Premiums Unveiled For Health Overhaul Plans

[MrSparkle001]

Originally Posted by runlvlzero [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

And I do think prices/costs are artificially or meaninglessly high. This is however just an opinion I can't thoroughly back up with data for the sake of this debate.

Way too high. In August I got a small cut from my cat on my inside pinkie right below the first knuckle. It wasn't large but it was sort of deep and bled like a stuck pig at first so I thought maybe it might need a stitch (notice it's singular stitch. The cut was small). It was late on a Saturday so my option was the emergency room. I figured it was no big deal. I put pressure on it, bleeding stopped, I cleaned it up, put some neosporin and a bandaid on it and head out.

They examined it and said it didn't require a stitch. They cleaned it up themselves, put some bacitracin on it, wrapped it in gauze, gave me an antibiotic pill and a prescription for more. That's it.

The hospital bill came to over $1100, not including the doctor's bill. When I voiced my great displeasure at that insane rip-off we settled on $125 for the entire hospital bill. Two weeks later I got a doctor's bill for $400, and a week after that another hospital bill for over $350, after I already agreed to a payment in full. That's over $1850 for a small cut that they put bacitracin and gauze on, which I already did at home for free for fuck's sake. All I wanted to know was if it needed a stitch! I already had neosporin and a bandaid on it, they just replaced it with bacitracin and gauze.

Are they insane? Where the hell does the doctor get off charging me $400 to put bacitracin and gauze on a cut that's maybe a half inch in size, if that (it was smaller than the width of my pinkie nail). Fuck I'm in the wrong business. I'll do that for $200, that's half price! It's a steal! And the hospital charging me almost $1500?? What that really is is what they'd have charged my insurance. That's what insurance would have paid. They would have paid about $1850 for a small cut I could have easily taken care of myself.

These hospitals and doctors are overcharging extreme amounts. It's damned criminal.

The prescription cost me $30. That's reasonable. I have no problem paying reasonable bills, but this doctor will not see a dime of that $400 she's charging me unless she agrees to knock that bill down to under $100.

What sucks is a month before I got ripped off my brother went to the same hospital after a collision playing softball (cut his nose and got banged up). He didn't raise hell over what they were charging him and instead agreed to a payment plan. He has to pay over $2500 for services that were only slightly more involved than mine, and only because they did concussion tests (edit: found out today it's $5200 he owes, not $2500). Holy shit. I didn't know he had to pay that much or I would have never gone myself; I guess I should talk to my brother more often.