Maybe you think I'm being dramatic with the title. I am reacting as I think anyone would if they had to use US healthcare and then got the bill. Here's how this post is going to go:
Pertinent information, description of event, cost breakdown, how I feel afterwards.
I have decent health care that I pay over $200 a month for through my employer. At 6:30 PM one night in December, I was doing a woodworking project and made a dumb choice. I sliced across the top of my left index finger with a sharp chisel. There was no pain, but I did have a pretty good flap of skin about 2cm long across the top of my 2nd knuckle, and it was gently spurting blood underneath. As someone who hasn't had to go to the hospital in their adult life, I looked up the symptoms and figured in case of something bad I should probably get stitches. My options in the area were to risk an ER visit where I could end up waiting for hours in the middle of a pandemic or an out of plan outpatient center/urgent care that was still open. The urgent care near me that was actually on my plan closed at 2 PM because they're doing testing. I decided to go to the urgent care, because a minor cut seemed like more of an urgency than an emergency.
I was checked in, and then seen by a doctor and a PA. I first got an X-ray to make sure I didn't hit a bone. They washed the cut down with saline, rubbed with iodine, put two stitches through the cut, taped a gauze pad down, and then put my finger in a cheap aluminum splint. All told it took about 30 minutes.
I am on the hook for $1000 after an insurance adjustment.
What exactly did they bill me for, you might ask? Well, they charged me separately for the doctor and the PA. Here's what they charged and how much.
Doctor:
$308 in time labor.
$295 for the stitches (done by the PA).
$101 for applying the splint.
PA:
$437 in time labor.
$288 for applying the splint.
$149 for being checked in.
$56 for the tetanus vaccine.
$134 to administer the vaccine.
$350 for an X-ray.
Separate bill of $18 also for someone to tell them my X-ray looked good.
All told, they wanted to bill me $2,118.06 for half an hour and two stitches.
My insurance, being so good, managed to talk them down to $1,081.51. They told me they couldn't do more because I saw someone out of network. It was a merry December for me too, I all but met my deductable a few weeks before the end of the year, and I get to start 2021 with a fresh deductable to have to meet.
The service was standard. I don't have enough money in an HSA to cover the full bill. I will have to pay a good chunk out of pocket, after taxes. I shudder to think that I was also stupid enough to have a PA take those stitches out.
I work in a white-collar job and have an emergency fund, so I can handle this, but I'm facing down my insurance and HSA failing over 2 stitches. Extrapolating what the costs are for hospitalization and actual intense care, anything more serious and I'd be put through the ringer so much worse. Yes, once my deductable is met I have insurance, but I'd be way too close to paycheck-to-paycheck.
It makes me very angry that I am a clean, contributing member of society, and I am forced to choose between the risk or poor health or having money after I pay rent. You'd think they'd want average people to have spending money for capitalism? If I had known what they would charge, I would've soaked the whole thing in alcohol, held gauze on it for a bit until it coagulated a little, and superglued it shut. But the thought in my head was that I could be risking an infection and improper healing.
Instead I had 2 people charge me $400 to put a 50 cent splint on.
Anyone who says we don't need healthcare reform and thinks that an old money baron with enough money to clone themselves should be in charge of their cost and quality of care is a fucking hack that's had the good fortune to not need the service. At some point we all meet our maker though.
https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Submitted January 26, 2021 at 06:56AM by OccidentallySlain https://ift.tt/3a3nqyz