Medical stuff
May. 26th, 2005 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumGot the bills for the kidney stone today.
Yeesh.
Total invoiced bills, rounded off, $8,000.
Five hundred of that is to the radiology lab for the CT scans, which are also billed on the hospital invoice to the tune of $3,700. I guess I wasn't kidding when I told the nurse at Walter Reed that, had I been paying for what they gave me, I'd have been filing bankruptcy after about 48 hours.
The mark-up for the saline, (which I know the rough cost of, because vets use it, and I worked at at vet) was about 14 times the cost of the bags ($222, rounded), the IV catheter cost $325, the tubing for it was, thankfully only $250. The morphine, a bargain at $50, for 10mg. Each time a nurse pushed some drugs, add a hundred bucks for the treatment, so for the bags and the drugs, $700 labor. Not bad for a grand total of 30 minutes worth of work (and I'm including the time spent getting the bags and drugs).
The worst part is the sanskrit billing. I don't recall getting a pair of injections, separately from the stuff pushed IV, but the bill seems to have them.
On the up side, if there is, I think I'd have agreed to most of that, and at that price (certainly the drugs, etc, I'm not so sure about the CT Scans) for the privilege of not screaming myself mute while the stone passed.
And the note on the back, that's the kicker. If we pay promptly (i.e. withing 30 days of today, though I might have to argue the date of reciept, were we to be on the line) we get a 50 percent discount for prompt payment, because I have no insurance.
Which feels like a scam.
I have to confess, even knowing that medical treament in the states is expensive, the sheer speed with which a huge bill gets racked up is astonishing (I made the comment at Walter Reed because I'd gotten lots of treatment in a short time. Fluids, doctors, ER, Spinal Tap, more bloodwork than I know how to describe, CT Scans, 14 doctors, on a total of four teams, plus my attending and the rheumatology team (who basically stopped by to see how I was doing; since it was their regimen of treatment which put me in hospital to begin with), three kinds of antibiotics, some potassium (ow, ow, ow!... not good, and worse the second time, after you've been getting IV Fluids for a week) and other things, I no longer recall. That was the first 2 1/2 days... I was there for almost two-weeks).
If it had been bad, say I'd needed a stent, or had mmore stones and they worried about complications, I'd be filing for bankruptcy. For some shots, a bit of blood work and some fluids. That makes up half the bill. The other half is for 10 minutes of scanning, and the expertise to read the results (I'm assuming the 500 to the radiology lab is for the person who shot the film).
Six hours, $8,000, for non-dedicated treatment (whatever nurse was handy, and the doctor on call).
On the other hand, if one can find the money (all of it) quickly, the bill is far less. Which makes me wonder at the real cost of things. It also means those who rack up really huge bills (say a heart attack, and a $25,000 tab) are screwed. They can't find the money to close the account, so they have to pay the really huge markup.
Yeesh.
Total invoiced bills, rounded off, $8,000.
Five hundred of that is to the radiology lab for the CT scans, which are also billed on the hospital invoice to the tune of $3,700. I guess I wasn't kidding when I told the nurse at Walter Reed that, had I been paying for what they gave me, I'd have been filing bankruptcy after about 48 hours.
The mark-up for the saline, (which I know the rough cost of, because vets use it, and I worked at at vet) was about 14 times the cost of the bags ($222, rounded), the IV catheter cost $325, the tubing for it was, thankfully only $250. The morphine, a bargain at $50, for 10mg. Each time a nurse pushed some drugs, add a hundred bucks for the treatment, so for the bags and the drugs, $700 labor. Not bad for a grand total of 30 minutes worth of work (and I'm including the time spent getting the bags and drugs).
The worst part is the sanskrit billing. I don't recall getting a pair of injections, separately from the stuff pushed IV, but the bill seems to have them.
On the up side, if there is, I think I'd have agreed to most of that, and at that price (certainly the drugs, etc, I'm not so sure about the CT Scans) for the privilege of not screaming myself mute while the stone passed.
And the note on the back, that's the kicker. If we pay promptly (i.e. withing 30 days of today, though I might have to argue the date of reciept, were we to be on the line) we get a 50 percent discount for prompt payment, because I have no insurance.
Which feels like a scam.
I have to confess, even knowing that medical treament in the states is expensive, the sheer speed with which a huge bill gets racked up is astonishing (I made the comment at Walter Reed because I'd gotten lots of treatment in a short time. Fluids, doctors, ER, Spinal Tap, more bloodwork than I know how to describe, CT Scans, 14 doctors, on a total of four teams, plus my attending and the rheumatology team (who basically stopped by to see how I was doing; since it was their regimen of treatment which put me in hospital to begin with), three kinds of antibiotics, some potassium (ow, ow, ow!... not good, and worse the second time, after you've been getting IV Fluids for a week) and other things, I no longer recall. That was the first 2 1/2 days... I was there for almost two-weeks).
If it had been bad, say I'd needed a stent, or had mmore stones and they worried about complications, I'd be filing for bankruptcy. For some shots, a bit of blood work and some fluids. That makes up half the bill. The other half is for 10 minutes of scanning, and the expertise to read the results (I'm assuming the 500 to the radiology lab is for the person who shot the film).
Six hours, $8,000, for non-dedicated treatment (whatever nurse was handy, and the doctor on call).
On the other hand, if one can find the money (all of it) quickly, the bill is far less. Which makes me wonder at the real cost of things. It also means those who rack up really huge bills (say a heart attack, and a $25,000 tab) are screwed. They can't find the money to close the account, so they have to pay the really huge markup.
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-26 09:33 pm (UTC)People are, sadly, more willing to stiff a vet than a doctor. Many are also unwilling to spend what it costs. The vets I worked for were very unwilling to not help.
Hell, I recall one case, where the dog (a rottweiler), who was gravely; terminally, ill, and owned by a woman who didn't really care for it properly, but cared for it a great deal, coded out on the table, and Dr. Domotor got it going again.
She didn't think about it, and (with that grim humor one gets in hospitals, newspapers and armies... I've worked in all three, no wonder I've got a twisted sense of the funny and absurd, but I digress) said; with only half a dash of jest, "What was I thinking, I should have let the poor thing die."
But those are rare.
Almost as rare as the woman whose conyer was sick, and spent $600 for tests to see if it was curable. A coworker (at the L.A. County Zoo) was shocked to hear this was not a cure, but a diagnostic. The response, "I've had it for 16 years. I won't have to send her to college and this is the first big bill I've had, of course I'm going to pay for it."
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-05-26 10:35 pm (UTC)That's sort of how I feel about Relampago and Crianza. They bring me so much joy, why on earth wouldn't I do everything in my power to ensure that they're taken care of? On the balance, they get better healthcare than I do.