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.'

I've worked in hospital systems since I graduated from college. There has been one meeting (out of all the meetings!) that I have absolutely never forgotten due to something that was brought up.

They thought it was super cool to talk about how much cash our new surgical center was bringing in. I know it was small in the scheme of things, but in my head a hospital should be super happy when they don't have to perform surgery on a person. They shouldn't be happy to perform surgery so that they can make money.

Most healthcare systems in the US are non-profits. To run a non-profit, you still need revenue to operate no matter where you are or what you do. They have to pay their own bills just like anyone else.

Bring on the downvotes. Then go ahead and take all of your local hospital’s funding and see what happens.

Edit: maybe people misunderstood my point? People are replying and saying that profit shouldn’t be part of healthcare. Yes, but that doesn’t solve the problem of funding. Every hospital gets money. Pick your favorite country, the hospital still gets money.

History shows us that capitalism inevitably tends towards monopolies

I remember when my dad lost his job around 2002. I was a little kid and my mom told me to be careful when I'm playing outside, because if I broke my arm we could lose our house. That's something I don't think should ever be a reality, or something that parents or children should worry about in a functioning country.

Yes, but longer. It's absurd. Not sure exactly when premiums really got out of control, though. There's probably a good chart out there.

Democrats tried to fix this almost... 15 years ago ("thanks Obama"). Critical failure: no Medicare option for all. Most civilized democracies implemented right to free care 30+ years ago, should've been easy to follow. (Then higher education as well.) For-profit health insurance companies and their armies of lobbyists are evil and should be burned to the ground.

Am aware, this is why I avoid seeking medical care.

Insurance companies get away with fraud all the time.

I hope the number of bulk billing places starts to increase again. I get scared thinking about how we're becoming more and more like the US.

If it were exclusively the "Republican way" then this issue could have been resolved at several inflection points throughout US history.

It's not a problem exclusive to any political party. It's a problem because people like money. That's the end of it. Politicians invest in corporations. Lobbyists provide kickbacks to politicians. Politicians bias their legislation to ensure maximum personal profit.

To isolate this issue to any particular political party or orientation is to perpetuate it.

Blame all of them. And vote accordingly.

Fuck republicans and all that but was he republican or are we just circle jerking here?

Sometimes, it still doesn't hit them though. They'll get a $20,000 bill and say "thank God I don't live in Canada or this would be even worse!"

I think doctors know as much if not more than anyone how broken the system is and how it constantly fails people, disagreements more about what to do about it and fears about change.

And there's certainly some physicians organizing in support of single payer.

Physicians for a National Health Program

A lot of doctors are concerned about how much say or influence they would have in such a health system, but hey not like they have much as it is as everything has become giant conglomerates run by MBAs and private equity, so not much to lose. At least government is theoretically beholden to the people.

Doctor Mike lost any respect I had for him after his behaviour during the pandemic. He is a content creator far above being an actual medical professional.

You made me chuckle. Thanks!

that was the cost of just my ambulance ride

US Medical Costs aren't racked up by the complexity of the work or care being given, its by how many people are scheduled to see you, diagnose or provide care. Each of them has a set rate per appointment, so the 200,000 figure for a kidney stone that was confirmed by multiple different specialists is not far off. A broken arm at the ER is basically the trauma nurses, an emergency medical specialist, a surgeon or two, anesthesiologist and their respective teams. The more departments you get passed around to the more your bill goes up.

Probably not for what OP described, but that's pretty close to the amount they billed my insurance when I broke two bones in my arm.

It's the rich running this country. The political system is there to make the masses feel represented.

I think you mean

Working as intended
The owning class

plenty of working class people could be considered rich and a medical bill would still upend their lives.

Who watches the watchmen? Well I've come up with a new branch named aptly:

The Duty Takers

99% agreed. I don't believe there are currently any "good ones". Everyone thinks "their guy" is going good and the rest suck and it's why we never have change in the guard.

I love how it’s some bureaucrats job to decide what medication is best for his needs. Not OP, who had been having desired results prior to his employer switching insurance, and not his PCP, who is more closely tied to his outcomes than anyone else.

We have tried other medication, which is how we found that this one actually worked.

This medication isn't available on a lot of those sites. I've looked, but I haven't checked Canada yet. I'll give it a go soon.

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.

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.

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.

It has been years. I actually decided to move out of the USA. Paid the bill and decided to be more careful.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Don't go to the ER for dehydration. If it's really that bad, find an IV lounge that can just give you an IV bag with some vitamins and maybe some meds.

It's like $150-$200, which I know is still expensive, but you don't need insurance and it's a quick in-and-out.

When that dehydrated, injecting liquids is way more effective than drinking them.

If it was fixed by salt water, why did he go to ER?

Two years ago my dad had a cardiac arrest.

Resuscitation, ambulance ride, four stents, nearly a week in a coma in intensive care, another week recovering. No charge at all. Due to Covid and them not really want everyone putting their germy hospital hands on the ticket machines, even the parking was free.

All I paid was a few quid for a bottle of water and some biscuits from the hospital shop.

Now there are issues with the NHS, in that anything non-urgent can take a very long time and might not get resolved at all, and it being chronically understaffed to the point of negligence (which is intentional sabotage by our government) but for emergencies, it's amazing.

The real story is the surgeon had a problem with the hospital charging him so little. Only a broken system would miss that he could've paid well above $5000.

Praise be thy rules of acquisition.

And perhaps they didn't.

I'm not putting the full blame of the Anti-Covid nonsense on him - but that decision was certainly straw on the camels back. I know I will never forget.

We've already had this discussion ad nauseum since 2020. It's 2024. Just stop with spreading information that can fuel the anti-mask bullshit.

I understand that wearing eye protection can reduce the risk of catching the virus. But to say "masks are not effective" being technically true is irresponsible.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

Thanks!

I'm guessing we're going to get through our $10,000 deductible at least.

No, but it's the same hospital.

If you're curious why I'm going there, I wrote about it in Casual Conversation- https://lemmy.world/post/12194311

Long story short: I haven't been able to eat any solid food for over six months and no one knows why.

(Please no medical advice, I am begging you. The general you, not you specifically.)

The Mayo Clinic specializes in a lot of niche stuff which means people often have to fly from all over the country to visit this specific hospital in Minnesota

Intravenous Pedialyte, I love it. Wish they added Red 8 and Blue 40 to IV bags to make them more fun and so that my kids begged to go and get IV drips.

In a single payer system, why would how much the payer pays for service matter, on a per service basis? The payer may as well just run the entire system. Essentially, an integrated delivery network (like Kaiser Permanente) on a national scale.

I recently got one single stitch in my hand. $2k after insurance paid their portion and I think I have pretty good insurance. I should have done it myself.

Mexico

Not sure what the sarcasm is about, but the Mayo Clinic is one of the best hospitals in the world. It's not unreasonable for them to charge higher than average.

I'm not saying that makes the $5k bill reasonable, just giving more context to the comment you replied to.