Oh my god, the montage of being transferred and sent to different "coordinators", "directors", "specialists" etc who are all out of the office is giving me PTSD flashbacks.. Hospitals are complicated networks of elderly women who don't know what the fuck they're doing and who never pick up the phone or return calls. I almost lost my job because I needed the hospital I work at to send in some paperwork to a certification organization so I could keep my license up to date.. After about 2 weeks of calling around, sitting on hold, being redirected and leaving voicemails, it turns out nobody at the hospital was familiar with this paperwork and I was basically on my own to sort the shit out. After working at a hospital, I'm simultaneously amazed and disgusted at what a complete trainwreck the American healthcare system is. Nobody, not even the people at the top of organization, have any idea what they're doing. Somewhere there's a team of legal experts that I'm sure understand the rules and operations of the healthcare system, but nobody working within a mile of a hospital knows, that's for fucking sure.
What a massive shitshow
It's like everything in America is a scam, that's scary
Fuck American healthcare. People in the UK moan when it takes a few hours to be seen by someone but i'd rather have a wait time for free health care than an instant £5,000 bill.
[QUOTE=vladnag;50263177]Fuck American healthcare. People in the UK moan when it takes a few hours to be seen by someone but i'd rather have a wait time for free health care than an instant £5,000 bill.[/QUOTE]
It still takes hours to see someone.
Let's say you have a scheduled appointment at 2 PM. You get there at 1:45 PM, check in, and sit down. Around 2:30-2:45, a nurse brings you into a room. She tells you she'll be right back. She comes back around 3-3:15, takes your vitals, and tells you the doctor will be with you shortly. Around 3:30-3:45, the doctor comes in, asks some questions, leaves. Nurse comes back 20 minutes later to take urine, etc.
So on, and so on, and so on. Most appointments take around 90-120 minutes on average for me. There have been miraculous times where I'm in and out with no wait, but it's super rare.
[QUOTE=vladnag;50263177]Fuck American healthcare. People in the UK moan when it takes a few hours to be seen by someone but i'd rather have a wait time for free health care than an instant £5,000 bill.[/QUOTE]
It's not guaranteed to be instant, just a few months ago I had wait up to four hours to just see my doctor.
[QUOTE=lolo;50263433]It's not guaranteed to be instant, just a few months ago I had wait up to four hours to just see my doctor.[/QUOTE]
you didn't have to pay exorbitant prices though
Okay, so I actually watched the length of the video, and I have to say the guy is kind of an idiot. How does he genuinely expect to get "an estimated price of an uncomplicated childbirth" when situations vary too greatly? Some patients require different kinds of treatment, including different medication doses, size of the room that's currently available, etc. It's unrealistic to get an estimated figure since there too many variables that come into play once you're actually there. There can be no strict rules that you follow one by one for a procedure since every patient is different in some way which effects the price model. I'm surprised HE was surprised when really, it's common sense that dictates, yes, you won't know the final price until after the procedure, when all elements of the procedure have been equated.
I'm not saying that it's a good system, far from it, but maybe this explains why a lot of people are picking home-birth over hospital birth these days.
[QUOTE=Aetna;50263639]Okay, so I actually watched the length of the video, and I have to say the guy is kind of an idiot. How does he genuinely expect to get "an estimated price of an uncomplicated childbirth" when situations vary too greatly? Some patients require different kinds of treatment, including different medication doses, size of the room that's currently available, etc. It's unrealistic to get an estimated figure since there too many variables that come into play once you're actually there. There can be no strict rules that you follow one by one for a procedure since every patient is different in some way which effects the price model. I'm surprised HE was surprised when really, it's common sense that dictates, yes, you won't know the final price until after the procedure, when all elements of the procedure have been equated.
I'm not saying that it's a good system, far from it, but maybe this explains why a lot of people are picking home-birth over hospital birth these days.[/QUOTE]
Variation or no, they could probably say "yeah our average is around x, but of course it varies a lot" and maybe it shouldn't take two weeks to get that figure? I mean, you must have some feel for your prices like "a uncomplicated birth will not exceed x, and you'll probably pay at least x for admission alone". It's not impossible to just be somewhat informative.
[QUOTE=Aetna;50263281]It still takes hours to see someone.
Let's say you have a scheduled appointment at 2 PM. You get there at 1:45 PM, check in, and sit down. Around 2:30-2:45, a nurse brings you into a room. She tells you she'll be right back. She comes back around 3-3:15, takes your vitals, and tells you the doctor will be with you shortly. Around 3:30-3:45, the doctor comes in, asks some questions, leaves. Nurse comes back 20 minutes later to take urine, etc.
So on, and so on, and so on. Most appointments take around 90-120 minutes on average for me. There have been miraculous times where I'm in and out with no wait, but it's super rare.[/QUOTE]
What hospitals are you going to? The most I've ever waited for my appointment was an hour because the main doctor took a late lunch. Other than that I come in 10min early, get called within 10min finish up and I'm on my way. Takes at the most 20min.
A lot of the doctors I go to like to pile on their daily appointments so I end up waiting a long time for one of their previous ones that goes on longer than they anticipated.
[editline]5th May 2016[/editline]
On the topic of birth, my sister had very little complications save for needing some stitches afterwards and she's still on the hook for a good $3-4k.
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