Large emergency room bill

[JanaDee]

Sounds about right for an ER bill. DH went to a doctor (specialist) a few weeks ago. A urine test and 8 mins with the dr cost us over $600.

 

[Dean1953]

Three years ago, my 23 year old step daughter was in extreme pain. It turned out to be kidney stones. I told the person at admittance at the ER that my step daughter had no insurance. They decided to run some expensive tests to confirm that she was not pregnant ( wouldn't take her word), put her on a saline drip for an hour and gave her a shot of morphine. She saw a Doctor for 5 minutes and was discharged after 90 minutes. The bill was $10,000. They would not discount it. I get my medical needs done while going to Mexico or Thailand and have no intention of seeing a doctor in the U.S., unless it is almost a life and death situation.

 

[Halloweenqueen]

My younger son had oral surgery about two weeks ago. During the pre-op visit the doctor mentioned that she also could take out his wisdom teeth at the same time. We agreed. Ironically our eldest was set to have his wisdom teeth pulled three days later and we had been quoted a price of $1200. We were expecting about the same for second, or even less because the position of his teeth was not as bad as his brother.

Friday we received a bill for the extraction only of $3100! Of course it was too late to call for an explanation.

Medical issues suck.

Good luck OP!

 

[tnklvr]

That is about what it costs to go to the ER. You are better off holding pressure on it till it stops bleeding and use butterfly stitches or tape to close it up till the next day when you can call your doctor. Medical costs are out of hand anymore. As the person with the bedside commode was upset with the $150 charge. I was hospitalized a few months back and had a surgery 2 nights in hospital and surgery was $116,000. While there I could not get someone to come help me to the bathroom for way too long so I got up and went myself. Because of that they put me on a bed alarm so I would not get up again. Not that they would show up if it went off since they would not show up when I hit the light for them the first time. That bed alarm was $900 for the night. The next day as I was about to go home they wanted me to sit in a chair and wait for someone to help me clean up. The bill claimed there was a chair alarm on the chair and I know there was not. That was $700. They should have let me take them home for those prices and I bet they throw them out when the patient leaves. It is ridiculous what they charge for things we don't even need. My endocrinologist for my thyroid issues is $169 a visit. He sits across from me for 5 minutes and gives me the wrong results for the blood tests I get before I see him and every time I have to show him the current results I print off and show him where he is getting his results from in the past to prove to him I have the correct info. He asks for my copy of the results and never bothers to feel my neck like he should in his specialty. For our insurance for 2 adults between monthly cost and our $12,700 deductible we have to spend $21,000 before insurance pays for anything so IMO health insurance companies are no better than hospitals and doctors costs.

 

[Pooh2]

I know it was a matter of timing OP, but my son got 5 stiches in his hand recently at Urgent care walk-in (open until 8pm here on Saturday night!) and paid $200. His wife removed the stitches for him.
Can you argue with the insurance company that Urgent car was not open and ask they adjust your amount according since you had no other option?

 

[Marionnette]

I know it was a matter of timing OP, but my son got 5 stiches in his hand recently at Urgent care walk-in (open until 8pm here on Saturday night!) and paid $200. His wife removed the stitches for him.
Can you argue with the insurance company that Urgent car was not open and ask they adjust your amount according since you had no other option?

It's the hospital that is billing the OP, not her insurance company. It doesn't matter what an Urgent Care facility would have charged them, the OP went to an ER. There's a 3-party contract in place between the OP, their insurance company and the provider. Each of them, including the OP, have agreed on a price for all healthcare services and who should pay them. The price tag sucks but that's what an ER visit costs.

 

[tarheel618]

timing of this thread couldn't be better. Last Saturday night my teenage DD sprain her ankle really bad. AT the time, we didn't know if it was sprained or broke. We discussed going to the ER but decided to wait until morning and go to the Urgent Care. We iced it all night. Cost of the urgent care to be seen and x-rayed 35.00 I can't imagine what the ER bill would have been.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

I'd bet the discrepancy in percentages is due to an er copay. Usually the insurance pays their percentage of the bill, but you are responsible for the copay. Er copay can be high, my last insurance charged $200 for er visits.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Ask the hospital to send you and itemized statement. I went to the ER last year and afterwards asked for an itemized statement. Well I found out they billed me for things they should not have. Such as a pregnancy test yet I had a hysterectomy in 2000. The nurse who checked me in asked when I had my last period and I told her 2000. Not to mention the surgery was performed at that very hospital. Then there was a charge for multiple EKG's. I only had one. I ended getting over $600 in charges reversed because of the things I found that I should not have been billed for.

 

[teller80]

We have a high deductible insurance plan

But this is your choice. By having a high deductible plan, aren't you saving a significant amount of money monthly? We chose a plan where we spend more, but we won't be hit with a huge bill. If you had a high deductible for your car and it was in an accident, would you ask the repair shop to reduce the bill? At least hospitals accept monthly interest-free payments, I'll bet the repair shop wouldn't.

 

[verleniahall]

YEah - ER Co-Pays are BRUTAL. Ours is $600.00

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

YEah - ER Co-Pays are BRUTAL. Ours is $600.00

Yikes! Ours is only $30.00.

 

[bbak30]

Yes, unfortunately that is the reality. I'm an ER nurse and I will do just about anything I can to keep my family and friends OUT of the ER. My deductible is $200, but my husband has an 80/20 so it would cost us an arm and a leg.
IMHO, it's due to the ER abuse. You wouldn't believe the kinds of complaints that we get. Dental pain, cough for a week, stubbed toes, etc... However, these people either have no insurance, or have Medicaid which covers ER 100%. It's very frustrating.
I feel your pain and it seems like you didn't have any other choice. Sucks.

 

[bbak30]

We have a high deductible plan. Blue Cross will take the bill, usually reduce it by 40% then I pay the new total.

We go to urgent care for something strep like. The Dr says it is either this or that, we will test for both. I ALWAYS stop them. Are you sure it is one of the two? Sure, we see it all the time. Same pill for both? Yes. Give me a z-pack. I have probably saved thousands by just stopping them.

I would freak out over a $150 a day toilet!

I do this too, especially with the high deductible. I've asked my peditrician several times to just treat my kids, especially if that's her plan anyway. No sense spending $80 on a strep test when you are just going to treat anyway. Gotta watch prescriptions as well. Some of the scripts aren't necessary. I ask the pharmacist if I'm not sure.

 

[BrettS]

But this is your choice. By having a high deductible plan, aren't you saving a significant amount of money monthly? We chose a plan where we spend more, but we won't be hit with a huge bill. If you had a high deductible for your car and it was in an accident, would you ask the repair shop to reduce the bill? At least hospitals accept monthly interest-free payments, I'll bet the repair shop wouldn't.

This is true and its a fine line. I certainly don't want to cheat the hospital of the doctors out of money they deserve, but along the same lines I don't want to pay more than is reasonable.

I think the big question in my mind comes from the fact that it was probably a good 5 or 6 times more expensive to have exactly the same work done at the ER as it would have been at an urgent care clinic or a doctors office. Obviously the ER is open 24 hours and has higher costs and I expected that, but 5 times more seems a bit rediculous.

It's not the fact that I have a high copay that I'm complaining about. I was fully expecting a $500 or $600 bill. But $1866 for an hour in the ER seems excessive to me.

 

[teller80]

I think the big question in my mind comes from the fact that it was probably a good 5 or 6 times more expensive to have exactly the same work done at the ER as it would have been at an urgent care clinic or a doctors office. Obviously the ER is open 24 hours and has higher costs and I expected that, but 5 times more seems a bit rediculous.

It's not the fact that I have a high copay that I'm complaining about. I was fully expecting a $500 or $600 bill. But $1866 for an hour in the ER seems excessive to me.

I have no idea what an urgent care bill would be, your math leads me to believe you think it would have been about $350, but then you think your ER bill should have been in the neighborhood of "$500-$600".

To use my car analogy, if I go to Jiffy Lube to get my oil changed, it's about $20. But if I go to my dealer, it's more like $70. For the same thing.

But a better analogy would be tuition. I can take a class at my community college where tuition is $100 a credit hour, or I can go to a university where it's at least $400 per credit hour. Why so much more?

The ER has significantly more overhead than an urgent care. They have to have tons more equipment, more staffing, etc and so on. And even if you don't "see" a doctor, believe me he/she is there and will review your case.

I feel your pain, I really do. I used to have a high deductible insurance plan, and I waited for the urgent care to open because I assumed the minute I walked into the ER I'd be paying at least $2500.

 

[chiefmickeymouse]

Unfortunately, ER visits usually result in outrageously high bills. Plus, you will be billed by the hospital, the doctor who saw you, the company who took the x-rays, etc. My husband broke a bone while we were on vacation last August; we had to visit the local ER twice. The bill was submitted to our insurance and they paid what was allowed, but the remaining balance is over $1,400. We have TriCare (retired military), so under federal law, for an ER visit we cannot be billed for this amount; they must write it off. Has that stopped the billing? No! Our insurance company has spoken with the hospital billing company multiple times, sent them a letter informing them they must stop billing us, but two weeks ago, they turned us over to a collection agency. Our insurance company again called the billing company and they assured us they would put a stop to collections, but naturally, just two days ago I got a harassing call from the collections company. It will all be worked out, but why does it always have to be such a hassle?

OP, good luck to you.

This happened to me with Tricare too. Did you talk to one of their "collections specialists"? She was the one who finally got the hospital to drop it and the bill was pulled from collections. It was a real pain with biweekly calls first from the hospital billing office and then from the collections agency. When we got the letter from the collections agency I responded with a letter asking for proof that we owed the debt. A few weeks later we got a letter saying the hospital had withdrawn the bill from the agency.

 

[barkley]

Your situation is very different from the OP's. In your case, the hospital and radiologist had no contract with your daughter's insurance. Nor did they receive any payment from them. For that reason, it was possible for them to negotiate a price with you. The OP's insurance has a contract with the hospital and part of that contract prevents them from negotiating any further discounts with the party covered by the insurance.

I don't know if it's legal or not but both of our local big hospitals have language written on the back of their billing statements that say if a billed party pays the balance due by cash or check they can reduce the billed amount by 10%. we've got insurance with contracts at both and neither have balked at giving us the discount (I called the first time we received e/r bills from each that indicated insurance had paid a portion leaving us w/a share of cost and was told to pay by check w/in 15 days at 10% less than my billed share of cost).

 

[barkley]

timing of this thread couldn't be better. Last Saturday night my teenage DD sprain her ankle really bad. AT the time, we didn't know if it was sprained or broke. We discussed going to the ER but decided to wait until morning and go to the Urgent Care. We iced it all night. Cost of the urgent care to be seen and x-rayed 35.00 I can't imagine what the ER bill would have been.

ballpark figure-$1300.00. at least that's what it came to when ds sprained his last fall. that was for the e/r, e/r doctor, radiology, ankle splint and crutches. we would have taken him to our local urgent care but ours isn't open on sundays.

 

[JohnDaleswife]

Healthcare cost will eventually bankrupt most people. Its coming. If you don't have anything I guess it doesn't matter. But I do feel at some point in my life our family could lose everything we have as a result of this.