Woman receives $5,751 ER bill for an ice pack and a bandage - Sensationalist Headlines

Woman receives $5,751 ER bill—for an ice pack and a bandage | Ar..

Honestly, just another day in the US' fucked up system.

The medical system in this country is fucking pathetic.

At least it's not fucking Canada where I have to wait 20 minutes to get that icepack GOD BLESS AMERICA 20 minutes is very much worth 5.7k and if it's not to you you're just a poor eurocuck

That's basically what happened to my girlfriend, she got some pepto and an IV drip. Then sent home with 4k bill. Best part is, her insurance doesn't want to cover it.

Yeah, getting hurt/sick is a privilege that only the wealthy can afford. you should be thankful for paying literally thousands of dollars to be treated like an actual human being.

Every story like this just makes me more proud of our NHS. I know that stuff like this still goes on in the background, with suppliers artificially inflating their prices, and the privatised aspects of the system causing trouble behind the scenes, but the fact nobody here will ever be personally saddled with such a ridiculous thing as medical debt just makes me want to thank fuck I was born somewhere with proper healthcare.

Wait what. I hope this is sarcasm. 20 minutes = 5,700 USD.

Someone in the comments of the Ars article linked to this story: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/I-Team-NJ-Hospital-Charges-8K-to-Bandage-a-Cut-Finger-270053241.html "Almost six years ago, a company called Carepoint Health bought Bayonne Medical Center and turned it into a for-profit business. After that, Carepoint did not renew its in-network pricing contract with United Healthcare, Spektor says. He says Hanusz-Rajkowski's bill was so high because United fails to offer fair reimbursement rates. “These sticker price charges only apply to ... a minority of patients whose insurance companies have refused to negotiate fair contracted prices with us,” Spektor said." These practices are insane. The fact that hospital pump up their list prices so insurance companies will negotiate fairer prices is... like what the fuck kind of system is that?

exactly, I had to wait 4 days in an ICU for my father to get a room USAUSAUSAUSA!

I mean, if that's how much it costs then fuck me sideways from Sunday, that must be the best Icepack and Bandage ever made.

I remember when I was a kid I had a severe allergic reaction and was rushed to the ER. By the time they actually got around to seeing me, the worst of the reaction had passed and I was back to normal Glad we pay thousands out of pocket for this wonderful privatized healthcare system

The whole idea of "in network" and "out of network" billing is absolutely bizarre and strikes me as one of the first things that should change if the healthcare system in the US is to be reformed.

Don't you know? That's the free market!

Reminds me the time a cardiologist saw my mom for exactly 10 minutes to look at her EKG, then billed her 8k.

It’s even worse than it sounds. You can go to a hospital and ask if it’s in network which they say yes, only later to find out certain departments within the hospital are somehow out of network for whatever fucking reasons after you get the bill.

Even individual doctors employed by the hospital can be out of network as I understand it.

I've brought this up before but after being assured 'everything' was covered by insurance, a procedure for my wife ended up involving an anesthesiologist, who are APPARENTLY pretty commonlyalways randomly out of network and bill you separately. Great surprises all around

Bullshit like this deserves to be criminalized. Sadly, that's not going to end up happening until the US has a major political shakeup and gets corporations out of politics. ...or the country collapses and a new government eventually pops up which is honestly more likely to happen first

According to the conservative political sphere, people should be able to put together a detailed spreadsheet of exactly what costs and services their medical stay will cost them, ahead of time mind you, and then set aside money to properly pay for these services, or negotiate a fairer fee structure from the healthcare provider, which is to say they want to apply fast food pricing economics to medical care, even though its asinine to assume people will know exactly what they're going to encounter even from a routine healthcare procedure. But that's the sort of logic one has to adhere to when the goal is to bring free-market economics to everything.

My stepmom had to pay 7 grand WITH insurqnce to fix a broken ankle. It would have 49k without and the anaesthesia is 8k alone. Fuck this countries ""healthcare"" system.

Its literally the worst ever. It's a minefield of a system thats designed to fuck you as hard as possible. Even then it doesn't matter. As a single white male I'm paying $350 a month for the most garbage healthcare plan because it's the cheapest, and I still have a $5,000 deductible before my insurance will cover anything. If I were to drop that insurance, I would be fined by the IRS for the same amount lol. Fuck the healthcare system, and fuck Obamacare for making it worse.

Except the would-be prosecutors are the ones making serious bank off of it.

I was billed nearly $400(after insurance) for a cracker and tylenol

I was recently sent by a neurologist to have a CT and an MRI and after insurance bothered me for a month to have it done at other places I didn't trust and my neuro didn't even want me to go to, they paid finally paid for some of it and I ended up being billed $3,000 for the rest. This was at an In-Network location by the way. I now have no insurance and still have more imaging to do, medications to get, and appointments and blood draws to go to monthly. The system is a farce. Medication alone without insurance would be about $1,000 a month if not for this thingy my psychiatrist gave me. This can't be sustainable for the country. It definitely isn't for its people, that's for damn sure.

Why hasn't anyone commented on the fact that this idiot went to the ER for a fucking bump on the head and a small cut on the ear? The ER is called the Emergency Room for a reason; This person did not have any life-threatening injuries and had no business being there. There's a reason why ER's are so expensive, and its not because of people taking advantage of poor people or some stupid shit. Its because it is high stress environment that makes sure there is always some doctor there practically 24/7. This woman is crying foul about a high medical bill, when they could have just gone to their personal or a local doctor for 10x cheaper or even free, depending on the clinic.

Genuinely curious because I've never been to America, how did Obamacare make it worse? There are plenty of countries where public health care works, it shouldn't be that easy to screw up on.

The issue is the assholes who vote republican are also the ones who receive medicare from the government, so they have no incentive to actually vote in the interests of other's medical issues and are driven by bootstraps ideology.

Obamacare forces you to pay for insurance, and typically the cheap plans (ie affordable) are basically the same as not having insurance anyway. The only good thing about Obamacare that I can think of is coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Not even. They're just that deluded. My parents are stalwart Republicans, even with my mother having so many medical problems that they pay over $1200/mo in premiums (and still get hit with high deductibles). A legitimate quote from my father on this issue was, "Thank God for Obamacare, otherwise we wouldn't be able to pay for your mother's medical bills - but I hope to god Trump rips that fucking thing apart." My brain broke for a good few minutes trying to process the entirety of that statement.