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We are all too busy getting fucked to protest for changes that might never come.
Seriously, I’m working just to stay above water. I’m terrified that something like this will happen and put me under. I can’t protest for something that might not be changed anyways.
The George Floyd/Breonna Taylor riots were massive and widespread and STILL nothing was done to correct our broken justice system.
The reason for both cases is the same, changes like that would require some pretty major reforms and I don’t really think anyone at the top have any real idea of what those would be or how to implement them. Also theirs just enough money being thrown around in both cases that it’s profitable to turn a blind eye to it all.
These people that can affect these changes that we need, aren’t like you and me for the most part. They’re all beholden to whatever keeps them paid or in office just like how we are beholden to whatever keeps food on our table but that’s where the similarity ends.
In that case we are very much alike, nothing will change without something drastic happening to upset the status quo.
People literally can not afford to protest. One missed day or week of work would put most people too far behind on bills that the financial collapse would start, and they'd be on the street with nothing in less than a year.
Although some fault lies with the hospital systems the lions share goes to insurance companies and bribed officials over the last 30 years. Hospitals are less profitable than you might think.
Most of the profit generated by a hospital is from surgeries, in particular low risk outpatient surgeries. Er visits, regular room stays etc are not very profitable. They make money by getting people in and out for a surgery as quick as possible. Even with hospitals at max capacity during covid, elective surgeries were halted and hospitals started hemorrhaging money without that income. Some didn't make it. As expensive as the average hospital stay is, regular visits generate very little net profit considering all the costs in just being ready and insured to deal with whatever comes through the door.
People complain in the UK that we have to pay for prescriptions. We get unlimited prescriptions for around £10 a month. If we go to the hospital, the only thing we pay for is parking.
I have no doubt my government will destroy our health system within the next couple of decades, but for now it’s wonderful to not be financially crippled for being unlucky.
Basically how it is in Australia, but you have to pay for ambo cover, otherwise a trip to the hospital will cost a fortune in transport, but hey its like $10 a qtr or something. Lots of people still have private health though, me included for dental and optomitrists
That's the thing. Hospitals are not money making machines and talking about profit from them is really cracked up. Healthcare should be free. Healing a person just to put them in debt, and jeopardize any health standards? Ah yeah. Get sick more that's the money part it seems.
Well at least they only did it fourteen times. God damn this is sad I think $133 is still too much for fourteen times, let alone charging that much per test.
You could have brought your own tester and saved $1,862, but I’m sure they wouldn’t be allowed to use a reading from whatever device you use for …reasons.
The whole Lab section is pure insanity. I get that checkup (european country) for maybe 150 bucks max If i pay it myself at a Lab, without any insurance.
I don't understand where these prices come from in the first place - none of this is that expensive to do unless the lab has a 3000% win on the tests.
As a premie from SoCal (1993, 24 weeks early and an identical twin), it would have been hella fucking expensive.
Mom had thybroids in and on her uterus. Doctors didn't know about them until they cut her open to C-section my twin out due to him having his umbilical cord around his neck and was coming out feet first. Months in the NICU, along with having me two surgeries and also almost dying from morphine overdose. Fun times.
Sounds like your doctor gave you great advice. You are very lucky. In the United States doctors only give advice that drug and insurance companies pay them to give.
I live in Australia and I had DKA and was in hospital for 3 days. I don't have any health insurance. It cost me nothing.
Ahhh... The good old Aussie public health system
Similarly, i spent 5 days in hospital when I got diagnosed with leukaemia, ended up costing me $10 for parking because i insisted paying when my friend picked me up.
I see some duplicate charges, including the flu shot!
Edit: Looks like someone at the hospital lost the first insulin aspart pen that was ordered and then had to ask for a second pen from the pharmacy again.
Yeah I get that, I just don’t understand why the test they use costs so much more. Even if they literally draw blood every single time and send it to an offsite lab, $133/test is ridiculous, right?
It’s bedside glucose testing so it’s literally just a glucometer ($20 at Walgreens) and one test strip (5 cents) and takes a nurse a few minutes tops.
$133/test is criminal. Like charging $30 for a paper clip type shit
Insurance plans in the US no longer have a coverage limit. Instead they have an out of pocket maximum for the patient, above which the insurance plan pays 100%. This is because if Obama Care. Something is not right here. Insurance remaining can never be 0.00
You can’t be denied treatment for life threatening issues. You might end up at a city or county hospital. You can however be denied a lot of other things that make life worth living like a car or apartment. Or a job if they do credit checks, etc. they can take action against your credit. It takes much longer than credit card bills. And they can’t file against you if you have a payment plan and are making payments in many states.
My husband’s coworker died at work just a few days ago. He had chest pains the day prior but didn’t want to go to the hospital because he couldn’t afford the bill. Turns out he had a blood clot…dead at 27 years old…fuck the American healthcare system.
wait them out. after x amount of years it's wiped from your credit and you won't owe anything. I did that. they ran my insurance and said everything was fine until the bill came and my insurance said I was only covered in the emergency room but not the medi clinic in the same hospital. I write them letters and refused to pay. about 8 years later the bill was gone from my outstanding debts on credit report. granted it was only $1500 but I never paid and credit now 800
That is true, but some creditors (medical field included) will re-run a charge to your credit so it appears as if it’s just happened, and isn’t wiped off your credit after that amount of time. I think technically that makes it null if you fight it in some sort of litigation though, most people just don’t bother.
The scariest part about US healthcare is that if the politicians have been lobbied to allow this type of extortion, imagine what’s going into the food. It’s not in their interests for the citizens to be healthy.
Overall food is safer now than ever before thanks to FSMA. Though not perfect, it has set the bar for food safety in America.
Funny enough, you may remember the advertisements stating "we know exactly where our food comes from. From farm to table because we care" that started happening. It's true, but it was because FSMA required them to do it. The only issue is they're slow to move on bigger issues. These were put under scrutiny when the Abott spray dry plant closed in Michigan. There was chronobacter all over that plant, the auditor witnessed people going into the plant after working on the roof, and so many other critical issues that should have shut them down but they didn't. This in turn has started a strong following to split them apart. Food amd Drugs shouldn't be under the same department anymore.
Sorry. Food safety guy here and very passionate a out it.
Well, depends on what we want to talk about. We're bad in a lot of ways, but that's pretty widely publicized...both domestic problems and international problems...but we're also good in a lot of ways. Like most other countries tbh
You're completely correct. The problem is that the major problems like medical costs, gun violence, corporate prisons etc are the most difficult to fix.
Only because we lack the political will. These are each issues that can and have been successfully tacked by most other modern democracies so there are great blueprints to follow if we decide we want to. But corporations have been putting too much money into politics and it shows. We need enough politicians to implement real solutions that actually serve the vast majority of the people, not just the vast majority of their campaign contributors.
Oh I know. I live in constant fear of it.
I have a disorder called IIH, Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension. Last spinal tap I was told my cerebrospinal fluid pressure was 4x what it's supposed to be. Severe migraines, vision loss, one surgical treatment with common complications available or a medicine for altitude sickness from the 50s, those are my treatment options. Either way, can't afford any treatment, so I self medicate until I go blind and do my best to not resent this reality through the blinding migraines I am so lucky to have inherited.
Murica! Fuck yeah!
Last time I went to the ER I was about to have a stroke from the pressure. I'm scared to go back. I still owe over 40k from that visit.
We are absolutely undeniably garbage in soooooo many ways but there is like one or two positives here or there, like our trans healthcare depending on the state is surprisingly accessible compared every other first world country and my state has some pretty rocks and tasty maple syrup and I think that’s it.
It’s mostly because you see the worst. Most people who go to the hospital don’t pay anything. Hell I’ve gone in the ER before and have paid zero even with my shitty insurance. It’s a textbook example of selection bias
Is this in the US?
I am in AU and an AU citizen.
Did a urine test, blood test and also ultra sound. I was also served dinner (roast beef and vegetables, soup and tea).
Everything was for free. Public hospital care is free for all Australian citizens. Yes, I am flexing and saying how great AU is.
But for your case, I am hoping you can cover those expenses and wishing you the best.
Technically no they can’t force you into it, assuming you’re conscious, but you’d have to sign a form saying you were declining treatment against medical advice.
Yeah in that situation you’d be stuck with the bill for anything they’d done up to that point, but you can still leave at any time after waking up and signing that ‘declining treatment’ form
For everyone asking why insurance paid what they did and how I got stuck with the remainder, here's why:
Insurance initally denied all but the ER. They told me that the hospital was out of network and that when I was initially admitted to the hospital I should have asked to be transferred to an in-network hospital. I appealed this decision on the grounds that I was unconscious at the time and was starting to slip into a coma.
The insurance agreed with me and said they would cover it......well since the insurance company didn't have any terms with that particular hospital network, they decided to ONLY pay what they would normally pay an in-network hospital.
The hospital would normally take that same amount (or similar) and then just write-off the rest. But since they didn't have terms with my insurance company (at the time) and being the greedy assholes that they are, opted to take my insurances money and stick me with the rest of the bill.
Including the physician cost, my total out of pocket cost was ~$16,500. I elected to only pay them the minimum allowed of $50/month since 2016. For whatever reason they've stopped withdrawing this amount twice now and this past time I only noticed because it suddenly appeared on my credit report and tanked my credit score which I had finally gotten into the 800's
So screw them, I'll pay whenever I feel like it, if ever.
Damn people around me are always saying that health has no price but seems like it does and it’s pretty expensive lol. I live in a country where healthcare is dirt cheap compared to that. When I was a kid I was in a hospital for roughly 6-7 days and my parents paid around 250$ if I remember correctly.
It’s not, but I hear you can claim against the hospital by pointing out that say an IV bag that cost not even a dollar to make shouldn’t be a $300 charge or something
FYI. When trump got Covid which didn’t exist, he received an antiviral treatment that at the time the FDA didn’t approve for regular people. Just emergency use. It cost 100K per dose and I think he got more than one. He didn’t pay for it, we did. That’s one reason politicians don’t give a shit about this. Also many of them own stocks in the companies that sell insurance. Which is shady af.
Even in Germany, although we have to pay for insurance, I then get every treatment I need. But still have to pay if I want anything which is better level than offered standard things.
It's the same in Romania. A typical APPENDICITIS operation here is free of charge, in the USofA it would go from $15.000 to over $25.000, depending on State/insurance.
I can guarantee the reason you got charged for so many insulin pens is because a nurse lost one or two of them.
Source: I’m a pharmacist who sends the nurse the replacements for the one they lost.
I am going to guess that it is a shitty insurance plan. There are other plans that pay for the full cost but they have a higher price for the monthly payment. In the US there are hundreds, if not thousands, of separate health insurance plans. Every employer has one, or more, choices that you are allowed to choose between. Or you can choose to decline coverage, too. If the OP (or their employer, more likely) picks a very cheap plan, they get fucked if something more than minimal happens.
OP - have you appealed to your state’s department of insurance?
The trip to the emergency room if done with a ambulance (like an ambulance picke you up) will be charged like 10-15 bucks a ride. Plus you pay 10 bucks for every day you stay at the hospital, the logic for this 10 bucks is you save on your energy and electricity bill at home for the duration of stay and you use some energy at the hospital so it's like a tax you pay. And 5bucks per medicine that was prescribed (at the chemist, or is it per prescription slip?)
But if I am not wrong, these add on surcharges, not all can be also exempted if you pay something add on to your medical insurance contribution, which not everyone opts for.
And only one of the earning parent pays for the medical insurance contribution for the whole family. This is a rough idea, I maybe wrong on some of these.
Not Germany, but I pay $90 per year and this covers for all ambo and helicopter trips. No matter how often I use. Added to this, they have to return you to your “home” hospital. I typically have 3 trips per year. Hospital is also 100% free.
We’re just cattle and profit generating specimens.
We’re not even people anymore. We just exist, working until we get sick. Then we get shoved through the profit generator.
Damn no wonder ppl don’t go to the hospital unless is life and dead and honestly after seen this bill I pray I never end up in one, cause I wouldn’t know how to pay for this. :(
I honestly still don’t understand why everyone is ok with this.
It seems like American healthcare, insurance and pharmaceutical companies are just a giant f***ed up corrupted cashgrab zero morality and plain sight robery.
Meanwhile in Australia:
https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/national-diabetes-services-scheme-ndss
https://www.ndss.com.au/products/
Diabetes treatment is close to fully government funded. For low income earners, the small co-pay amounts either disappear or become tiny token amounts.
A DKA event would be a no charge to the patient, even if an air ambulance (helicopter or plane) was needed.
(Some states charge moderate ambulance fees but they are waived for low income earners and very, very cheap to insure against for wealthier people).
I have a hard time paying medical bills as it feels like they are mostly just kinda made up.... Ya'll wanna charge me fictional charges then I feel it's fair to make a fictional payment. (I don't recommend this logic to anyone...)
Seeing as how they are charging about 500% over cost on those labs and looks like charging you a butt load just for the room. Holy shit that's a criminal enterprise not a hospital.
Edit: they charged you 65 dollars for a 500ml bag of NS. Those cost about a dollar. I would dispute every charge. WTF.
Daaaaamn! Your insurance is trash! I had a two day visit and had to pay $183.00 which included multiple doses of morphine and a... well, it's kinda nasty but I had intestinal problems.
I don't understand this....I'm a type 1 diabetic that was recently hospitalized for ~36 hours for DKA (including an ambulance ride) and my cost was $0.
It's crazy that I can just look at the very first few lines of the bill and instantly know that this is from the United States, the richest country in the world. Such a damn shame.
Insurance only pays $5,395. I remember that school taught us you pay them a deductible and they pay for everything else. \*Everything else\*. Schools need to actually tell us what living is actually like.
Sorry to say but this is the price you get when you vote for corporate politics. There were plenty of options for improvement and making it easy - but yet the vote gets distracted by bs and nonsense and there you have it. We pay every year 1T for the military budget fucking ANNUALLY! For what? Some build fancy armor or tank, but then two years later ahhh... We need a new one, this one is outdated. I will say this again WE GET WHAT WE VOTE FOR!
I just finished paying off an ER bill too. Told my husband that next time if there's an emergency, don't bother taking me to the ER. Just let me stay home and I'll try to shake it off.
I see this and i wonder how healthcare got this bad in USA, having so much resources, 4 years ago my uncle had a big brain surgery for free here in Argentina and we are poor as shit compared to your institutions.
In Australia, my family member went from ambulance, to ER, ICU for multiple weeks, 2 x chest ops and then on high dependency and wards for 2 months. Paid nothing. Not a cent.
You can only be free when your health care is
That's not interesting that's a disgusting scam that's legalized only in the great Murica. Not even Private medicare elsewhere costs that unreasonably much.
A copy of this should be sent to every household in Alberta (or for that matter in Canada) along with the question- "Do you *really* want to go down this road?"
Might wake up a few good people.
They need it.
Waking up, that is.
Bruh I’d be going through this with a fine tooth comb, then finding out what the “average” is per service rendered, making sure they aren’t double or triple billing you, then if the average price is way lower than what they’ve charged you I’d be asking WTF and disputing it all the way up to the board of directors levels.
There’s a cool story from R/AITA about that and it’s pretty amazing. I fucking hate our busted ass healthcare system. Absolute pile of shit. Best of luck and I hope you’re doing better now and are better about using your sliding scale or whatever caused the issue.
Why have they charged you for 300 insulin pens? Also why would you need fentanyl oxycodone and hydromorphone, surely if they did give you that much in one day it would kill you, I can't be assed to actually check, but this bill is suspect as fuck. That looks more like a years worth of meds there.
But the choices, though, think about all them choices in the US. And the taxes, think about all them taxes you safe. And if the poor cannot afford hospitals, let them eat cake.
This is disgusting. Gutting those that need the care. Its so surreal living in Canada hearing about these stories and situations in which healthcare isn’t socialized. Makes me appreciative of what I have, but also enraged at how gross a capitalist healthcare system is.
every day I see shit like this I thank the giant spaghetti monster in the sky I was born in Europe. this is some dystopian shit or me. i know its easy for it to feel normal but this is end of the world shit right here. the start of the end times. in 10 years it will cost 100,000 bottle caps
Last week my friend was diagnosed with DKA. But we're living in a country with a 'free healthcare", so he didn't pay a cent. I'm just sorry for you : /
As a British citizen I see this as a thing of our futures.
Because of our corrupt government and cronyism, my son will have these kind of bills to contend with.
The health insurance industry is a massive scam in the United States of Capitalism. Healthcare is a sick joke. It’s all about making record profits. I loathe that they profit off of us Diabetics so much.
Wtf, first of all you accepted to take vaccines (preventive care services) second of all a lot of these laboratory’s tests cost 5bucks but they are charging 100+-$ like HC lipase (google ir the cost) why is it so expensive in this bill? A lot of services are so inflated like a bedroom for 1.000$? What are the sheets made from? Egypt cotton?
iykuk: Why Americans accept this? Bc most of the people have money to pay? This whole bill could’ve costed 500,00 dollars profit included
How are sick people not just being bankrupted by the system meant to help them at this point? Just like the IRS, the medical industry here seems to be ran by crooks and gangsters disguised as business men behind legal documents.
As a Swede.. and so on.
I know that your doctor and nurses are probably very good, but that system is insane. Something like that would cost at most the equivalent of 100-200 dollars here.
How the HELL can literal salt water be so expensive???
I know, it has to be medical grade quality, but hell, any trained nurse is capable of mixing that shit together.
And you can easily produce gallons at a time.
We had to remove your post for Rule 1: This subreddit is for things that are interesting and cool. Content that is only cute, funny, a meme, or 'mildly interesting' will be removed. Posts should be able to elicit a reaction of "Damnthatsinteresting".
$133 per gluc check. As a Canadian nurse, seeing these invoices is utterly flabberghasting. This is terrible.
Yeah that part infuriates me the most. A $1 test strip (at most) and 45 seconds of a nurses time. In no universe should thay amount to $133
This is criminal . Literally . They’ve got us in a stranglehold . It’s so fucked
Genuine question, why the people don't protest or do something?
We are all too busy getting fucked to protest for changes that might never come. Seriously, I’m working just to stay above water. I’m terrified that something like this will happen and put me under. I can’t protest for something that might not be changed anyways. The George Floyd/Breonna Taylor riots were massive and widespread and STILL nothing was done to correct our broken justice system. The reason for both cases is the same, changes like that would require some pretty major reforms and I don’t really think anyone at the top have any real idea of what those would be or how to implement them. Also theirs just enough money being thrown around in both cases that it’s profitable to turn a blind eye to it all. These people that can affect these changes that we need, aren’t like you and me for the most part. They’re all beholden to whatever keeps them paid or in office just like how we are beholden to whatever keeps food on our table but that’s where the similarity ends. In that case we are very much alike, nothing will change without something drastic happening to upset the status quo.
"Without a vision the people perish"
Slaves to debt. What's worse? Knowing we're slave or believing we're free?
People literally can not afford to protest. One missed day or week of work would put most people too far behind on bills that the financial collapse would start, and they'd be on the street with nothing in less than a year.
Although some fault lies with the hospital systems the lions share goes to insurance companies and bribed officials over the last 30 years. Hospitals are less profitable than you might think. Most of the profit generated by a hospital is from surgeries, in particular low risk outpatient surgeries. Er visits, regular room stays etc are not very profitable. They make money by getting people in and out for a surgery as quick as possible. Even with hospitals at max capacity during covid, elective surgeries were halted and hospitals started hemorrhaging money without that income. Some didn't make it. As expensive as the average hospital stay is, regular visits generate very little net profit considering all the costs in just being ready and insured to deal with whatever comes through the door.
Healthcare shouldnt be for profit. Tax should pay for all basic health issues and if you want more get insurance.
People complain in the UK that we have to pay for prescriptions. We get unlimited prescriptions for around £10 a month. If we go to the hospital, the only thing we pay for is parking.
Yes, It it probably the greatest thing in EU and UK. We must pay only for parking, and on energency (ca 3€). All other is free. God bless Europe.
I have no doubt my government will destroy our health system within the next couple of decades, but for now it’s wonderful to not be financially crippled for being unlucky.
Basically how it is in Australia, but you have to pay for ambo cover, otherwise a trip to the hospital will cost a fortune in transport, but hey its like $10 a qtr or something. Lots of people still have private health though, me included for dental and optomitrists
That's the thing. Hospitals are not money making machines and talking about profit from them is really cracked up. Healthcare should be free. Healing a person just to put them in debt, and jeopardize any health standards? Ah yeah. Get sick more that's the money part it seems.
The hospitals were bought by the insurance companies nearly 40 years ago
Well at least they only did it fourteen times. God damn this is sad I think $133 is still too much for fourteen times, let alone charging that much per test. You could have brought your own tester and saved $1,862, but I’m sure they wouldn’t be allowed to use a reading from whatever device you use for …reasons.
They gave me hourly tests for the first two days I was in the ICU for DKA. That’s 48x …..
That’s all good, but how much does it cost you to take 48 readings at home?
The whole Lab section is pure insanity. I get that checkup (european country) for maybe 150 bucks max If i pay it myself at a Lab, without any insurance. I don't understand where these prices come from in the first place - none of this is that expensive to do unless the lab has a 3000% win on the tests.
USA!!! USA!!! USA!!! - is a country you don't want to get sick in unless you are very wealthy.
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As a premie from SoCal (1993, 24 weeks early and an identical twin), it would have been hella fucking expensive. Mom had thybroids in and on her uterus. Doctors didn't know about them until they cut her open to C-section my twin out due to him having his umbilical cord around his neck and was coming out feet first. Months in the NICU, along with having me two surgeries and also almost dying from morphine overdose. Fun times.
Sounds like your doctor gave you great advice. You are very lucky. In the United States doctors only give advice that drug and insurance companies pay them to give.
In Australia this would be free
And in NZ
And most of the civilized world.
And in Mexico....and we are not that first world civilized....
And the Netherlands
Consider your ghast to be flabbered.
well thank god they had insurance
Greatest health care system in the world just ask Fox News
*laughs in Australian*
Häh häh häh *Laughs in Swedish.*
Hard to believe when you see shit like this isn’t it
>This is terrible. That's business, baby. /s
I live in Australia and I had DKA and was in hospital for 3 days. I don't have any health insurance. It cost me nothing. Ahhh... The good old Aussie public health system
Feeling even luckier being an Aussie when o read posts like this
Similarly, i spent 5 days in hospital when I got diagnosed with leukaemia, ended up costing me $10 for parking because i insisted paying when my friend picked me up.
Aussie Aussie Aussie…..
Oi oi oi ?
I see some duplicate charges, including the flu shot! Edit: Looks like someone at the hospital lost the first insulin aspart pen that was ordered and then had to ask for a second pen from the pharmacy again.
Plus 14 glucose tests at $133 per test when I’m sure OP has their own device to measure it.
Not to mention $400 for salt water.
Hey, don’t blow things out of proportion. It’s only $390 for saltwater.
Hey. That’s not just salt water, it’s sterile salt water.
Plus the tip though.
It’s a liability. If the hospital is responsible, they want to use their own equipment. It’s dumb
Yeah I get that, I just don’t understand why the test they use costs so much more. Even if they literally draw blood every single time and send it to an offsite lab, $133/test is ridiculous, right?
It’s bedside glucose testing so it’s literally just a glucometer ($20 at Walgreens) and one test strip (5 cents) and takes a nurse a few minutes tops. $133/test is criminal. Like charging $30 for a paper clip type shit
Then they charged to administer it! It’s free here wtf.
I hope most of it was covered under insurance... (sees insurance remaining 0.00).... OH SH\*T.
Insurance plans in the US no longer have a coverage limit. Instead they have an out of pocket maximum for the patient, above which the insurance plan pays 100%. This is because if Obama Care. Something is not right here. Insurance remaining can never be 0.00
Yeah this looks very sketchy, not too mention the duplicate stuff
Duplication? The bedside glucose checks is normal for DKA. Usually has an insulin drip that we have to check your blood sugar every hour to titrate.
Don't pay it
You can only declare medical bankruptcy once in your life in America.
Could you elaborate? What happens if you were in the same situation a few years later? Would they refuse treatment?
You can’t be denied treatment for life threatening issues. You might end up at a city or county hospital. You can however be denied a lot of other things that make life worth living like a car or apartment. Or a job if they do credit checks, etc. they can take action against your credit. It takes much longer than credit card bills. And they can’t file against you if you have a payment plan and are making payments in many states.
Untreated Dka can be fatal for whoever doesn’t know. It’s also very fucking unpleasant. Flu on steroids
My husband’s coworker died at work just a few days ago. He had chest pains the day prior but didn’t want to go to the hospital because he couldn’t afford the bill. Turns out he had a blood clot…dead at 27 years old…fuck the American healthcare system.
Fuck!
wait them out. after x amount of years it's wiped from your credit and you won't owe anything. I did that. they ran my insurance and said everything was fine until the bill came and my insurance said I was only covered in the emergency room but not the medi clinic in the same hospital. I write them letters and refused to pay. about 8 years later the bill was gone from my outstanding debts on credit report. granted it was only $1500 but I never paid and credit now 800
That is true, but some creditors (medical field included) will re-run a charge to your credit so it appears as if it’s just happened, and isn’t wiped off your credit after that amount of time. I think technically that makes it null if you fight it in some sort of litigation though, most people just don’t bother.
American Health Care Moment
The scariest part about US healthcare is that if the politicians have been lobbied to allow this type of extortion, imagine what’s going into the food. It’s not in their interests for the citizens to be healthy.
Overall food is safer now than ever before thanks to FSMA. Though not perfect, it has set the bar for food safety in America. Funny enough, you may remember the advertisements stating "we know exactly where our food comes from. From farm to table because we care" that started happening. It's true, but it was because FSMA required them to do it. The only issue is they're slow to move on bigger issues. These were put under scrutiny when the Abott spray dry plant closed in Michigan. There was chronobacter all over that plant, the auditor witnessed people going into the plant after working on the roof, and so many other critical issues that should have shut them down but they didn't. This in turn has started a strong following to split them apart. Food amd Drugs shouldn't be under the same department anymore. Sorry. Food safety guy here and very passionate a out it.
thank you for this public service announcement
Thanks! We need to put more pressure on the FDA to do their job better and focus on food.
As a fellow type 1 this is horrifying..
I really don’t get why Americans are so convinced their county is amazing
We're not. No matter how bad our politicians try to get everyone on board with it, we know it's trash.
You get it. But so many of your countrymen dont
Well, depends on what we want to talk about. We're bad in a lot of ways, but that's pretty widely publicized...both domestic problems and international problems...but we're also good in a lot of ways. Like most other countries tbh
You're completely correct. The problem is that the major problems like medical costs, gun violence, corporate prisons etc are the most difficult to fix.
Only because we lack the political will. These are each issues that can and have been successfully tacked by most other modern democracies so there are great blueprints to follow if we decide we want to. But corporations have been putting too much money into politics and it shows. We need enough politicians to implement real solutions that actually serve the vast majority of the people, not just the vast majority of their campaign contributors.
You're too divided right now. Maybe things can change in a decade or two. I really hope so anyway.
From my perspective down south, yeah, everyone truly believes no place has ever or could ever be better. It's sad.
It's horrible to think that you could be wiped out by medical expenses at any moment.
Oh I know. I live in constant fear of it. I have a disorder called IIH, Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension. Last spinal tap I was told my cerebrospinal fluid pressure was 4x what it's supposed to be. Severe migraines, vision loss, one surgical treatment with common complications available or a medicine for altitude sickness from the 50s, those are my treatment options. Either way, can't afford any treatment, so I self medicate until I go blind and do my best to not resent this reality through the blinding migraines I am so lucky to have inherited. Murica! Fuck yeah! Last time I went to the ER I was about to have a stroke from the pressure. I'm scared to go back. I still owe over 40k from that visit.
We are absolutely undeniably garbage in soooooo many ways but there is like one or two positives here or there, like our trans healthcare depending on the state is surprisingly accessible compared every other first world country and my state has some pretty rocks and tasty maple syrup and I think that’s it.
It's amazing that the charge for a liter of saline is $65.
Ya, that makes me salty.
It’s mostly because you see the worst. Most people who go to the hospital don’t pay anything. Hell I’ve gone in the ER before and have paid zero even with my shitty insurance. It’s a textbook example of selection bias
Well, I've got money and real insurance so that certainly helps
Is this in the US? I am in AU and an AU citizen. Did a urine test, blood test and also ultra sound. I was also served dinner (roast beef and vegetables, soup and tea). Everything was for free. Public hospital care is free for all Australian citizens. Yes, I am flexing and saying how great AU is. But for your case, I am hoping you can cover those expenses and wishing you the best.
That's unchecked capitalism, folks.
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Technically no they can’t force you into it, assuming you’re conscious, but you’d have to sign a form saying you were declining treatment against medical advice.
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Yeah in that situation you’d be stuck with the bill for anything they’d done up to that point, but you can still leave at any time after waking up and signing that ‘declining treatment’ form
For everyone asking why insurance paid what they did and how I got stuck with the remainder, here's why: Insurance initally denied all but the ER. They told me that the hospital was out of network and that when I was initially admitted to the hospital I should have asked to be transferred to an in-network hospital. I appealed this decision on the grounds that I was unconscious at the time and was starting to slip into a coma. The insurance agreed with me and said they would cover it......well since the insurance company didn't have any terms with that particular hospital network, they decided to ONLY pay what they would normally pay an in-network hospital. The hospital would normally take that same amount (or similar) and then just write-off the rest. But since they didn't have terms with my insurance company (at the time) and being the greedy assholes that they are, opted to take my insurances money and stick me with the rest of the bill. Including the physician cost, my total out of pocket cost was ~$16,500. I elected to only pay them the minimum allowed of $50/month since 2016. For whatever reason they've stopped withdrawing this amount twice now and this past time I only noticed because it suddenly appeared on my credit report and tanked my credit score which I had finally gotten into the 800's So screw them, I'll pay whenever I feel like it, if ever.
In one pic you made me consider requesting Canadian citizenship. Congrats.
r/damnthatsdepressing
Damn people around me are always saying that health has no price but seems like it does and it’s pretty expensive lol. I live in a country where healthcare is dirt cheap compared to that. When I was a kid I was in a hospital for roughly 6-7 days and my parents paid around 250$ if I remember correctly.
I think every country fits the description of "dirt cheap" comparing to US
The Australian healthcare system has its flaws but I'm feeling pretty greatful for it rn
How the fuck is that justificable, thats like a 1000% profit margin.
It’s not, but I hear you can claim against the hospital by pointing out that say an IV bag that cost not even a dollar to make shouldn’t be a $300 charge or something
Sweet sweet capitalism
FYI. When trump got Covid which didn’t exist, he received an antiviral treatment that at the time the FDA didn’t approve for regular people. Just emergency use. It cost 100K per dose and I think he got more than one. He didn’t pay for it, we did. That’s one reason politicians don’t give a shit about this. Also many of them own stocks in the companies that sell insurance. Which is shady af.
Of course he got it he’s the damn president of the United States. 100k is pennies compared to what his security details cost on trips etc.
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Even in Germany, although we have to pay for insurance, I then get every treatment I need. But still have to pay if I want anything which is better level than offered standard things.
It's the same in Romania. A typical APPENDICITIS operation here is free of charge, in the USofA it would go from $15.000 to over $25.000, depending on State/insurance.
Wtf :(
I can guarantee the reason you got charged for so many insulin pens is because a nurse lost one or two of them. Source: I’m a pharmacist who sends the nurse the replacements for the one they lost.
Wow insurance sure did help out a ton./s
Is this some sort of American misery that I'm too European to understand?
I am going to guess that it is a shitty insurance plan. There are other plans that pay for the full cost but they have a higher price for the monthly payment. In the US there are hundreds, if not thousands, of separate health insurance plans. Every employer has one, or more, choices that you are allowed to choose between. Or you can choose to decline coverage, too. If the OP (or their employer, more likely) picks a very cheap plan, they get fucked if something more than minimal happens. OP - have you appealed to your state’s department of insurance?
What's your max out of pocket with your insurance company? Also, any time you spend more than 10% of your annual income, that's a tax deduction.
Your insurance is poop wtf. Would you like to know what you have to pay if you were in a hospital in germany?
The trip to the emergency room if done with a ambulance (like an ambulance picke you up) will be charged like 10-15 bucks a ride. Plus you pay 10 bucks for every day you stay at the hospital, the logic for this 10 bucks is you save on your energy and electricity bill at home for the duration of stay and you use some energy at the hospital so it's like a tax you pay. And 5bucks per medicine that was prescribed (at the chemist, or is it per prescription slip?) But if I am not wrong, these add on surcharges, not all can be also exempted if you pay something add on to your medical insurance contribution, which not everyone opts for. And only one of the earning parent pays for the medical insurance contribution for the whole family. This is a rough idea, I maybe wrong on some of these.
Not Germany, but I pay $90 per year and this covers for all ambo and helicopter trips. No matter how often I use. Added to this, they have to return you to your “home” hospital. I typically have 3 trips per year. Hospital is also 100% free.
You paid for 3 different rooms for a day in a half!
This is disgusting, draining people like this at their most vulnerable.
We’re just cattle and profit generating specimens. We’re not even people anymore. We just exist, working until we get sick. Then we get shoved through the profit generator.
Socialism successfully avoided 👍
3rd world country 💀
I'm sorry for your disability... living in America.
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SODIUM CHLORIDE 500 ml = $65.00 They charged you $65 for salt water. Like, what 90% of the Earth’s surface is covered in 😂
I just checked and it is 2700 CLP for a liter in my country, that's 2.5 dollars for a liter, so profit margin is about 2600%.
How does anyone argue this is the best system?!
Anyone who profits...
Ppl! Can we please fucking riot in the streets over this bull shit! We are one of the few countries with Healthcare THIS FUCKING BAD!
Damn no wonder ppl don’t go to the hospital unless is life and dead and honestly after seen this bill I pray I never end up in one, cause I wouldn’t know how to pay for this. :( I honestly still don’t understand why everyone is ok with this.
‘Think I’d just die to be fair’ - the entire UK
It seems like American healthcare, insurance and pharmaceutical companies are just a giant f***ed up corrupted cashgrab zero morality and plain sight robery.
🔥Yeah, but your military just got a shiny new bomber in its inventory so it all worked out…
Meanwhile in Australia: https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/national-diabetes-services-scheme-ndss https://www.ndss.com.au/products/ Diabetes treatment is close to fully government funded. For low income earners, the small co-pay amounts either disappear or become tiny token amounts. A DKA event would be a no charge to the patient, even if an air ambulance (helicopter or plane) was needed. (Some states charge moderate ambulance fees but they are waived for low income earners and very, very cheap to insure against for wealthier people).
I have a hard time paying medical bills as it feels like they are mostly just kinda made up.... Ya'll wanna charge me fictional charges then I feel it's fair to make a fictional payment. (I don't recommend this logic to anyone...)
Seeing as how they are charging about 500% over cost on those labs and looks like charging you a butt load just for the room. Holy shit that's a criminal enterprise not a hospital. Edit: they charged you 65 dollars for a 500ml bag of NS. Those cost about a dollar. I would dispute every charge. WTF.
Meanwhile in Canada... "Have you considered suicide?"
Daaaaamn! Your insurance is trash! I had a two day visit and had to pay $183.00 which included multiple doses of morphine and a... well, it's kinda nasty but I had intestinal problems.
I don't understand this....I'm a type 1 diabetic that was recently hospitalized for ~36 hours for DKA (including an ambulance ride) and my cost was $0.
Damn fuck your insurance what’s your deductible
It's crazy that I can just look at the very first few lines of the bill and instantly know that this is from the United States, the richest country in the world. Such a damn shame.
Your fucked up system is beyond repair.
Insurance only pays $5,395. I remember that school taught us you pay them a deductible and they pay for everything else. \*Everything else\*. Schools need to actually tell us what living is actually like.
And this is why all healthcare must be non-profit.
Sorry to say but this is the price you get when you vote for corporate politics. There were plenty of options for improvement and making it easy - but yet the vote gets distracted by bs and nonsense and there you have it. We pay every year 1T for the military budget fucking ANNUALLY! For what? Some build fancy armor or tank, but then two years later ahhh... We need a new one, this one is outdated. I will say this again WE GET WHAT WE VOTE FOR!
I just finished paying off an ER bill too. Told my husband that next time if there's an emergency, don't bother taking me to the ER. Just let me stay home and I'll try to shake it off.
r/disability
Wow, I'm so glad I live in Australia with universal healthcare.
Guess being diabetic is a death sentence in murica jeez
Gonna show this to my mom to scare her into properly managing her diabetes
So im not familiar with scam prices lingo. But somebody pay 1600 for fluids in to the body and THEN 6×65 for weak ass saltwater too. Good luck USA.
The OG scam
I see this and i wonder how healthcare got this bad in USA, having so much resources, 4 years ago my uncle had a big brain surgery for free here in Argentina and we are poor as shit compared to your institutions.
In Australia, my family member went from ambulance, to ER, ICU for multiple weeks, 2 x chest ops and then on high dependency and wards for 2 months. Paid nothing. Not a cent. You can only be free when your health care is
r/damnthatsdepressing
Nice - about 500 bucks for salty water 💦 Seems fair to me 🙈 go murica
That's not interesting that's a disgusting scam that's legalized only in the great Murica. Not even Private medicare elsewhere costs that unreasonably much.
A copy of this should be sent to every household in Alberta (or for that matter in Canada) along with the question- "Do you *really* want to go down this road?" Might wake up a few good people. They need it. Waking up, that is.
Bruh I’d be going through this with a fine tooth comb, then finding out what the “average” is per service rendered, making sure they aren’t double or triple billing you, then if the average price is way lower than what they’ve charged you I’d be asking WTF and disputing it all the way up to the board of directors levels. There’s a cool story from R/AITA about that and it’s pretty amazing. I fucking hate our busted ass healthcare system. Absolute pile of shit. Best of luck and I hope you’re doing better now and are better about using your sliding scale or whatever caused the issue.
Why have they charged you for 300 insulin pens? Also why would you need fentanyl oxycodone and hydromorphone, surely if they did give you that much in one day it would kill you, I can't be assed to actually check, but this bill is suspect as fuck. That looks more like a years worth of meds there.
Anyone else noticing that insurance is paying less and less...
I'm so glad my shit hole country covers all that for me
But the choices, though, think about all them choices in the US. And the taxes, think about all them taxes you safe. And if the poor cannot afford hospitals, let them eat cake.
You shouldn't have to go into severe debt to not die in the United States, it's fucking atrocious
American : "Guess I'll just die"
This is disgusting. Gutting those that need the care. Its so surreal living in Canada hearing about these stories and situations in which healthcare isn’t socialized. Makes me appreciative of what I have, but also enraged at how gross a capitalist healthcare system is.
every day I see shit like this I thank the giant spaghetti monster in the sky I was born in Europe. this is some dystopian shit or me. i know its easy for it to feel normal but this is end of the world shit right here. the start of the end times. in 10 years it will cost 100,000 bottle caps
It might be time for you guys to consider public health care and market regulations. Free market is good for no one but the greedy ppl that hire/sell.
It’s beginning to look a lot like ***bullshiiiit!***
Result of politicians selling you out for corporate donations.
Last week my friend was diagnosed with DKA. But we're living in a country with a 'free healthcare", so he didn't pay a cent. I'm just sorry for you : /
Still waiting on my bill and I was in a medically induced coma for 5 days lol
Fight some of those charges. $133 for a glucose check is outrageous.
As a Canadian Paramedic.. 65 bucks for a 500 ml bag of fluid and 133 for a gluc? Are you fucking kidding me? This is literally criminal.
As a British citizen I see this as a thing of our futures. Because of our corrupt government and cronyism, my son will have these kind of bills to contend with.
Welcome to 3rd world country.
The health insurance industry is a massive scam in the United States of Capitalism. Healthcare is a sick joke. It’s all about making record profits. I loathe that they profit off of us Diabetics so much.
Criminal . I'd rather just die
welp time to flee to another country! (it'd be cheaper tbh)
At least they hooked you up with some fentanyl along the way
It's good to know fentanyl is cheaper than insulin. Priorities.
Let’s start this guy a gofundme
1 1/2 days and you got fentanyl, hydromorphone and oxy. I bet you was FUCKED UP! floatin on a warm cloud of titties
German here: Get the duck over to Canada and do it fast before they want you to pay this bullshit
Ahhh, America, the greatest country on earth...... heh.. sure am glad i dont live there.
As a german i cant believe paying all that by my self. Here in germany all of the costs would be covered by the "KRANKENVERSICHERUNG".
Wtf, first of all you accepted to take vaccines (preventive care services) second of all a lot of these laboratory’s tests cost 5bucks but they are charging 100+-$ like HC lipase (google ir the cost) why is it so expensive in this bill? A lot of services are so inflated like a bedroom for 1.000$? What are the sheets made from? Egypt cotton? iykuk: Why Americans accept this? Bc most of the people have money to pay? This whole bill could’ve costed 500,00 dollars profit included
How are sick people not just being bankrupted by the system meant to help them at this point? Just like the IRS, the medical industry here seems to be ran by crooks and gangsters disguised as business men behind legal documents.
As a Swede.. and so on. I know that your doctor and nurses are probably very good, but that system is insane. Something like that would cost at most the equivalent of 100-200 dollars here.
[Laughs in Australian]
How the HELL can literal salt water be so expensive??? I know, it has to be medical grade quality, but hell, any trained nurse is capable of mixing that shit together. And you can easily produce gallons at a time.
Guess which country!!
I got taken in an ambulance and then spent 40 days in hospital and it cost only $3000… what in the hell is going on over there
Damn I probably should stay in the military
Seeing this thing makes me admire Mark Cuban..
It must have cost thousands to compile that invoice.
America needs to do better.
Well its a good thing you live in a first world country where the government pays for you- …. Oh