremelyinfuriating • u/tnarbsm00 • 2d ago
Discussion America, 30 minutes will cost you 3k
TLDR - went to ER for UTI and now owe 2,926.93
Let me start off by saying that I am not the one to treat an ER like a primary care, or urgent care. Where I live is awful ANYWAY and the ER wait times are 6+ hours.
Anyway, last Friday I’m feeling fine all day. Not a single symptom in sight, no tingle or burn, no increase in peeing, etc. I get off work at 5pm, and by 6pm I’m peeing blood and blood clots. It’s burning, the after sting literally taking my breath away. I’m panicking, I’ve gone from 0 to blood clots and after 3 hours - the blood clots are still coming.
By now urgent care is closed (there’s so many around me, I live in a small city and NONE are open last 9-9:30 apparently). I breakdown and call my best friend to t ake me to the ER, we end up driving to the one two towns over. Not a single soul in the lobby, I pee in my cup while I wait since I can’t hold it. They call me back, we chit chat, test comes back SUPER positive (her words). They give me 1 starting dose of antibiotics and send me on my way. I was in and out of that hospital within 45 minutes and 30 of that was in the bed max.
Peeing in a cup, one antibiotic and 30 minutes in an empty bed, empty waiting room ER was billed at $5k and I’m responsible for $3k of it
EDIT: I did not go to the ER simply bc I wanted treatment for my UTI. I already had antibiotics called into a pharmacy at that point. I went because I had blood clots sliding out of my urethra.
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u/Kindly_Cockroach_728 2d ago
I'm from Europe. Is it my imagination or is regular American being scammed by your health system in the following way: Instead of a treatment costing some sensible amount like, pulling a tooth 50 $ and then insurance covering it, they formed a cartel, raised prices 1000% so pulling a tooth costs 1000 $, they cover 100$, then they tell you they managed to get a 500$ discout & bill you the 400$ ?
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u/One_Advertising_4693 23h ago
yeah it’s like that, except they tell you that you haven’t met your deductible yet so you have to pay the full $1000 😭😂
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u/One_Advertising_4693 23h ago
oh, and dental insurance isn’t covered under regular health insurance at all, so they won’t help you even if you have met your deductible
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u/CarobRealistic1748 2d ago
Hmmm.
In late 2017 I went into an emergency room and did not leave the hospital for 3 weeks. Lost a lung, and some other tidbits, treated for sepsis (blood poisoning), had a heart attack during all the procedures, etc.
I was retired, on Medicare and a supplemental plan. The bill was BIG, I forget but well north of $50,000. I want to say nearing $100K but honestly don't remember well.
What I do remember is that all said and done, I owed $2,500.
Seems to me billing has either made a mistake or health care in your state sucks a big one.
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u/scooooooooooot2 2d ago
Agreed there might be a mistake. Similar for me in 2022. In for 3 weeks. Total amount in the hundreds of thousands. Paid about 1000 out of pocket.
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u/caileran 2d ago
That might be because you guys got admitted post er instead of just an er visit. My husbands had 3 er visits this year. First 2 were about 2400 post insurance aince he was in and out. The 3rd he got adnited due to a stroke and wasnt near as much for the er part
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u/tnarbsm00 2d ago
I planned on calling in and asking for it to be itemized! Not sure if that’d help.
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u/CarobRealistic1748 2d ago
Years ago my wife was hospitalized and had a couple vertebrae fused, complications came up, and then she came down with pneumonia. So a couple weeks in the hospital.
Anyway our copay came in and it was utterly overboard. I called them and said I wasn't even going to think about paying without an itemized list. The amount was just stupid. When they sent me the list I found just all sorts of things I objected to. Like really? You're charging $28 per for ordinary Tylenol capsules? Told the billing manager she could take me to court or adjust that bill. It went from something like $18,000 to $1500.
It was stupid.
Over the years, a couple times I went through things like that, always with this one hospital. It was like they were just testing to see how much you'd pay. But if you called them on it they found ways to knock the bill down, a lot.
If you look at the Explanation of Benefits your health insurance carrier usually send you from time to time you often see this sort of thing in action.
There is an itemized list, and for each item a number for what the medical people billed. But then a column for what the health insurer actually thought it was worth and willing to pay. And that number is always just a fraction of the original number. The thing is your health insurer negotiated a lower amount successfully. So you can, too.
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u/gimpers420 2d ago
You should not pay anything until you call the hospital and dispute it. This is how hospitals make their money. They bill stuff out and “forget” to remove something or “make a mistake with insurance”. Most people don’t realize this and just see a bill and pay it thinking that’s what they owe. When our two kids were born we found $1000s of chargers that shouldn’t have been on our bills that they ended up removing once we pointed out the problems.
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u/goingApeShit_ 2d ago
Our healthcare is crap. I haven’t had it for years. When I go to a doctor and tell them I’m paying cash out of pocket, it’s probably a lower amount than what you would pay using insurance as the amount not covered. It’s a scam, it’s been lobbied in and I’m sure all the elected officials get kickbacks.
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u/RedeyeSPR 2d ago
Don’t pay. They’ll write it off. It’s sad this is what our “healthcare” system has come to.
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u/Some1TouchaMySpagett 2d ago
What state do you live in?
You might want to visit the ULPT sub.
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u/tnarbsm00 2d ago
I’m in CT
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u/Some1TouchaMySpagett 2d ago
I don't know your state's laws, but the fine folks of that sub might be able to point you in the right direction.
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u/rockdabone1 2d ago
I have geat insurance with a low out of pocket max, much lower than your total here. Had 2 hospital stays in 2 years. I didn't pay either time. I have an 800 credit score still and only got a few letters in the mail each time. I'm in CT.
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u/Sterlinghawk16 2d ago
Please get an itemized cost from the hospital. It has been proven over and over, most bills are just plain wrong. Highlight anything that does not seem right. Then call billing at the hospital.
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u/Whole-Cookie-7754 2d ago
Man, America sucks. Than fuck I live in Europe.
I tore my ACL and went to the hospital. Ended up with surgery after MRI. I paid a total of €30.
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u/N8Watch 2d ago
Just don’t pay it. When they call to collect the debt tell them all you got is $300. They’ll take it or nothing. Simple
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u/Hour-Dare-3904 2d ago
Bad advice. Not paying will get it sent to a debt collector who can and will sue you for the full amount of debt if you do not pay. They will do this either in the form of wage garnishment or placing a levy on your bank account. They’ll charge you court and lawyer’s fees on top of that. It hits your credit score if it goes to collections too. I know a guy who owed $4,000 in medical bills and did the just ignore it trick. He got sued by the debt collector and with legal fees it jumped up to over $6,000. He had to declare bankruptcy because the debt was so old and the collectors wouldn’t settle for lower than what the debt was originally worth. The hospital likely would’ve corrected whatever errors had occurred or negotiated a payment plan, but the debt collectors were not so kind. They wanted him to pay $330 per month to have it paid off in a year.
OP should dispute the bill with the hospital and let them know of their financial status, work out some kind of monthly repayment plan if you can’t negotiate the bill down. But ignoring and not paying the bill does not work anymore. Healthcare organizations are very much for profit and will use every opportunity they have to get that money back.
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u/N8Watch 1d ago
Yeah never happened to me. I paid $300 for a 40,000 bill. I won, they lost. I didn’t lose shit.
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u/Hour-Dare-3904 1d ago
I guess I didn’t fully read your post. You’re right, at least paying something is better than nothing. I was sidelined by you telling them “don’t pay it” at first.
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u/the_girly_files 23h ago edited 23h ago
Next time…just get pure cranberry juice. That’s wild. It’s super bitter but it does work. At least in my situation when I felt one coming on
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u/the_girly_files 23h ago
Exactly the reason I cancelled health insurance Jan 1 when rates skyrocketed. They refused to even cover my adhd medication I’ve been on for 15 years now claiming there’s some age limit?! Lmao. Cool GFY then I’m canceling
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u/Kiliksbigshtick 2d ago
Next time go to a pcp or urgent care. Emergency rooms are always expensive.
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u/Guilty-Bookkeeper837 2d ago
I get what you're saying, sort of, but are you really suggesting the amount you pay should be tied to how long you're in the facility?
Yesterday, I put a stent in a 30 year old man's heart, because he was insistent on dying, otherwise (they can be so demanding). The actual procedure took 25 minutes in the cath lab, and the total bill will be around $37k. Should I have dragged out the procedure to "justify" the cost? I went to school for 16 years, AFTER highschool (and spent $256k), and the hospital has invested approximately $16M in the equipment and facility I use.
I understand your frustration, but it's not nearly as simple as you portray it.
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u/wildwildnyx 2d ago
I’m sorry but people die because of how complicated it has been made. We’re ripped off every time. I paid $250 for a test that I could have gotten done for $20 because you know what? I HAVE gotten it done for $20.
You’re not proving any point. We all know how rigged the system is—doctors stop procedure in the middle, deny treatments because the insurance stops paying. Unless you have done a life saving surgery or treatment on someone who didn’t pay a dime, you haven’t made any point.
The machines you’re talking about? Let’s see—if I take the average number of 2600 surgeries per day, that should make one procedure a little less than $20 if you want to retrieve the cost of the machine. So please, simplify it for me.
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u/Guilty-Bookkeeper837 2d ago
Hard to argue with someone who thinks there are somehow 2600 surgeries per day, you clearly have it all figured out.
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u/DrKittyLovah 2d ago
Are you really in here defending the ridiculous costs of US healthcare? I absolutely understand the not equating time & cost, but c’mon….
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