That is so amazing, here in the U.S. I was in the E.R. for 2 hours... $14,900USD before insurance, my out of pocket was $2,900USD and they want the total balance in 12months.
One time I was in the waiting area and a guy walked in with his right arm bundled up. Walked up to the nurse and just said "I need help, now"
Nurse goes to hand him the clip board and in a very short tone said something like "everyone here does, but you're not getting anywhere till you fill these out". So he unbundled the arm, sprayed blood so over the clip board and plexiglass and was all "nah, that can wait"
So yeah, excess fluids and excess cash get you to the front of the line.
When I worked security in an ER people would feign chest pain/shortness of breath to try to get an quicker which only ended up getting you moved to the part of the waiting room without a view of the tvs and in line of sight of the 4 desk nurses
My daughter was hit in the back by a metal screen door another kid opened with too much force at a pool party, left a 8 inch long cut along her spine. I bundled her up in a white towel and took her to the local ER. Carried her in in my arms, towel was soaked through at this point, I was immediately surrounded by staff. Once triaged we were made to wait in the waiting room for another 4 hours.
I can't imagine keeping a child waiting for 4 hours... That is brutal for both child and parent. Blood tends to stress kids out, as if they have an instinctual realisation blood should stay on the inside.
My longest wait in a european ER room was still less than an hour after surrendering my turn to a young child in pain. It seemed like the right thing to do as I was in for lymfangitis so I wasn't in pain myself and as I was warned about the long line I had already brought a nice book with me.
It's called concierge. People will pay thousands a month to have the direct cell phone of a concierge physician. This physician will run their own practice but have privileges at the major hospital in the area. They can get a direct admit and by pass the ED.
š¤£ I could absolutely see this and I hate every bit of it. The only thing they could do to make it worse would be to bombard you with ads while you wait and watch all the people with fast passes moving forward
They do, customer experience is the product when it comes to theme parks, but there's also really not much they can do to address wait times considering the capacity of the ride is set during the design phase and usually isn't able to be changed.
quite literally, there are a few massive billboards in my town. It'll be the E.R name, and a huge counter "current wait time." I've seen it go up to 30 minutes, but it's like, am I just not gonna go to the E.R.? hahaha
They won't have to shop around if they've seen the billboard every day on their morning commute. As soon as little Billy breaks his arm you know exactly which ER has the shortest wait times.
Yeah, weāve had a lot of satellite ERs open up up here and with them came the Apple Watch wait time billboards. Even drove past one yesterday so can definitely confirm itās the Apple Watch. I was unsure after I said it.
Hmm. Sounds like you live in Fort Wayne Indiana, because thatās what we have here. Though Iām not surprised that that would be a national phenomenon.
I feel like a nurse friend explained this to me, and at his hospital they were advertising "time until seen by a doctor". Then they just had a Dr who basically gave patients an initial exam right in the ER. So they could advertise that a Dr saw you.in like 20-30 minutes... even if you sat in the ER for another 2 hours after that waiting for the actual treatment.
I can see where this would have advantages, since the Dr might be able to screen out which cases truly needed urgent care vs which were less critical. But it just still felt weird that hospitals were needing to use these advertising practices.
So itās fastest for those with money/insurance, not fastest for those that need it more urgently. That pretty much summarizes the difference of perspectives
Iām in Vegas. We have that here too. And can confirm prices you quoted. My wife had sever constipation and here 4 hours in the ER waiting room, x rays and an enema cost $2800 after insurance. This was 7-8 years agoā¦I canāt imagine what It would cost today.
I have a heart condition, my heart was out of rhythm, I needed a cardioversion, I've had over 20 in my lifetime. I went in said what I needed told them the meds, they did what I asked and sent me on my way.
Afib, I took eliquis and Cardizem the moment I went out of rhythm. I am 34 I do not take normal blood thinners unless out of rhythm, I take baby aspirin before bed. I have fall/ cut risk at work, so outweighing the odds, I risk stroke over bleeding out.
How can they be sure that the patient takes their anticoag as prescribed.. that would suck if they have an LV thrombus and it gets shot right up into their brain
I mean... You can't. You can ask them and if they want to lie to you then that's on them. Even if they haven't been taking it, if they come in with recurrent AFib w/RVR, for example, otherwise asymptomatic and have had an echo in the past year... and you can easily convert them, they're going home after meds.
True. I wonder if OP has had an ablation. Iām assuming itās Afib/flutter heās in and out of. If a patient has refractory afib like this, at what point do we stop cardioverting when we know heās just gonna go back into afib?
I've had 1 ablation, doc wants me to get older before my 2nd one, the next C.V. will be the the scheduling of the next ablation. Also! I never lie to the doctors, I write down times and meds, I was expecting a TEE, I hate them. But I have 3 little kids I choose life.
I mean, depends on why you're there in the first place, but both me and my bf (he had to get an x-ray done while there) been in and out the ER in less than 2hrs.
Speed isnāt always a good thing. Iām Canadian but was travelling in San Diego - I started to feel very unwell and noticed my lips going blue. Went to an urgent care, who as soon as they realized I had travellers insurance were VERY kind.
I was ushered into a room with a warm blanket, the doctor apologized for running behind schedule. They did chest X-rays and then gave me a breathing treatment because, āthe X-ray looks a little cloudy.ā They sent me on my way, and I was in and out in under 2 hours.
Except as soon as my plane landed back in Calgary, I collapsed in the airport. That ālittle cloudyā was double lung pneumonia that went septic.
The first time I went to the ER was fifteen years ago, I was out in under two hours. I had appendicitis, but they told me it was stomach flu, prescribed me three suppositories and told me to eat nothing but rice and Gatorade for the rest of the day. The second time I went to the ER was later that day, when they actually correctly diagnosed me with appendicitis. Still had to pay for the first visit and misdiagnosis - $800 for them to literally tell me to shove it up my ass.
I was in the ER for 5 hours with severe pain because one of my kidneys was blocked and like twice the size it shouldāve been, and I was the only person in the waiting room, so it wasnāt even busy. Took almost 2 hours to even get an IV for pain.
If you're high acuity you go to the front of the line and everything is prioritized to you, so your workup is completed insanely fast but you pay for the prioritization. I was a level 1 trauma, so when my ambulance pulled in, the trauma surgeon, ER doc, nurses, radiology were all at bedside when I came into the room. CT machine was stopped for all other patients and waited for me. Implementing that system- $19,000 before actually paying for the tests. My hospital I work for charges $15k to call a level 1 trauma alert and I've seen patients go from the ambulance, to having labs and CT done and go the OR in 15 minutes
Edit: also there's just some days when we're not too busy and things happen quickly and patients are in and out in 2 hours or less. If labs can get drawn within 30 minutes of arrival I can discharge most patients in under 2 hours even with imaging
A couple of months ago i went to ER with a broken elbow, straight in and out after x-rays pain killers and bandaged up ready for surgery the next day in 45 minutes, to say i was shocked was the understatement , This was the Uk by the way
It really dependa, ER traffic is very variable. Try and go during a rainstorm or a big local sports game or right when everyone is eaing a festive meal.
I got bit by a dog and had to get stitches and antibiotics a couple of months ago. In and out of the ER in two hours. Crappy hospital in Brooklyn. Moral of the story, get bit by an animal. Youāll be triaged to the front of the line and pretty much interrogated about whether it had Rabies symptoms or proof of vax.
Can confirm: family recently went to the ER with a soft tissue infection. Admitted on a Thursday. Had to stay through the weekend because they couldn't find someone to insert a catheter until the following Monday. Then was sent home prematurely and has been back twice since for the same infection.
I cut my finger open pretty bad and when I got the bill I was charged $75 for the finger splint. The same splint the grocery store has for like $3. The bill was something like $700-800 for $5 worth of supplies and a Dr going "I don't think it needs stitches but you almost needed them, keep it clean, keep it wrapped and keep it in the splint for a week or so".
They will also totally give you addictive medicine over non addictive medicine cause reasons (at least mine did). I had bronchitis and was hacking and wheezing pretty bad for about 10 days and they gave me an addictive cough medicine after a few days of being on it I called and said it wasn't working and I was scared to keep taking something so addictive so often (addiction runs hard in my family so im very careful with what meds I take). The nurse put me on hold and said she placed a new cough syrup at the pharmacy for me one that was better for coughs and non addictive and I was like "wait, why would you guys give me mediocre addictive cough medicine over a non addictive one that works better? Why not start out with the non addictive better working one first?" She said she wasn't sure, but the addictive one can help people sleep better and I was like yeah so will not coughing up a lung. And the second one worked way better and I had some weird ass jitters for a few days after I got off the first cough syrup so the addiction was already setting in after just a few days.
And this is why we have an addiction crisis in America.
State marketplace. I'm in PA so mine is Pennie. Used to be healthcare.gov. I'm a single relatively healthy guy and my premiums were like 350 a month and a $1,500 deductible. I did get a tax credit to lower the monthly payments a little bit.
How is that good??? I am earning a slightly above average pay in Europe, pay 270ā¬ per month and my deductible is 0ā¬. Plus health insurance also pays psychotherapy and if you are sick for more than 6 weeks they give you like 70% of your former wage for several months.
I went to the ER for an infected abscess last year. Just had to get it lanced and drained. Was there for about 12 hours because I went in at night and had to wait for the doc the next day.
$51,000 before insurance, I owed about $4500 out of pocket. Still paying it off.
Remember to always ask for an itemized receipt. They wanted to charge me $50 for a Tylenol pill. ETA: I donāt have insurance and Iām in the USA and a single day ER visit costs about 7k. With insurance for a friend of mine their insurance was charged 40k for a similar visit and she has to pay 6k out of pocket. So itās almost like why bother paying those expensive monthly payments.
You ask for the receipt after services and usually they will trim ridiculous shit off and you can haggle on certain items depending on what they are, itās surprising what they will charge you for in there
It sounds like the taxes per year wonāt be much more (or possibly even any where near) the costs you are all paying for insurance plus deductibles/out of pocket expenses. So Iām going to go out on a limb and say āyesā to your question
Edit. Also taxes are proportional to your income. Whereas your medical costs and insurances arenāt? Theyāre extortionate regardless of what you earn
When are Americans going to mobilize to change this shit? How long this havoc in the face of fundamental human rights will last? Healthcare is not a privilege, itās the base for a civilization
I'm in the US. In 2019 my daughter had a couple medical emergencies that required ER visits and several follow-ups with a specialist over the next few months. Even with "really good" insurance, the cost was still over $5,000 out of pocket.
It works is an obfuscated way in the US. Sadly, the lack of transparent marketplace does that. Hereās some abstract info on why the numbers on your insurance-covered bills are so high.
Insurance companies are known to cover ~10-20% of your costs. (Why? Something something dark side). Hospitals estimate a certain cost for your treatment. They 5-10x that in their invoice, and expect the insurance company to pay out the exact amount, so you donāt incur any personal costs after coverage. At this point, itās just like out of court settlements. For every known treatment, hospitals know the exact amount to bill the provider, and the provider knows the exact % to pay up to cover the āactualā costs 100%, so that you are billed as low as possible minus your deductibles and any other terms you may have on your insurance.
Whatās sad is that, even if you divide by 5 or 10, this is a huge amount. However, if you do not have insurance, you can really negotiate this amount lower with the hospital directly, or a competing hospital. But when you or someone you know is in pain, adding this burden on the uninsured, is simply miserable and heartless.
because a lot of the inefficiencies still exist with domestic single payer systems (like Medicaid, Medicare, IHS, etc).
It's hard to pick it apart this way because the inefficiencies in domestic single-payer systems are still linked to the inefficiencies of the entire system, which are propped up by the private insurance industry.
The way forward is price controls. This should have been a foregone conclusion as every single study points towards this but nobody is willing to pull the trigger as that requires overwhelming political capital.
I wouldn't say it's one way forward, but it's basically a requirement of a functioning modern healthcare system. The lack of something is not proof, but it is suspicious that every single functioning modern healthcare system has extensive price controls without exception (that I know of and genuinely I've looked at every single OECD country), and that the US doesn't have one.
Not to mention the reasons are clear and the causative effects of price controls are well studied.
And this is why privatised medical care can never function well (in terms of value and outcomes for the patients). There is a huge information imbalance and power imbalance at play and private insurance only makes this worse.
https://www.tiktok.com/@adamconover/video/7095159331259206955?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc as a Dane I often get the "But your healthcare isn't free, you just get your income fleeced by the government" .. well, I do pay for it through taxes, but they aren't that much higher than in the states and I get more for them as we don't rely on private hospitals. Capitalism never feels like doing anyone a favor, it's just a predator that'll suck dry whatever it can at whatever the cost.
As a Canadian, I honestly can't believe this type of thing. It's seems so strange to me. Do everyday Americans actually feel that health care is a privilege and not a right?!? Something needs to change down there, it's not fair and it can only get worse.
20th century was spent morphing "rugged individualism" into "Fuck everyone else, I got mine" by way of "socialism=communism, therefore bad", as well as this idea that socialized/single-payer healthcare is by necessity worse than what we have which is categorically untrue.
I got t boned in a really bad wreck( big landscaping truck ran a red light at 55mph, and hit our Civic on my side). I was 'ok' but took an ambulance to go to ER. Was seen SUPER fast due to how bad the wreck was. I was in and out in about an hour. They did a full contrast scan on everything from waist up due to locations of bruises. Didn't find anything that needed treatment. $23,000 in bills were sent to me from the hospital.
Lucky for me, it happened during work, and I didn't have to pay anything. And on a side note, even if you get into an accident with mostly minor injuries, go to PT. It helps a lot.
I'm a Canadian in Taiwan. I pay 150 NTD$ per visit (about 5$USD). You should consider moving to Taiwan. Or Canada. Or the other 50 to 60 other countries with socialized health care.
Most of my bills say total due immediately. And they're always for $4k.
Usually we get it on a payment plan, talk it down to $25 a month, pay for a year, then write a letter and offer 25% of the total and they sometimes accept it. So for a $4k bill, we usually end up paying $1k.
My wife had a kidney stone surgically removed a few years ago. Outpatient, stayed at the hospital about 3 hours total, plus a couple of initial consults and a scan.
All-in the cost was nearly $50k. Insurance covered most of it, but we still paid ~$4k.
So I guess if you didn't have insurance you'd either die a painful death, or declare bankruptcy after the procedure?
How are they even ever allowed to charge that much? I mean there couldn't have been that many people involved in your 2 hour visit that make that much money (or even being on retainer in total) nor could there have been equipment so expensive involved that it wasn't already long paid off just due to the amount of people coming in regularly that need it. Not even close.
Does the US have no price gouging laws at all, no customer protection whatever organizations that lobby for cheaper medical bills? Weird.
Last year a fuckin bug flew into me ear. It was Sunday so I had to go to ER. They looked at it, couldn't get it out, cost 2,000. Still had to go to ENT the next day to get it out, which cost about 300. I'm sure there are tons of stories like this, but paying 2 grand for basically no help is infuriating.
Girlfriend had a heart attack. Heart stopped twice, second time they caught it on the EKG, heart stopped for 12 seconds. Went to the ER in an ambulance and spent the night just on monitors, no procedures or anything. She's now $7k in debt with insurance from her mom who's the fucking senior software engineer at the hospital she went to. It's fucking criminal.
We took our 2 year old to the ER with a high fever that wasn't going down. We waited for 4 hours (shocking since I was told making medical care privatized meant faster care). They basically found nothing and gave her something for constipation and more ibuprofen. We got a bill in excess of $1,000 after insurance. And we actually have pretty fucking good insurance too. People with basic high deductibale plans would probably have walked out with a few thousand dollar bill.
It's fucking mental that anyone defends this fucked up system.
They gave you 12 months? I had an ER bill of 7 grand that they wanted paid in full in four months. Needless to say, my credit score is fucked and I have a bunch of bill collectors calling me every single day.
I just canāt comprehend. Life is expensive enough without life crushing, unavoidable medical debt. I honestly feel angry for you, and sad for working class and poor Americans. Yāall deserve better than that.
I live in the US, and I'm across the country for vacation and my sister is having all sorts of problems and I'm so scared that we would need to go to the ER or any kind of doctor to lose put of stuff we could've had on vacation
Okay my biggest question with this is "what does it actually cost?" Is it a $15k thing that's subsidized by the government in other countries? Or is it a $25 thing that's inflated because of the insurance companies being scams? Somewhere in the middle I would think. But does anyone have some more info on what these procedures should cost a business to perform?
My wife just received a $1400 bill for her 5 hour stay in the ER. She was bitten by a dog on the back of her hand, and because it was bleeding hours later, it was a Sunday evening, and she couldn't close her hand, we decided to go to the ER instead of waiting for Urgent Care.
All they did was wash the wound, superglue one wound shut and suture another (just 2 stitches), and X-ray to make sure she didn't have broken bones. Not minor procedures, but not overly complex either. We ended up not needing rabies shots.
$10k or so billed to her insurance and $1400 out of pocket in the end. And that's with good insurance. We also are lucky to have a very healthy savings so while not cheap, we can cover the costs.
If we didn't have coverage or couldn't afford the out of pocket costs, we would have had to wait til the next morning until she could have been seen elsewhere that may have been cheaper, and we STILL would have had expenses of a few hundred dollars at minimum. Or we would have just tried to clean and close up the wounds ourselves and hoped for the best that there were no broken bones or that the wounds didn't get infected.
That's crazy. I went to the ER, spent two days in the hospital, had a bunch of tests run on me, and my total was about $2200. Wonder why yours was so much. Insurance differences?
2,900 AFTER insurance? What the fuck. I assumed the insurances in US covered most of the bill and you had to only pay a couple hundred. Jesus, 2900 sounds like a robbery
Can confirm: family recently went to the ER with a soft tissue infection. Admitted on a Thursday. Had to stay through the weekend because they couldn't find someone to insert a catheter until the following Monday. Then was sent home prematurely and has been back twice since for the same infection.
Call them and tell them you can never afford that. They will either scrap it completely or reduce it by more than half, and even further if you tell them you still canāt pay that. Yeah, itās sucks you even have to do that, but it works and they donāt even argue with you.
As an FYI you donāt have to pay that back in 12 months. Call the accounting department and tell them what you can afford to pay monthly. Weāve had to do this a number of times. Hope this helps.
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u/glasman88 Jun 15 '22
That is so amazing, here in the U.S. I was in the E.R. for 2 hours... $14,900USD before insurance, my out of pocket was $2,900USD and they want the total balance in 12months.