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

Hate to tell you boyo but clinics are just as outrageous.

If it weren't for the ACA my boyfriend would be dead. It's a fucking flawed system but it's leagues better than what we had before. I'm fucking lucky to still have my parents' insurance for a few more years. Once that's done I better be healthy as fuck because otherwise one visit will bankrupt me.

The injuries were probably not "serious", but consider this (from the Vox article): "Pell left the ER when she discovered the plastic surgeon who would see her was out of network for her insurance. She decided to go to an in-network facility instead. She thought this was a smart way to avoid the costly fees that came with seeing a provider that wasn’t included in her health plan." This tells me that either A) There was a risk of permanent cosmetic damage to her ear or B) The ER is either completely incapable of sorting out which patients actually need to see a specialist. If she's just there wasting everyone's time, she should be told to go home and see her own doctor next Monday, not be told that a plastic surgeon is going to see her in a minute.

was it at least a name brand cracker and a tylenol 3

Great Value "Salty Square Cracker" and "Acetaminophen Pill 100mg" I bet.

Woah now, what do you think the hospital is? A 5 star resort? They cant afford that kind of foolish spending.

The real problem is that Universal Health Care only works if you create a whole system based on it. Obamacare is like almost universal healthcare but in a mostly Private healthcare system. So everything doesn’t run as efficiently.

Because if we didn't use this as a stepping stone, we probably wouldn't have had a shot at having a truly developed system for much longer.

It's still not exactly good that the patient is told that a surgeon will see them, but then adding a punitive fine after the fact. Healthcare shouldn't be risky, it should be the opposite.

A hospital isn't going to deny a patient like that, but if it was something non serious that didn't even look serious and you're holding up an ER bed then you're an idiot and honestly you are 100% in the wrong for abusing the ER.

Man, radiology in America must be a fucking cash cow. I can do a chest x-ray in probably 45 seconds with someone fit and well, assuming a fully digital room, get a radiologist 1 minute to report it if it's a routine one and they are on a roll. Most trusts do private imaging too - most of the private stuff I do is less than £50 for the patient. Quality is exactly the same as NHS, same people, same machines and such.

Its funny that most people in the thread blame the woman for seeing the doctor .. rather than asking why the price is so high in the first place. An IV bag (Literately saltwater) cost <$1 everywhere but US .. where the same bag cost $80-$100. Its also sad to hear that the health industry is lobbying more than the army and oil companies combined .. so the politicians run in circles instead of asking why the price is so high in the first place. Look I get it. The system worked fine until around the 60s where the insurance companies started to turn it into a monopoly.

what fucking world do you live in lol I have to make an appointment a month or more in advance to see my doctor. It's quite possible the cut on her ear was more than ""small"", which is a perfectly valid reason to go to the ER. Much more valid than the idiot parents who bring their four year olds to the ER because he gets a cough, in any case.

This is just ludicrous then, a simple legal robbery then. I mean, a band aid isn't gonna cost even a fraction of that, neither is an ice pack, and yet, "theres a man with a basebal bat demanding that kind of cash from you"