Anyone visit the Emergency Room lately and note the bill?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

Last Saturday I developed an UNBELIEVABLE pain in my lower right abdomen. I had had two brief flare ups of pain lasting about 20 minutes each for the two previous days. But this time it felt very serious. After trying to bear it, I finally had no choice but to drive myself to the ER on Sunday at 3:00 a.m. I stayed there about 6 hours, during which time the doctor checked for appendicitis and other possible causes. The doctor thought it might be a kidney stone and did a CT scan and also briefly gave me a morphine drip. No stone. I was released after the pain went away. I later saw a specialist in his office who told me it was just a very bad bladder infection. I had no idea that such a problem had been building up. He prescribed anti-biotics that cost me $10 and the problem has now gone completely away.

Meanwhile, today, I receive a phone call from the Hospital Billing Department housing the Emergency Room, telling me my bill will be somewhere between $7000 and $8000 and confirming whether I have insurance or not. I don't. I last had insurance about 10 years ago, and was paying more than I could afford, despite a $10,000 deductible. For me, health insurance is out of the question, as rent, food, and gas money virtually eat up everything I make. And I don't think I qualify as an indigent, to receive state aid.

The thing I can't get over is the cost for a CT scan, morphine, and six hours occupying a bed in an ER where they don't really do anything for you. Again, I was told the bill will come in well over $7000. My cousin has had to drop his health insurance, because his employer has taken him off the payroll and turned him into an independent contractor and my cousin can't afford COBRA. My cousin warned me about health costs nowadays and he now drives down to Mexico. He recently had to have an EKG done and, instead of paying $1500 for it in California, he paid $150 to a Mexican doctor (a heart specialist in fact) who appears to be very competent.

I guess for many, the size of my bill is not shocking. However, I have been very healthy for the past several years and have not had to resort to the medical industry and I therefore am not used to these dollar amounts. I intend to pay whatever I can, as I don't believe in freeloading. But I am in complete shock over this bill and I was expecting something maybe one-third this amount at most. I was wondering if others have had the same reaction.

[VelmaD]

1. Maybe it's just me but a CT sounds excessive...

just to look for a kidney stone.

[babylonsister]

2. I had something similar happen about 6 years ago.

Pain in the gut, went to the ER, was there for several hours. I also got a kidney scan, pills, etc. My bill was approx. $1,600 from what I recall, but I did have insurance luckily, and they negotiated a substantially lower price, as they always do. I would suggest you call and explain your financial situation and come to a compromise.
I have a friend who was recently admitted to a hospital for 6 days because she couldn't breathe (emphazema-sp?), and she has no insurance. She went to the accounting office and they worked something out she could live with after being billed initially for over $50,000.
And this admin is concentrating on SS instead of healthcare? :wtf:

[Kat45]

3. Not only is the bill high, it is higher if you don't have insurance.

The insurance companies negotiate prices, which are sometimes less than the cost of a procedure. So the prices for those without insurance are hiked up even higher, probably higher than the cost, to make up for it. It totally sucks. Talk to them about the bill and your situation: perhaps they will lower the bill, and even if they don't, you can work out a payment schedule. Definitely work it out with the hospital because if you don't work something out and the bill goes (even partially) unpaid, it will go to a collection agency--and collection agencies have no interest in working anything out, they just want the money and get pretty nasty about trying to get it.

[stellanoir]

4. my kid had the ingenuity to collide with another

kid playing street hockey a couple of months ago. The school nurse called. . .never a good sign. She thought he needed stitches. His upper eyelid had a split in it and to his credit, he continued to play for another twenty minutes after the collision before he noticed the blood. Ahh. . .there is not a whole lot of vasculature under most people's eyebrows.

So I dutifully took him to the ER under the gym teacher's recommendation. It took 3 hours. The doctor was cool. He spoke of a new magical gel that he would prefer to use. It took him far less than five minutes to apply it.

I later learned that the magical gel was no chemically different from that of Crazy Glue. The bill was $960 some odd bucks. Go figure. I could have done that in my own bloody kitchen. Glad I didn't in an odd way. But it just makes me furious about the Bankcruptcy Bill when such superficial wound treated with such marginal attention would be so onerously expensive.

/rant.

[mark414]

5. i got a $900 bill last year

i hurt my wrist really badly at work and was stubborn and figured it would just go away...which it didn't, it just got worse

so i spent 2 hours waiting in the lobby, 30 minutes waiting for the doc, and then got a couple x-rays...then waited another 45 minutes for a doctor to come back, to tell me nothing showed up in the x-rays...they gave me a wrist brace and told me to pop some ibuprofen for the pain

a week later guess what shows up in my mailbox??

[politicat]

6. Ask for an itemized bill, then start negotiating.

Billing errors happen, and sometimes you can get them to negotiate to the insurance levels.

[DS1]

7. An ambulance ride, even if they just pick you up and take you

5 miles down the road, can cost up to 2 grand.

It's sickening.

[Yavin4]

8. Sadly, Your Bill Is Correct

Hospitals are trying to recoup the costs from emergency room patients that couldn't and didn't pay. The uninsured is what's driving the costs of health care.

In this country, we foolishly believe that we can have massive amounts of people with no education and no healthcare, and that they'll just fade away into the ether. The uninsured are human just like anyone else. They will have health problems just like everyone else, and when their health problems evolve into a crisis, they head to emergency rooms. When they can't pay, that loss is passed onto other patients.

We're more concerned about saving $6 in tax cuts than we are about providing health insurance for everyone. Giving everyone health insurance would drive down the costs.

[HeeBGBz]

9. $2600

For emergency room, EKG, chest x-ray, blood tests, heart monitor and a horsepill of Potassium.

[Blue Diadem]

10. That does seem very high,

although I don't know the cost involved with a CT scan. My son has been arguing with a hospital about his billing for the ER. He had broken his ankle. They treated him with a splint, x-rays and two shots for pain and sent him home on crutchs. His bill was $2,000.

He has insurance. After his $100 deductible, they pay 90%. However, they negotiated down to a much lower amount..paying the hospital around $600. My son's cost was around $250. The insurance company says he's not responsible for the remaining amount because the hospital is supposed to "write it off". However he still keeps getting billed for the rest. The insurance company told him on Friday that they will send another notice to the hospital reminding them of proper procedures.

It's been my experience that insurance companies pay 1/2 or less of the hospital's asking amounts. I hope you can negotiate an amount more appropriate.