1y ago

A former US surgeon general says he went to the ER for dehydration and ended up with a $5,000 bill. He called the healthcare system 'broken.'

www.businessinsider.com A former US surgeon general says he went to the ER for dehydration and ended up with a $5,000 bill. He called the healthcare system 'broken.'

Former US Surgeon General Jerome Adams said he got a $5,000 bill for a recent ER visit, highlighting big problems with the US healthcare system.

A Boring Dystopia @lemmy.world

www.businessinsider.com /former-surgeon-general-medical-bill-shows-broken-healthcare-system-2024-2

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I paid 1200 USD a month for a family of 3 for my health insurance to have the privilege of paying more a hospital bill.
I had to go to the ER because I slit my pinky on some glass and waited in the ER for 5 hours. They had to rip then dried blood and paper towel that was stuck on my finger because it took so long.
After all that, I had to pay 3000usd of my own money which didn't cover my minimum. Why DA FUCK DO I EVEN NEED INSURANCE!?!?!?
The fucking nurse on staff that came to help me for a few minutes was not within my network. Ya fuck that hospital too.
- The fucking nurse on staff that came to help me for a few minutes was not within my network.
  Oh, that's unfortunately quite common in the States -- the hospital itself might be in your network, but their own ER docs, etc. are technically contract employees who are not. So then you get out-of-network bills.
  Imagine trying to sort through all this when, for example, you're having trouble breathing and need immediate medical care.
  It's f**ked up, bad, and has been for years.
  
  Remember when the liars were telling us that we wouldn't be able to choose our doctors without private insurance? We still cannot choose our doctors and also the ones chosen for us cost hundreds of thousands.
  
  Remember when the liars were telling us...
  Speaking of which, remember this whopper?
  Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said at a town hall meeting today that Americans "have every right to fear" government health care reform efforts, which he suggested would lead to the government deciding when to "pull the plug" on older Americans.
  Apparently he's more comfortable with insurance company executives doing it.
  
  Not only are claim denials the real "death panels," but all the same people saying that shit then told us our grandparents must die for the stock market in 2020. Constant liars and hypocrites.
  
  And the other side is also fucked up. I have a family member who has been a doctor in the US and Canada.
  In the US, each doctor had two full-time employees just working on that doctor's billing. In Canada, his clinic of four doctors had one person working part-time doing the billing to our government health insurance.
  
  In Canada, his clinic of four doctors had one person working part-time doing the billing to our government health insurance.
  This needs context. Was his clinic in Canada understaffed, or did Canadian health insurance paperwork require considerably less time to process?
  
  His clinic in Canada didn't need anything more than one person working half time to process all of its doctors' paperwork to submit to the provincial health system.
- For small wounds like that I generally recommend an urgent care clinic over the ER. Way cheaper and they can handle that shit. Save the ER for proper trauma.
  
  Sure. If the urgent care is open.
  God forbid you slice your hand open outside of regular business hours.
  I used to get some random unexplained swelling in one leg. My wife has a family history of blood clots. I don’t , but that doesn’t keep her from panicking, or from inciting my own panic. Only way to know for sure that it’s not a clot, as far as anyone told me, is imaging…sonograms specifically.
  I don’t think any urgent care around me has sonograms. It’s ER, or get PCP to refer out and have an appointment in 3 weeks.
  If you Google “Ultrasound Machine” and look at the shopping listings, you’ll find more than a few entire fucking machines that cost less than half of just one of those visits. And what did I have for that time? A few hours of waiting, interspersed with 5 minutes with an ultrasound tech, and 20 seconds with a doctor telling me (in the hallway) that nothing was wrong.
  
  Yes, this was general advice. If there’s no urgent care open and you need to see someone more immediately, go to the ER. For a cut that needs stitches, you can probably wait for the urgent care to open.
  
  just learn to do it yourself, save even more!
  
  Better yet, ignore it and save on materials costs too!
- It’s illegal for them to send you a bill because a provider isn’t your network. One of the few good things passed under Trump. Lmk if you need any specific help or information in disputing that bill.
  Edit: assuming this ER visit happened on or after 1/1/2022. Or potentially earlier depending on your state.
  
  It has been years. I actually decided to move out of the USA. Paid the bill and decided to be more careful.
- My wife had to go to the ER and we went to a hospital that was in network. The hospital is indeed in network but the fucking ER is a separate entity and was not. I guess we should have been better informed consumers. /s
  
  ER was in-network. The nurse and doctor was also in-network. The second nurse, who connected me to the ECG, and the person who read the ECG was not in-network. No way of knowing at the time. Balance billing was permitted in that state at that time, which out-of-network provider used to the full extent.
  I’m still salty about that.
  
  That part is messed up. You shouldn't be dealing with individual contractors as a patient. All billing should go through the hospital, and be considered in-network provided the hospital is in-network, regardless of what kind of specialist sees you there. Any exception, such as bringing in someone who doesn't normally work there to treat a rare condition, should require separate and specific authorization from the patient in advance.
  
  Ridiculous isn’t it? I had my annual physical a few weeks back, which for me is filling an online form and having my blood pressure read and a few blood tests. $550, insurance pays for everything.
  Well. Almost. Turns out 2 of my blood tests were not covered by some healthcare bill passed in 2007. $267. And the mole I asked to be checked, billing code wasn’t covered as standard checkup, and so that question was $240. Mole was benign, and surprisingly didn’t result in some convenience fee.
  
  That is seriously fucked up.
  For me, I called my insurance on the phone while bleeding profusely and wanted to make sure I went to the right hospital. I still got hit with out of network bills.
- Do you have Urgent Care near you? They could have done some stitches.
  
  For whoever doesn't know. Unless you are going to die within the next 6 hours. Go to urgent care.
  Not gonna say the system ain't broken but that's what the system wants you to do.
  My insurance is $75 to go to Urgent Care. Maximum payout.
  ER means $3000 minimum just to go in the door and goes up to infinity.
  Urgent Care can handle stitches, and if you need to go to the ER they can make that determination.
  
  I'd probably just super glue the wound closed myself.
  
  I uh...don't think that's sanitary.
  
  A 1986 independent study suggests that cyanoacrylate can be safer and more functional for wound closure than traditional suturing.
  Super glue spray was used in the Vietnam War to close wounds on the battlefield.
  And it’s sometimes in first aid kits at places where slicing wounds can be common, like barbershops.
  
  Still shouldn't use random superglue from the arts+crafts section, though. Sterility aside there's different types of cyanoacrylate. I don't think any are actually toxic but some are definitely less (as in zero) irritating to tissue.
  
  It was Sunday and all Urgent care is not 24 hours in my area. I actually waited so long in the ER that one of the Urgent Cares opened, but at that point I was already inside and triaged. If I knew I would wait inside for another 2 hours, I would have left.
- Yeah but in the UK they have to wait 2 weeks to see a specialist
  
  We have waits for specialists too. To get my vasectomy, I had to wait six weeks from my referral to my first consult, then another month from the consult to the actual surgery.
  And then I got a bill from the surgical center, a bill from the urologist, and a bill from the anesthesiologist, despite only going to one office for the whole thing.
  
  I'm in the UK. From my first enquiry to the operation was about the same...
  ... but I didn't get any bills after.
  
  If I tried to go see my primary care doctor right now in the US, I'd probably have to wait at least 3 months for an appointment.
  
  Where the fuck are you in the US that you do not have to wait for specialists? You living in Fantasy Land? Even a simple specialist like a dermatologist is a 2-3 month wait.
  
  He said UK. We only wish we only needed to wait 2 weeks for a specialist.
  
  Yeah I know, it was a cruel joke. But if you talk to a con about this, you're sure to find this in their argument salad
  
  OECD data shows that wait times don’t significantly vary based on how a system is funded. The USA is just plain bad at wait times. That being said, the UK’s system is not the best example.
  
  I just scheduled and appointment for my PCP. His next available is in June. Fucking 4 months for primary care.
  I’ll take wait times in the UK with no bill over this bullshit any day.
  
  Lol, we wish we could wait 2 weeks. My wife needed a tumor removed in her stomach and took 6 months.

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