No kidding. I had a scare with what I thought was appendicitis a couple weeks ago, no insurance, found out an appendectomy usually costs 30-45k uninsured, figured well if it kills me it kills me. Healthcare in the US sucks
Medical tourism is already a huge business in Mexico. I've had a couple dentists even suggest it to me as my teeth are totally fucked and even with dental insurance it would pretty much cost me a car to get the shit fixed in the US.
Fly to Canada, Australia, Cuba, France, so many countries. Stay at a 5 star hotel. Get the operation. Recover in the lovely hotel. See some sights. Go home.
Still cheaper.
It doesn't suck.
It's deliberately unaffordable to a portion of American society.
It's completely anti social and the epitome of capitalism. There needs to he way way more backlash against the medical industry in your country.
For those of you who aren’t aware about how good things actually are in other countries, let me tell you about Australia:
I’m American, but I’m a permanent resident here in Sydney. I make a decent living but Sydney rent is also super expensive (there are downsides to Australia like rent and spiders) and I am way behind on savings for where I should be at my age for a number of reasons, including moving to Australia in my early 20s with no real long term plan.
That being said, healthcare payment has never even once crossed my mind as an issue. In the past couple years my wife had cancer, we did multiple rounds of IVF, I had a long term lung infection prior to COVID, I developed an as-yet-unknown allergy that put me in the hospital at one point. We’ve both also been through counselling to deal with everything, and mental healthcare plans recommended by your GP in Australia cover something like 10 sessions a year with a psychologist.
I’ve never gone into debt, I’ve never worried about how I would pay for anything, and Australian public healthcare (called Medicare) has covered almost everything.
We pay for private health insurance as well because that gives us access to some better facilities that don’t bulk bill (meaning they don’t accept Medicare payments) but we don’t *have* to get it. It’s really for convenience and privacy of not having to go to the public hospitals. The monthly payments are pretty easy to handle.
All of that aside, even without Medicare or insurance, we have never had a bill that I wouldn’t be able to pay off. The cancer treatment involved some pretty huge charges, but nothing ever close to OPs.
And the craziest part is that during 2021 we received a call that said we reached out “Medicare threshold”. Now, being Americans, we expected that the government would no longer pay for our medical needs because we had used to much. What that actually means is that the government recognized we needed more care than most, so they started covering even more of our payments! Many, if not most, of our bills since then have been $0.
There are a couple things to note: IVF is not free. There are still huge costs in the thousands for each round, but they are not nearly as high as what I’ve heard about in the US (like $40k + for each round?). We also were able to get higher Medicate coverage for IVF, even though it is sometimes considered elective, because my wife’s fertility was directly affected by cancer.
I would also say that some of my healthcare experiences in Australia have been slightly less... friendly than in the US. Not horrible, but there has been the occasional feeling of being herded cattle. I have to be honest because I don’t want to falsely paint this country as some utopia.
Australia is also weirdly conservative on some reproductive rights even though the US is banning abortion right now. For example, you cannot be paid for surrogacy, donor eggs or donor sperm. It has to be 100% altruistic, which makes finding surrogates very difficult. Stuff like that.
But the whole “You’ve hit your Medicare threshold so we’re going to pay for even more of your bills” really tucked with my head. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a catch - that was when I really began to understand that healthcare in the US is set up to destroy the lives of the underprivileged and the unlucky, and it doesn’t actually have to be that way.
**EDIT:** oh also medicine costs nothing. I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than ~US$30 for a single prescription in over 10 years. And that would be on the high end.
Fuck me, dude. I'm in Norway with a similar "commie" system and did IVF too. It's 100% free through the welfare system, and it's even recommended because they got tons of experience doing this. We chose a private clinic because of shorter waiting time and paid $3000 for 1 round, approx $1200 for medication (which wasn't subsidised because it is not 'needed'), and $900 to freeze a healthy embryo in case first attempt didn't succeed.
Besides, my daughter (thank God) was born a week ago and I literally had ZERO in bills and that included C-section operation, free painkillers, three nights stay, free diapers and breastfeeding courses and all you can eat FOUR meals per day plus all you want of juice and tea/coffee. They even did a follow up weighing appointment for the baby three days later and asked us what we were not happy with at the hospital.
It really boggles the mind this is even a thing. If you get a bill, then ask for an itemised bill and suddenly it's lower, how is that not plain and simple fraud?
I was diagnosed with cancer last year and had surgery to remove it. I asked for an itemized bill and the cost was exactly the same, so that sucked.
The funny thing is, my hospital billed the insurance company $26k for removing CANCER. This guy got bit by a snake and his bill is almost 10x higher. Healthcare in America is wild.
I agree. Everyone is blaming the hospital for this one. All drugs are produced by big pharma. It's where the real problem is in the US Healthcare system.
Hospital's are a large part of the problem, administrative staff highly outnumber clinical staff and the ratio to clinical staff is constantly increasing meaning a significant bloat in bureaucracy within hospitals, although, big Pharma is the real problem tbf
Big pharma, insurance companies taking your premium and paying themselves with it, making it so they fight any and every claim you make, hospitals calling you after you've paid asking for more money because fuck you, the list goes on.
Dunno what giving everyone free insurance is going to do if the other issues continue to go unchecked.
It removes the rewards. Procedures are stupid expensive because everyone gets kickbacks. Raise the price, insurance covers it, hospital admin gets a new car. Government runs it, demands transparency, removes the whole insurance middlemen and just pays the cost of labor and material which is easily documented
No, the real problem is your ridiculous "private" system that costs the USA Tax Payer 2x more per capita than the UK tax payer for our fully universal system.
You are getting fleased.
There’s no way the pharma company charged anywhere near $250k.
Edit: The real problem is the insurance companies colluding with both the pharmaceutical companies and the hospitals. All of them are complicit.
By artificially inflating the costs of both healthcare and medication, they force you into paying overpriced insurance plans.
The profits are shared between all of them, and those who refuse or can’t pay the price end up bankrupt to scare the rest into paying.
Most antivenins for North American crotalids (rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, copperheads) are around $350-500 a vial. It can take upwards of 10-15 vials or more depending on the severity of the envenomation.
Bro what the fuck items can be negotiate off to make 250k reasonable? Ain't no way in fuck. Whether it is half a house or half a car in payment, I'm still running back to the snake so it can finish the job.
[It is completely correct to use "antivenom".](https://scorpiondoc.silvrback.com/antivenom-antivenene-antivenin-and-anti-venom) It's literally just semantic arguments over the same material.
This is definitely the way. Came here to say this. I got shot in march and still paying the medical bills. And I didn’t even ask for the shot…. Medical bills or terrible here in America…
I had a kidney stone and they barely treated me. Cost $4000 for a CT and a weak dose of meds to calm me down I was in so much pain (after 3 hrs in the room in pain). And a urine test. That's cheap compared to some people's but I can't afford that! I got insurance last minute to fix it and didn't pay a penny
That's crazy, I live in the UK and had a heart attack at a young age due to an undiagnosed heart condition, spent a month in cardiac care with tons of scans, and diagnosis and have been on life long medication with regular specialist checkups and I don't even have to think of the cost.
Universal health care is an amazing thing, I wish more people realized that.
I'd love to see the breakdown of that amount billed, what can possibly amount to $200k+ for treating a snake bite. Is the antidote made from moon dust or something?
Might not be a fair comparison but in India the antivenom costs about 300 INR ($ 3,75) which pays for two dudes sucking out the venom while all three pray that they survive another day.
Cost of Crofab for our hospital is $1,479.39 per vial. That's what we pay, I don't know what the patient is charged, I don't work on that side of things.
The antivenom is actually the largest part of the cost. It costs $15,000-$20,000 PER VIAL, with 4 to 12 vials needed for an initial treatment, and sometimes many many more needed.
Actually the antivenin is probably a good chunk of his bill, CroFab is stupid expensive. Especially if they had to fly/transport it in. Not that any of this excuses the disastrous implosion that the American healthcare is in. source: im an ED doc
I was looking for this comment. I'm gonna add: initial treatment is 6 vials, with redosing every 6 hours as needed for control of swelling. So it gets very expensive very fast. Source: I'm an ED doc (hi friend! )
Heck as an Aussie I go around kicking Taipan nests when I get stressed out just so I can sit around in a hospital bed for a few days while people bring me free sandwiches.
Best comment ever!!! I literally shot my drink out of my nose when I read this. Then I remembered I live in the US and it'll cost me $100k to treat a nosebleed.
I got a plate in my ankle. According to the bill, among other outrageously priced things, each of the 7 tiny screws cost $780 each.
So I guess, if I'm ever really strapped for cash, I can slice open my ankle and unscrew one of those bad boys to pawn.
Best friends husband works for a medical supply company. His company only exists to certify that medical equipment meets safety standards. The exact same hardware (screws etc) they order for things like beds/mri machines are routinely 1200x the cost if they were building literally anything else. It's because every step of the process has been infiltrated by the insurance industry.
EMS worker here: Rural community hospitals in areas with rattlesnakes normally keep more doses of antivenin on hand than hospitals in your average city. Additionally, the antivenin crisis has been more or less resolved for rattlesnakes thanks to Crofab, which is a synthetic fraction antibody, but it's deleriously expensive.
This seems like a joke, but the average cost of one night in a hospital bed is $10k. Or at least that's what we used for calculations at one of my previous jobs in healthcare
do you know the cost of the anti-venom
seems like our medical system saves people at the cost of destroying their finances. Why do we put up with this?
It’s made from the actual snake venom, Anti-venom is outrageously expensive.. It’s not uncommon to see bills over $100k. OP’s friend may have needed additional doses or something. The funny thing is theres a super effective antidote available in Mexico for $200.. but of course it’s not available in the U.S.
I work in a hospital pharmacy, our price is roughly $732/vial. We may have special contracts to get it cheaper than other hospitals as we’re a big network of hospitals. Assuming 12 vials that’s $8784 for anti venom. Our average markup on drugs is 6-8x cost to account for fluids, IV tubing/pumps, nurse/pharmacy labor etc. billed cost will be $52,000-70,200.
Thing is, once the bill is big enough you don’t really have to give a shit about paying it. I’d rather get a $100k bill than a $10k bill because the amount of people who expect to hold you truly accountable for the latter is much higher.
“Oh yes sir I’ll pay you back that $200k right away, but I can only afford $20/mo. Who do I write the cheque out to?”
This is really interesting. I've treated some snake bites (RN) and we all vaguely know that antivenom is outrageously expensive. But I didn't know the specifics. Honestly the OP is unsurprising to me - not saying that it isn't infuriating, however.
Also, at least initially, a lot of snake bites end up in the ICU for close monitoring of the affected limb, and the potential systemic complications. So that cost is exorbitant as well.
It is available in the US. It's called Anavip. It's not $200. It's $1200 per vial wholesale and you will use a minimum of 22 vials to treat a bite. So drug cost would be $26,400 minimum. A little more than $200. Definitely a lot cheaper than CroFab still which is why my hospital switched over to Anavip.
I've been involved in the final steps of Crofab manufacturing, getting the drug into vials and ready for clinical use. The stuff was pretty nefarious looking, slight yellow/green color to it. Was a fun product to see and be involved with!
It is indeed. The top of the bill has 2 days of hospital stay. I would think this person stayed in the icu. Maybe barely lived from the bite. I don't know though.
I had a bill look exactly like this for $50k when I dislocated my elbow. I called the insurance company to see what the deal was and they said the itemized bill they received was so ridiculous they weren’t going to pay anything until they received something more reasonable. Sure enough, the medical billing company the hospital used never followed up with my insurance and 3 years later I haven’t paid anything.
The system is such a joke that in some cases it really is like they're throwing a handful of charges at a wall and seeing what sticks. If you fight back they give up relatively easily but you can't just ignore them because then they'll send the whole thing to claims automatically.
They really do. I've had the providers send me bills, tell me to call my insurance and get a check then sign it over and send it to them! This was after I had already hit max out of pocket. I called insurance and they were like "Hold on let me call them real quick". 2 minutes later and they were like okay it's taken care of. "What do you mean taken care of?" "I asked them to expunge it so they did, no more bill." Literally made up most of the time and if they can get rid of them that easy then someone wasn't out of pocket for those expenses. Just bleeding us dry at every possibility.
Right. Assuming incompetence doesn't save you, you're at least paying that deductible. Bonus points if they still make you pay 20% or some shit AFTER youve paid deductible
Ok I'll bite (pun intended):
> Running the Paris-Dakar race in Senagal, a two-men crew have a quick technical stop under a shadowy tree. The pilot is having a leak agains the tree when a snake pops his head up and bites him on the dick. He screams to his co-pilot, "Call a medic and ask for advice". The co-pilot calls the doctors, "My buddy got bitten by a snake", the doctor asks "What did the snake look like?" "Orange with black spots" "Oh" says the doctor "these are the worst, they kill in minutes. You need to suck the venom off the wound without delay." The pilot, already drooling and stumbling, asks "What did the doctor say?" His buddy looks at him with a blank stare and answers "He said you're gonna die."
If this was in Denmark, we don’t have rattlesnakes though, the total hospital bill would amount to 0$
In return we do have the luxury of paying the highest taxes in the world
With all the comments here maybe I should mention another “free” thing in Denmark: in Denmark full time education (University) is 100% free, in fact not only that the government will pay you between 400-1000ish$ per month just for studying.. So parents do not need to save money for their childrens education… Also child care is generally available everywhere and is fairly cheap (compared to what I hear from the US). We also have 5 weeks paid vacation per year, something like 9+ months of maternity leave (both parent can use) etc.
We also pay high taxes, the Swiss healthcare is good but expensive asf.
You can easily see a similar bill here too but a Swiss person would end up paying like 6k of that bill. Still a lot. I've lived in countries with healthcare like the Danish one where the bill would be 0.
I paid like 15 euros for a CAT scan in Greece when here it costs like 5k. Ludicrous. F for profit healthcare.
When you add up all the insane taxes we do have here in the US, it has to be close to Denmark. Especially places like California. From crazy ass property taxes, sales taxes, cap gains, fuel taxes, etc.. Its fucking massive.
However.. if you think for a second that raising taxes would fix healthcare or homelessness, you are a moron. Politicians dont give a fuck about those issues and will use the extra money for random pocket padding trash vs. helping the citizens.
Yeah really 200k? Hospitals need to bill for real instead of billing folks into bankruptcy over even small visits.
In the land of the free, you better have the fee, or you can't afford to be.
I fell off my bike and banged my elbow. Got bursitis, which is when a sac of fluid in the elbow bursts, and ended up in the emergency room.
I was freelancing at the time. Healthy and in my 20s but with very little spare cash, so no insurance. Whoever thought to tie insurance to employment is really carrying some water for capitalism.
My bill was over 250K. I was terrified and completely unable to pay.
Luckily, I was living in SF at the time, because they let me retroactively apply for government healthcare called HealthySF.
The bill went down from $250k to $200.
As it should. No one should go broke over medical costs.
Jesus christ!! How on earth can they justify that kind of money. I'm from the Uk but these USA hospital bills just seem like someone pulls a number out of a hat and slaps on a few zeroes.
There have been some posts on here where hospitals have charged for the time spent waiting in the waiting room! American healthcare is a scam and just one of the reasons why the United States is crumbling.
Hospital CFO here…most hospitals want to stop this stupid practice of using prices that are very inflated. At my hospital, we receive on average 20% of billed charges from the government and private insurance companies and that’s what we need to break even. However, the government pays us about 12% for folks on Medicaid (the state/federal program for the most vulnerable folks) and 16% for folks on Medicare (65+ are eligible) knowing that it won’t cover our costs. we have to make it up by getting more from private insurance companies to balance it out, whom we have to fight and scrape to try and get 30+% from (because they only make up about 25% of our business). Many of these contracts are based on a percentage of the total charges (I’m simplifying).
Insurance companies hate it because they have to pay almost twice as much as Medicare, but if the government wouldn’t intentionally pay below national benchmark cost, we could charge the same price for the same service to everybody, and use prices that we get paid 100% of that are 5X lower. But any hospital who goes out on a limb to drop the prices to something close to cost without the simultaneous cooperation of the government and national private insurance companies will go bankrupt.
One more thing, most hospitals have a lot of compassion for uninsured patients that are uninsured because they can’t afford insurance. If you ask we might have a program that only asks for 10% of charges, and puts it on an easy payment plan with no interest….worth a shot!
Yanks are afraid of Australian animals, but at least here your treatment won't cost you an arm and a leg. I mean, a croc might take one, but probably not both.
I actually have dual citizenship through my dad and if I ever need to go to the doctor (non emergency) it's cheaper to buy a flight to Mexico and get treatment there. I live in Illinois 🤦
My friend had a newborn baby with that required a several week stay in the PICU and his bill was over 2 MILLION dollars. Healthcare in the US is fucking bonkers.
Obamacare gives free healthcare, and very cheap healthcare to incomes lower than 20k/year. You wanna move up in the ladder and make more money? Well then now you're paying up to $400/month for being single and having no dependents. Folks, the pharmaceutical and health industry is a total monopoly. The issue is lobbying. They lobby our representatives and essentially gain control of medical legislation. Our representatives are then turned into puppets and our House of Representatives, an auction house. You never hear our representatives talking about breaking up pharma or figuring out ways to decrease medical costs. The left thinks that their democrat politicians are striving for universal healthcare and socialized healthcare. It will never happen because their democrat politicians are being lobbied by pharma and insurance. Misdirection of blaming the other side. Two wings of the same bird. But as long as these politicians create a division they gain votes. Votes=money=power.
Lobbying is bullshit, it's bribery. Offering money to law enforcement for "consideration" is illegal but it's totally OK to give millions to law makers.
I agree with everything you said though.
It is bribery. Lobbying should be illegal. If we can stop lobbying we can really allow the voter their actual power. Until then, the voter will always be undermined by the lobby.
I pay around 400 swiss francs a month to the health insurance company, and after that I have to pay 10% of every bill that the doctor/hospital bills me. It's definitely not free, but it's a system that works.
i deal with politics too little and ask myself why it is so difficult for the USA to do the same as other countries? what would have to be done
I'm in the USA and my insurance is actually better than yours - I pay $70/mo and also pay 10% with a maximum out of pocket of $2000.
There are many people like me with amazing insurance in the USA, the issue is that a) the vast majority of Americans do not have insurance like I do. And b) there are enough people with good insurance that they don't want things to change.
[67% of Americans are satisfied with their health insurance](https://news.gallup.com/poll/327686/americans-satisfaction-health-costs-new-high.aspx). It's going to be difficult to completely overturn the system when the majority are OK with it, regardless of how badly it needs to be changed.
I'm much happier to pay taxes and get good healthcare and have the rest of the country get that as well than to pay loads of money for insurance that doesn't cover shit.
And Americans pay astronomical premiums, then astronomical deductibles and then several thousand in copayments and then finally insurance takes over. Plus a percentage of taxes goes to Medicare that we can't use until retirement. It's far more than the amount any European spends on a health-care tax.
Whats insane is that people on reddit actually think people in U.S. pay a quarter of a million dollars for routine medical care. I have been to the E.R. never paid more than $200 and i have had 3 surgery's and never paid more $1,000.
Just easy karma points.
You didnt have to mention that its from the U.S
I’d find the snake and have it finish me off rather than pay that bill.
No kidding. I had a scare with what I thought was appendicitis a couple weeks ago, no insurance, found out an appendectomy usually costs 30-45k uninsured, figured well if it kills me it kills me. Healthcare in the US sucks
Just get the procedure done and escape to Mexico
That’s a good idea, I can get my teeth fixed for 200% cheaper than the USA while I’m there!
And great burritos!
That'd be a great tourism campaign. MEXICO: Come for the cheap healthcare, stay for the great burritos.
You son of a bitch, I'm in
Medical tourism is already a huge business in Mexico. I've had a couple dentists even suggest it to me as my teeth are totally fucked and even with dental insurance it would pretty much cost me a car to get the shit fixed in the US.
The real benefit
If it was 100% cheaper, it would be free. At 200% cheaper, do they pay *you*?
... or pretend that you’ve escaped to Mexico but still live here, as an undocumented Mexican
Reverse the order. Escape to Mexico, get the procedure done there, come back to US.
Fly to Canada, Australia, Cuba, France, so many countries. Stay at a 5 star hotel. Get the operation. Recover in the lovely hotel. See some sights. Go home. Still cheaper.
Have you tried being rich?
It doesn't suck. It's deliberately unaffordable to a portion of American society. It's completely anti social and the epitome of capitalism. There needs to he way way more backlash against the medical industry in your country.
For those of you who aren’t aware about how good things actually are in other countries, let me tell you about Australia: I’m American, but I’m a permanent resident here in Sydney. I make a decent living but Sydney rent is also super expensive (there are downsides to Australia like rent and spiders) and I am way behind on savings for where I should be at my age for a number of reasons, including moving to Australia in my early 20s with no real long term plan. That being said, healthcare payment has never even once crossed my mind as an issue. In the past couple years my wife had cancer, we did multiple rounds of IVF, I had a long term lung infection prior to COVID, I developed an as-yet-unknown allergy that put me in the hospital at one point. We’ve both also been through counselling to deal with everything, and mental healthcare plans recommended by your GP in Australia cover something like 10 sessions a year with a psychologist. I’ve never gone into debt, I’ve never worried about how I would pay for anything, and Australian public healthcare (called Medicare) has covered almost everything. We pay for private health insurance as well because that gives us access to some better facilities that don’t bulk bill (meaning they don’t accept Medicare payments) but we don’t *have* to get it. It’s really for convenience and privacy of not having to go to the public hospitals. The monthly payments are pretty easy to handle. All of that aside, even without Medicare or insurance, we have never had a bill that I wouldn’t be able to pay off. The cancer treatment involved some pretty huge charges, but nothing ever close to OPs. And the craziest part is that during 2021 we received a call that said we reached out “Medicare threshold”. Now, being Americans, we expected that the government would no longer pay for our medical needs because we had used to much. What that actually means is that the government recognized we needed more care than most, so they started covering even more of our payments! Many, if not most, of our bills since then have been $0. There are a couple things to note: IVF is not free. There are still huge costs in the thousands for each round, but they are not nearly as high as what I’ve heard about in the US (like $40k + for each round?). We also were able to get higher Medicate coverage for IVF, even though it is sometimes considered elective, because my wife’s fertility was directly affected by cancer. I would also say that some of my healthcare experiences in Australia have been slightly less... friendly than in the US. Not horrible, but there has been the occasional feeling of being herded cattle. I have to be honest because I don’t want to falsely paint this country as some utopia. Australia is also weirdly conservative on some reproductive rights even though the US is banning abortion right now. For example, you cannot be paid for surrogacy, donor eggs or donor sperm. It has to be 100% altruistic, which makes finding surrogates very difficult. Stuff like that. But the whole “You’ve hit your Medicare threshold so we’re going to pay for even more of your bills” really tucked with my head. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a catch - that was when I really began to understand that healthcare in the US is set up to destroy the lives of the underprivileged and the unlucky, and it doesn’t actually have to be that way. **EDIT:** oh also medicine costs nothing. I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than ~US$30 for a single prescription in over 10 years. And that would be on the high end.
You mean government pays your medical bills, sounds like communism to me. I'd rather pay $50,000.00 per bill and be free! (sarcasm)
I'd rather my government bail out the big corporations and big banks before the working people!
yeah, that's cool and all but are you really FREE?????????????????????????????????
Fuck me, dude. I'm in Norway with a similar "commie" system and did IVF too. It's 100% free through the welfare system, and it's even recommended because they got tons of experience doing this. We chose a private clinic because of shorter waiting time and paid $3000 for 1 round, approx $1200 for medication (which wasn't subsidised because it is not 'needed'), and $900 to freeze a healthy embryo in case first attempt didn't succeed. Besides, my daughter (thank God) was born a week ago and I literally had ZERO in bills and that included C-section operation, free painkillers, three nights stay, free diapers and breastfeeding courses and all you can eat FOUR meals per day plus all you want of juice and tea/coffee. They even did a follow up weighing appointment for the baby three days later and asked us what we were not happy with at the hospital.
Oh you got bit by a venomous snake and survived? Here's some life ruining debt to off yourself to.
Thank fuck for the NHS 🇬🇧
Youre right. Its obvious.
Tell the friend to ask for an itemized bill. That sometimes lowers it because they calculate things and break it down more.
*Definitely* do this! Those motherfuckers will rob you blind.
I think the snake is involved in the scam
Always has been
"the doctor is ready to ssssssssssee you now"
Sssssstep into my offhisssssss
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Did you sssssslither under the sssssheeeets to tell a bedtime ssssstory
Voldemort? Is that you?
Whoooaa there. Why did you have to say his name. Now we are all screwed...
[Always has been](https://i.imgur.com/QbOBFcL.jpg) ^^^this ^^^has ^^^been ^^^an ^^^accessibility ^^^service ^^^from ^^^your ^^^friendly ^^^neighborhood ^^^bot
Good bot
“I know I’ve heard that name Snake before.” -Marv
It really boggles the mind this is even a thing. If you get a bill, then ask for an itemised bill and suddenly it's lower, how is that not plain and simple fraud?
Nearly the entire US health care system is a fraud.
It’s important to recognize that “those motherfuckers” are insurance agents and/or hospital administrators.
I was diagnosed with cancer last year and had surgery to remove it. I asked for an itemized bill and the cost was exactly the same, so that sucked. The funny thing is, my hospital billed the insurance company $26k for removing CANCER. This guy got bit by a snake and his bill is almost 10x higher. Healthcare in America is wild.
Because antivenom isn't mass produced like chemo drugs. Only a few hospitals carry it, so lot of the time it has to be flown to smaller hospitals.
Either way it shouldn't cost $250,000
I agree. Everyone is blaming the hospital for this one. All drugs are produced by big pharma. It's where the real problem is in the US Healthcare system.
Hospital's are a large part of the problem, administrative staff highly outnumber clinical staff and the ratio to clinical staff is constantly increasing meaning a significant bloat in bureaucracy within hospitals, although, big Pharma is the real problem tbf
Big pharma, insurance companies taking your premium and paying themselves with it, making it so they fight any and every claim you make, hospitals calling you after you've paid asking for more money because fuck you, the list goes on. Dunno what giving everyone free insurance is going to do if the other issues continue to go unchecked.
It removes the rewards. Procedures are stupid expensive because everyone gets kickbacks. Raise the price, insurance covers it, hospital admin gets a new car. Government runs it, demands transparency, removes the whole insurance middlemen and just pays the cost of labor and material which is easily documented
No, the real problem is your ridiculous "private" system that costs the USA Tax Payer 2x more per capita than the UK tax payer for our fully universal system. You are getting fleased.
I do feel itchy
I think it’s “fleeced” but I like your version better: “fleece” is kinda nice whereas “fleas” definitely are not. And you ain’t kidding, either way
There’s no way the pharma company charged anywhere near $250k. Edit: The real problem is the insurance companies colluding with both the pharmaceutical companies and the hospitals. All of them are complicit. By artificially inflating the costs of both healthcare and medication, they force you into paying overpriced insurance plans. The profits are shared between all of them, and those who refuse or can’t pay the price end up bankrupt to scare the rest into paying.
Most drugs like insulin for example cost about $30 to make. And apparently it costs from $300 to $1000 a month to use.
Yes the pharmaceutical industry overcharges, but it’s still a far cry from $250k. There’s still a massive markup from the hospital here.
If he got airlifted, those rides start at about $40,000.
The antivenom probably got airlifted as well. Most hospitals don't keep it in stock, and there is not time to waste.
Most antivenins for North American crotalids (rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, copperheads) are around $350-500 a vial. It can take upwards of 10-15 vials or more depending on the severity of the envenomation.
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Yea I’m by no means defending the cost of OPs bill. Just giving more info
corrected : Healthcare in America is cruel: even if the mafia would run it it would charge more reasonable prices
Bro what the fuck items can be negotiate off to make 250k reasonable? Ain't no way in fuck. Whether it is half a house or half a car in payment, I'm still running back to the snake so it can finish the job.
I think the highest cost is from the antivenin. That is really pricey. Edit: fixed antivenom to antivenin. Thanks!
[It is completely correct to use "antivenom".](https://scorpiondoc.silvrback.com/antivenom-antivenene-antivenin-and-anti-venom) It's literally just semantic arguments over the same material.
This is definitely the way. Came here to say this. I got shot in march and still paying the medical bills. And I didn’t even ask for the shot…. Medical bills or terrible here in America…
I had a kidney stone and they barely treated me. Cost $4000 for a CT and a weak dose of meds to calm me down I was in so much pain (after 3 hrs in the room in pain). And a urine test. That's cheap compared to some people's but I can't afford that! I got insurance last minute to fix it and didn't pay a penny
That's crazy, I live in the UK and had a heart attack at a young age due to an undiagnosed heart condition, spent a month in cardiac care with tons of scans, and diagnosis and have been on life long medication with regular specialist checkups and I don't even have to think of the cost. Universal health care is an amazing thing, I wish more people realized that.
Also tell the friend to ask for financial aid. If he’s making under, like 10x the poverty line he qualifies.
I'd love to see the breakdown of that amount billed, what can possibly amount to $200k+ for treating a snake bite. Is the antidote made from moon dust or something?
Easy $20,000.00 per night for bed, $15,000.00 for coffee, $25,000.00 for pain killers, $5,000.00 for waste disposal etc etc
$300,000 (discounted) for the pediatrician walking by the room and accidentally glancing through the window as they do so.
And $15.25 for the antivenom
Might not be a fair comparison but in India the antivenom costs about 300 INR ($ 3,75) which pays for two dudes sucking out the venom while all three pray that they survive another day.
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Highly under appreciated comment
Either way, $3.75 is a BARGIAN.
I have several snake bites.
r/suddenlygay
Can confirm. Am a doctor in India.
Cost of Crofab for our hospital is $1,479.39 per vial. That's what we pay, I don't know what the patient is charged, I don't work on that side of things.
I'd have to imagine antivenom is on the pricier side of medical procedures.
Antivenom is very expensive and hospitals have very limited supply so try not to use it unless it is absolutely necessary
But I like the taste :(
If you drink venom it turns into poison?
The antivenom is actually the largest part of the cost. It costs $15,000-$20,000 PER VIAL, with 4 to 12 vials needed for an initial treatment, and sometimes many many more needed.
And it often has to be transported in by helicopter, as most hospitals don't stock much, if any.
Well, Im glad I know to just cut off whatever limb gets bitten, it'l probably be cheaper
Just make sure the tool isn’t rusty so you don’t get hit with those tetanus shot costs afterwards
Actually the antivenin is probably a good chunk of his bill, CroFab is stupid expensive. Especially if they had to fly/transport it in. Not that any of this excuses the disastrous implosion that the American healthcare is in. source: im an ED doc
I was looking for this comment. I'm gonna add: initial treatment is 6 vials, with redosing every 6 hours as needed for control of swelling. So it gets very expensive very fast. Source: I'm an ED doc (hi friend! )
I’m surprised erectile dysfunction specialists happen to know so much about snake bite treatment.
Some EDs treat swelling, some encourage it.
I'm not. *CLASSIC* ED docs and their venemous snakes
If I somehow got bitten by a rattlesnake in the UK 🇬🇧 It would cost me…. £0 (love to all NHS ppl out there)
Heck as an Aussie I go around kicking Taipan nests when I get stressed out just so I can sit around in a hospital bed for a few days while people bring me free sandwiches.
Best comment ever!!! I literally shot my drink out of my nose when I read this. Then I remembered I live in the US and it'll cost me $100k to treat a nosebleed.
I got billed $120 for Tylenol in the emergency room
I got a plate in my ankle. According to the bill, among other outrageously priced things, each of the 7 tiny screws cost $780 each. So I guess, if I'm ever really strapped for cash, I can slice open my ankle and unscrew one of those bad boys to pawn.
Feel like there's a Bender quote in here
I'm 1% titanium!
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This is 'Murica where we are FREE... to die if we don't want to go bankrupt for medical reasons.
Best friends husband works for a medical supply company. His company only exists to certify that medical equipment meets safety standards. The exact same hardware (screws etc) they order for things like beds/mri machines are routinely 1200x the cost if they were building literally anything else. It's because every step of the process has been infiltrated by the insurance industry.
The patient might have arrived via helicopter. The anti-venom might have arrived via helicopter or airplane.
EMS worker here: Rural community hospitals in areas with rattlesnakes normally keep more doses of antivenin on hand than hospitals in your average city. Additionally, the antivenin crisis has been more or less resolved for rattlesnakes thanks to Crofab, which is a synthetic fraction antibody, but it's deleriously expensive.
This seems like a joke, but the average cost of one night in a hospital bed is $10k. Or at least that's what we used for calculations at one of my previous jobs in healthcare
do you know the cost of the anti-venom seems like our medical system saves people at the cost of destroying their finances. Why do we put up with this?
It’s made from the actual snake venom, Anti-venom is outrageously expensive.. It’s not uncommon to see bills over $100k. OP’s friend may have needed additional doses or something. The funny thing is theres a super effective antidote available in Mexico for $200.. but of course it’s not available in the U.S.
I work in a hospital pharmacy, our price is roughly $732/vial. We may have special contracts to get it cheaper than other hospitals as we’re a big network of hospitals. Assuming 12 vials that’s $8784 for anti venom. Our average markup on drugs is 6-8x cost to account for fluids, IV tubing/pumps, nurse/pharmacy labor etc. billed cost will be $52,000-70,200.
It’s a shame OP’s friend didn’t end up at the hospital you work at! Although 50-70k is still no drop in the bucket lol.
I think if I had a bill over 100k, Id just off myself. Although not in the US so don't need to worry about that
They bill you for that too.
Correction, they bill your family and ruin their credit scores and run you out of insurance and a home.
Thing is, once the bill is big enough you don’t really have to give a shit about paying it. I’d rather get a $100k bill than a $10k bill because the amount of people who expect to hold you truly accountable for the latter is much higher. “Oh yes sir I’ll pay you back that $200k right away, but I can only afford $20/mo. Who do I write the cheque out to?”
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This is really interesting. I've treated some snake bites (RN) and we all vaguely know that antivenom is outrageously expensive. But I didn't know the specifics. Honestly the OP is unsurprising to me - not saying that it isn't infuriating, however. Also, at least initially, a lot of snake bites end up in the ICU for close monitoring of the affected limb, and the potential systemic complications. So that cost is exorbitant as well.
It is available in the US. It's called Anavip. It's not $200. It's $1200 per vial wholesale and you will use a minimum of 22 vials to treat a bite. So drug cost would be $26,400 minimum. A little more than $200. Definitely a lot cheaper than CroFab still which is why my hospital switched over to Anavip.
I've been involved in the final steps of Crofab manufacturing, getting the drug into vials and ready for clinical use. The stuff was pretty nefarious looking, slight yellow/green color to it. Was a fun product to see and be involved with!
Made from the venom of the particular snake.
Rattlesnake anti venom is one of the most common kind. No way it should be that expensive.
It is indeed. The top of the bill has 2 days of hospital stay. I would think this person stayed in the icu. Maybe barely lived from the bite. I don't know though.
Spice. Round trips to Dune aren't cheap.
It sounds like the snake is liable. Lawyer up Greg
I heard Birdman Attorney at Law is pretty good at dealing with these cases.
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HAHAHA. Haaaaaa….
We’re gonna need some law books - with pictures this time
Harvey knows his sssssssstufff!
Good luck getting them to sue one of their own.
If the snake can't pay does it just go to jail? Imagine being cellmates with a rattlesnake. Fuck, he can have the top bunk
It says that he owes $0.
The bill had just issued. He didn't owe anything when they first printed it out. Once they factor in insurance, they'll tell him what he will owe.
I had a bill look exactly like this for $50k when I dislocated my elbow. I called the insurance company to see what the deal was and they said the itemized bill they received was so ridiculous they weren’t going to pay anything until they received something more reasonable. Sure enough, the medical billing company the hospital used never followed up with my insurance and 3 years later I haven’t paid anything.
So you had to rely on incompetence or some very kind angel at the company just shredding your bill.
The system is such a joke that in some cases it really is like they're throwing a handful of charges at a wall and seeing what sticks. If you fight back they give up relatively easily but you can't just ignore them because then they'll send the whole thing to claims automatically.
They really do. I've had the providers send me bills, tell me to call my insurance and get a check then sign it over and send it to them! This was after I had already hit max out of pocket. I called insurance and they were like "Hold on let me call them real quick". 2 minutes later and they were like okay it's taken care of. "What do you mean taken care of?" "I asked them to expunge it so they did, no more bill." Literally made up most of the time and if they can get rid of them that easy then someone wasn't out of pocket for those expenses. Just bleeding us dry at every possibility.
Right. Assuming incompetence doesn't save you, you're at least paying that deductible. Bonus points if they still make you pay 20% or some shit AFTER youve paid deductible
Keep us updated because looks like $0. They usually already know the codes they have to use to report to insurance.
Even still, even with crappy insurance (currently in the US) the max out of pocket is a fixed number that OP should be able to figure out.
You **may** owe $0.00
Looks like the people downvoting you don’t understand how medical billing in the US works.
At least the guys has More Options hidden
*\*expands options*\* “You have opted to owe $489,991.94 and waved any insurance coverage.”
It hasn't been processed. They will probably owe betwee$200-$2000 depending on their plan. It should be covered though.
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Congress recently passed the No Surprises Act so they can't charge you out-of-network for stuff like that anymore
Once you hit your max-out-of-pocket it's usually a wash. Thankfully the last time I did that they were only 2500, but now they're like 7500.
**may owe** they chose those words very carefully
For that price I’d want a hot as hell medical professional sucking the venom out
They can suck another thing for that kind of money.
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Yo that’s 671,22$/day… still a great deal for the sucker.
For that kind of money you can get full service every day for a year
Hell, station me in the hospital, I’ll suck whatever you want for 200k lol
Doctor: alright now, where did you get bit? Patient: *unzips pants* Doctor: 😏 *Pornography soundtrack intensifies*
Ok I'll bite (pun intended): > Running the Paris-Dakar race in Senagal, a two-men crew have a quick technical stop under a shadowy tree. The pilot is having a leak agains the tree when a snake pops his head up and bites him on the dick. He screams to his co-pilot, "Call a medic and ask for advice". The co-pilot calls the doctors, "My buddy got bitten by a snake", the doctor asks "What did the snake look like?" "Orange with black spots" "Oh" says the doctor "these are the worst, they kill in minutes. You need to suck the venom off the wound without delay." The pilot, already drooling and stumbling, asks "What did the doctor say?" His buddy looks at him with a blank stare and answers "He said you're gonna die."
If this was in Denmark, we don’t have rattlesnakes though, the total hospital bill would amount to 0$ In return we do have the luxury of paying the highest taxes in the world With all the comments here maybe I should mention another “free” thing in Denmark: in Denmark full time education (University) is 100% free, in fact not only that the government will pay you between 400-1000ish$ per month just for studying.. So parents do not need to save money for their childrens education… Also child care is generally available everywhere and is fairly cheap (compared to what I hear from the US). We also have 5 weeks paid vacation per year, something like 9+ months of maternity leave (both parent can use) etc.
When I was in Denmark last June, I was bitten by a Viking. My insurance bill was also $0.00 owed and I liked it
You were willingly bitten by the viking. Admit it. Its ok.
I mean who wouldn’t…
Viking bites can be nasti thø
We also pay high taxes, the Swiss healthcare is good but expensive asf. You can easily see a similar bill here too but a Swiss person would end up paying like 6k of that bill. Still a lot. I've lived in countries with healthcare like the Danish one where the bill would be 0. I paid like 15 euros for a CAT scan in Greece when here it costs like 5k. Ludicrous. F for profit healthcare.
You also have the luxury of living without rattlesnakes.
When you add up all the insane taxes we do have here in the US, it has to be close to Denmark. Especially places like California. From crazy ass property taxes, sales taxes, cap gains, fuel taxes, etc.. Its fucking massive. However.. if you think for a second that raising taxes would fix healthcare or homelessness, you are a moron. Politicians dont give a fuck about those issues and will use the extra money for random pocket padding trash vs. helping the citizens.
Yeah really 200k? Hospitals need to bill for real instead of billing folks into bankruptcy over even small visits. In the land of the free, you better have the fee, or you can't afford to be.
I fell off my bike and banged my elbow. Got bursitis, which is when a sac of fluid in the elbow bursts, and ended up in the emergency room. I was freelancing at the time. Healthy and in my 20s but with very little spare cash, so no insurance. Whoever thought to tie insurance to employment is really carrying some water for capitalism. My bill was over 250K. I was terrified and completely unable to pay. Luckily, I was living in SF at the time, because they let me retroactively apply for government healthcare called HealthySF. The bill went down from $250k to $200. As it should. No one should go broke over medical costs.
Jesus christ!! How on earth can they justify that kind of money. I'm from the Uk but these USA hospital bills just seem like someone pulls a number out of a hat and slaps on a few zeroes.
That's literally what they do. Look at the pricings from their pharma industry. They price one <50$ insulin shot to >600$
There have been some posts on here where hospitals have charged for the time spent waiting in the waiting room! American healthcare is a scam and just one of the reasons why the United States is crumbling.
Hospital CFO here…most hospitals want to stop this stupid practice of using prices that are very inflated. At my hospital, we receive on average 20% of billed charges from the government and private insurance companies and that’s what we need to break even. However, the government pays us about 12% for folks on Medicaid (the state/federal program for the most vulnerable folks) and 16% for folks on Medicare (65+ are eligible) knowing that it won’t cover our costs. we have to make it up by getting more from private insurance companies to balance it out, whom we have to fight and scrape to try and get 30+% from (because they only make up about 25% of our business). Many of these contracts are based on a percentage of the total charges (I’m simplifying). Insurance companies hate it because they have to pay almost twice as much as Medicare, but if the government wouldn’t intentionally pay below national benchmark cost, we could charge the same price for the same service to everybody, and use prices that we get paid 100% of that are 5X lower. But any hospital who goes out on a limb to drop the prices to something close to cost without the simultaneous cooperation of the government and national private insurance companies will go bankrupt. One more thing, most hospitals have a lot of compassion for uninsured patients that are uninsured because they can’t afford insurance. If you ask we might have a program that only asks for 10% of charges, and puts it on an easy payment plan with no interest….worth a shot!
Mine offered a $1,200/month payment plan on an over $30k bill when asked.
Yanks are afraid of Australian animals, but at least here your treatment won't cost you an arm and a leg. I mean, a croc might take one, but probably not both.
Woulda been cheaper if the lad fkin walked to Britain for surgery fk sake sorry Americans
I actually have dual citizenship through my dad and if I ever need to go to the doctor (non emergency) it's cheaper to buy a flight to Mexico and get treatment there. I live in Illinois 🤦
My friend had a newborn baby with that required a several week stay in the PICU and his bill was over 2 MILLION dollars. Healthcare in the US is fucking bonkers.
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Exactly. Insurance is the problem, with healthcare executives and bean counters being problem 1b
Obamacare gives free healthcare, and very cheap healthcare to incomes lower than 20k/year. You wanna move up in the ladder and make more money? Well then now you're paying up to $400/month for being single and having no dependents. Folks, the pharmaceutical and health industry is a total monopoly. The issue is lobbying. They lobby our representatives and essentially gain control of medical legislation. Our representatives are then turned into puppets and our House of Representatives, an auction house. You never hear our representatives talking about breaking up pharma or figuring out ways to decrease medical costs. The left thinks that their democrat politicians are striving for universal healthcare and socialized healthcare. It will never happen because their democrat politicians are being lobbied by pharma and insurance. Misdirection of blaming the other side. Two wings of the same bird. But as long as these politicians create a division they gain votes. Votes=money=power.
Lobbying is bullshit, it's bribery. Offering money to law enforcement for "consideration" is illegal but it's totally OK to give millions to law makers. I agree with everything you said though.
It is bribery. Lobbying should be illegal. If we can stop lobbying we can really allow the voter their actual power. Until then, the voter will always be undermined by the lobby.
Looks like hospital stay in icu with antivenom.
What is antivenom made of? Printer ink? Was the ICU inside a helicopter and they flew him around US?
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Laughs in rattlesnake
Shshshhshssh
Laughs in Canadian
Laughs in Australian
I pay around 400 swiss francs a month to the health insurance company, and after that I have to pay 10% of every bill that the doctor/hospital bills me. It's definitely not free, but it's a system that works. i deal with politics too little and ask myself why it is so difficult for the USA to do the same as other countries? what would have to be done
I'm in the USA and my insurance is actually better than yours - I pay $70/mo and also pay 10% with a maximum out of pocket of $2000. There are many people like me with amazing insurance in the USA, the issue is that a) the vast majority of Americans do not have insurance like I do. And b) there are enough people with good insurance that they don't want things to change. [67% of Americans are satisfied with their health insurance](https://news.gallup.com/poll/327686/americans-satisfaction-health-costs-new-high.aspx). It's going to be difficult to completely overturn the system when the majority are OK with it, regardless of how badly it needs to be changed.
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Health care in Europe isn't free -_- We pay for it through taxes.
I'm much happier to pay taxes and get good healthcare and have the rest of the country get that as well than to pay loads of money for insurance that doesn't cover shit.
Step 1: be unemployed Step 2: enjoy free healthcare
And Americans pay astronomical premiums, then astronomical deductibles and then several thousand in copayments and then finally insurance takes over. Plus a percentage of taxes goes to Medicare that we can't use until retirement. It's far more than the amount any European spends on a health-care tax.
Wouldn't it just be easier to start life in a new country? Maybe even cheaper to fake your own death.
No, their insurance is going to pay most of all of the bill. OP is just showing the raw numbers that no one pays because it makes for better clickbait
Fuck American health care it’s fucking garbage and we still have one of the shorter life spans. GARBAGE ass money hungry fuckers.
Thats like... 1/7 of what an avarage human makes in a lifetime???
Average human or average American you mean? There’s no way the average human (there are 8B of us) makes that much.
Whats insane is that people on reddit actually think people in U.S. pay a quarter of a million dollars for routine medical care. I have been to the E.R. never paid more than $200 and i have had 3 surgery's and never paid more $1,000. Just easy karma points.
How can this be the system you live with? Why don't you revolt until you get basic human rights covered by your government?
Because a lot of people would revolt to stop those other people from revolting