My outrageous hospital bill - faint with me

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Charli

Charli

cool little "title"
As you know, I had a bout of gastritis and spent the night at the hospital. Here is my itemized bill:


Morphine - $140.26
IV therapy - 98.50
Lab - 18.50
Urine Pregnancy Test - $85 (you f---ing kidding me?)
Lab Chemistry - 255.75
Lab Chemistry - 164
Blood Work - 166.75
Cat Scan - 1982 (yeah, you read that right)
Cat Scan - 1228 (yeah, again)
Ultrasound - 532
Emergency Dept - 945 (is this the cost of my room?)
IV Infu therapy to 1 hr (what the hell?)
Pharmacy - 95.72 (liquid drink that I knew wouldn't work)
Parmacy drugs: 51.50
EKG - 275 (absolutely useless)

Subtotal: $6287.98

I pee in a cup and they charge me $85 for a pregnancy test? Are you f-ing kidding me!!! The whole thing was a crock. I am charged over $1k for emergency services. Okay, here is the thing, where am I suppose to go? I HAVE to sit and wait for someone to come get me and then I HAVE to wait for a doctor to see me. If the hospital didn't have 25 patients to 1 doctor, maybe I could have been in and out in two hours.

Now the above total does NOT include the DOCTOR'S fees. Yeah, right, now I am going to wait for a bill from the bloke who spent maybe 10 minutes with me. The whole health care system is corrupt. It's all under the auspice of maybe wanting to care for the sick, but they stick it to you and to your insurance company.

I'm filing to get the entire bill removed. It does not pay to go to the hospital.
 
WOW. That is a huge bill!! I was considering moving out to the States...but now I'm not so sure. That's absolute madness. Peeing in a cup is $85 hehe. That's horrible.

-Kegan
 
Welcome to LA! That's pretty mild. Npw you spend six months fighting with the insurance company, the hospital, and the doctors...
 
Charli,
I am right there with you.
Less than 45 minutes in the ER and all the Dr did was agree with me and write out the script. 700 dollars.
250 for a "medium level difficulty decision making" (dr bill)
450 for the level III er visit. Still can't find out what exactly was done for me.
America may have the best medical system in the world, but it's still all f***ed up. (and I'm a paramedic)
-Will
 
Know why the prices are so high?

Because lots of people have insurance, and the insurance companies will pay those prices.

If everyone was pay-as-you-go, the hospitals/doctors couldn't charge those prices...because not enough people could pay them to make staying in business worth the effort.

Oh. Yeah. My wife's C-Section cost $3500, of which I have to pay $255.

My appendectomy + 8 days in the hospital cost me $8000 in Germany.

I hate bills.
 
woah thats just crazy, at times like this makes me feel proud of the NHS! never thought I'd actually say that!

I'd say fight it, you should not have to pay non sensical amounts!
 
Blaine. Look at a hospital bill and what the insurance company pays. I would bet the farm, an insurance company wouldn't pay a grand for the ER Room Charli stayed in.
Insurance companies get to set their rates because they have bargaining power. They tell the hospital what they'll pay and then they tell their insured to go to this hospital or the other. (Provider lists???)
Joe Citizen who hasn't insurance doesn't get to set his own rate.
 
oh yeah, I paid $300 bucks to wait 3 hours in the emergency room and all the doctor told me was your okay, just don't stress. Stressed?! $300?! WTF?!

He came in for no longer than 2 mins, thats a bathroom break!



Did you get 100% better?
 
Charli,

You have insurance?

That bill sounds pretty in line with the industry. Not saying it's fair or reasonable, but what I'd expect.
 
Wow! I really can't imagine.
Being from Canada the only thing we have to worry about is if we end up with a private or semi-private room.

Crazy!

I hope you get this covered somehow.
 
One day, some 15 years ago, I developed chest pains. I had no insurance at the time, and I was in-between jobs, and stupidly I didn't sign up on my wife's - hey, I was young and felt immortal, and figured why spend the cash, and I'll soon get my job etc. My wife drove me to the hospital - so no ambulance was involved. Despite CHEST PAINS, I had to sit in the waiting room for 2 hours before I was seen. A nurse hooked me up to an ECG machine, got a reading and took the reading away. An hour later, the nurse came by and said "the doctor says nothing's wrong". So I left. Two weeks later, I received the bill: $1700. I never even SAW my "doctor". This was in Los Angeles, at a major hospital. So you have my sympathy, but at least looks like you got a lot of procedures and some attention from doctors. Doesn't make it right, but hey, it can get a lot, lot worse :) The healthcare costs are out of control. And they've been rising at a 15%-20% yearly clip for some years now. At some point VERY SOON, there will be a complete breakdown of the system.
 
I always conplaint about my insurance fees being $45 every two weeks
I never go to the doctor other than to get a "doctor's note" for work, I have however visited the ER ($50 per visit)a couple times lately, once after a Chimaira concert in which someone smashed my right foot, now I don't even wanna begin to imagine what those bills might have been if I had not been covered by Kaiser. I once read in a magazine that the key to a nice retirement is having a good job with benefits, I guess that includes health insurance which is skyrocketing in the US specially for seniors.

dude I feel your pain, try to put it one of those credit cards that offer 0 interest for a year on tranfered balances.
 
if you're too poor to pay, the hospital will just write it off. if not, you can try to set up a payment plan.

unfortunately they are ripping you off big time. an insurance company would pay nowhere near what they are charging you.
 
*sighs*
I've been unemployed a month(still haven't been approved for unemployment yet). No health insurance. My car is in the shop now until it's fixed. So I can't even go out to places to apply at the moment. Most of the jobs I've applied for and gotten interviews for DO NOT offer insurance. However, in the end of the interview they tell me "they are hiring and me and will call me" and never get back to me. and I never even get the job.

I cannot for the life of me be having a worse month, and cannot imagine going to the ER. 85,000 jobs lost since January rising gas prices, and a slowing economy. Your hospital bill may not even be the least of your worries soon...

Times are a changin'
 
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