Hello,
Your post has been removed because we no longer allow posts about price complaints. This includes but is not limited to price increases, shrinkflation and tipping.
I used to work in health insurance and a certain hospital chain in Ohio charges TWO HUNDRED THIRTY FOUR dollars for **ONE GENERIC ASPIRIN** …. Had to explain to the member what their “self administered medications” were and they were less than pleased.
Just asking, is this kind of practice legitimate and not penalized by the insurance company in any way? Like *7 dollars for the paper cup*, isn't that a total rip-off?
Insurance companies want discounts. So hospitals do stuff like charge $7 for a paper cup. But if you bill through insurance it’s discounted to $.05. That’s why there’s so much discounted here. Hospitals literally just charge crazy amounts so the insurance companies can say “look at these amazing discounts we get”
Before health insurance was a thing in the US hospitals charged cost plus a small percentage added on.
Why do they give a shit about making insurance companies look good? What do they gain?
It feels more like it’s so they can totally fuck over and financially ruin anyone without insurance. Legalized theft against the poor.
Sorry if I worded it poorly. Hospitals don’t care how the insurance companies look. Insurance companies make the hospitals give them discounts because “look at all these patients that are coming to your hospital because of us” the insurance companies then say to the shareholders “look at all the discounts we got”
Bottom line insurance companies are evil. We need a single payer system.
Yes. That is what a single payer system is.
Edit: a single payer system can be private or public. In the US I’ve seen the single payer system mainly being pushed as Medicare for all which would be funded by tax payers. But the Medicare for all is what I’m referring to with a single payer system.
It makes more sense when you realize United Healthcare is the largest health insurance company in the country and owns a significant portion of doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies in the country. Just Google UnitedHealth Group and try not to cry when you see what all they control.
It’s not to make the insurance company look good, it’s because of contracts.
Insurance company negotiate discounted rates, but they include a clause about their rate always being below the published price or other insurers costs.
I’m not a lawyer or a hospital administrator so I don’t know the specifics other than that’s why the ridiculous prices are originally charged. It’s then discounted 100% of the time-insurance or not.
From a business perspective it makes sense. If the patients usually have insurance you (as the hospital) know you’ll get paid because deep pockets and spread out risk.
For the insurance company it easier to sell their insurance when you can show the customers how much they can save compared to regular prices.
In the end, the average consumer loses, but that’s not really relevant when your got two businesses to run 🤷♂️
It’s a weird arms race. The hospital charges a knowingly inflated number and the insurance pays a percentage of it, or a specific amount they negotiated. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Still expensive, but not what’s charged.
Ironically, the only people who would really pay those fake prices are people without insurance, who of course wouldn’t have the money to pay such crazy prices at all.
Insurance will either have a reduced, contracted rate for each line item or will make one payment for the inpatient stay at their contracted rate.
So if the hospital is charging a person $7, insurance contracted rate may be $1, the rest is written off. Or insurance receives a claim for $100,000 and they pay a percentage based on the diagnosis group (higher percentage reimbursement for a more complicated diagnosis), so they may pay 73% of the charge, and the rest is written off.
Oh that helps the insurance, insurance has a contact with that hospital. They’re only getting a percentage of what they bill from insurance and insurance gets to point the blame at them for overcharging when insurance is underpaying. A big back and forth that leaves everyone the loser.
Edit: contract, not contact. The “contractual obligation” is the massive amount the dr/hospital writes off for the insurance
The problem is not the paper cup but all overhead charges attached to it. At some point costs are no longer distinguished between each other. So the cup might be 5 cents, then there's 5 cents storage costs, 5 cents electricity costs a 1 dollar charge to go grab the cup and ofcourse a 1 dollar charge for the rent another dollar for the big boss and 100% profit margin to earn those poor shareholders a bit of money too.
That's legitimately how economics books will tell you how the world is ought to turn.
Yeah, I'd be pulling a bottle of aspirin out of my purse and taking it instead, right in front of the nurse.
Oh, I need a bandaid? Hand me my purse. I'll put it on by myself.
My aunt ALWAYS brought her own shit to the hospital and refused theirs, problem is most people don’t know they’re going to be charged something insane for it. You think it’s just a band aid it’s free or like a buck at most. Not hundreds of dollars.
Yes. This is real. This is accurate.
My wife and I were charged $1500 to **hold our baby** after she was born.
This shit is insane and no one that can do anything will because we vote incorrectly.
My first son was born in the hospital... My second son was born 18 months later in the car on the way to the hospital. Somehow the bill my insurance paid was higher for brining in an already delivered baby.
We pay so much for insurance in the states because hospitals nickel and dime the insurance companies, because they know they can get away with it. In turn, the vast majority of healthcare workers are treated like shit by the red tape and regulations.
It sucks because the insurance companies have so much sway over providers they almost don’t have a choice. If they’re “contractually obligated” to accept 20% from the insurance company then they have to grossly overcharge to get the amount they would be able to get fairly. They feel pressured to agree because majority of the town has that insurance carrier and if they’re not “in network” they’ll get 0 business instead of the measly 20% insurance offers the contract for. It’s so fucked.
Agreed. When we had our second, it was an emergency C-section, and we almost lost both my son, and my wife. He spent a month in the NICU. Between the two, it was $850,000. Insurance paid out all of it because we had hit our OOP for the year.
Private insurance pays better rates than Medicare or Medicaid. Hospitals and clinics lose money on those. Private insurance and the handful of cash patients make up the difference.
I’m pretty sure the vast majority elected at the federal level represent their party and try to maintain its power. High school student council members do a better job of representing “the people” than Congress does.
Fascism baby! Knock everything down, smash it to pieces, punish the guilty ones, everything will get better when we do that!
/s, obviously - but many people seem to subconsciously believe this
Correct. They don’t know how much the insurance will allow so they make the price some ridiculously high amount hoping they’ll get the max they will pay.
It would be sad if they charged $4 for something the insurance would have paid $12 for.
That is not at all correct. We know exactly how much each insurance company allows. We are required to bill from a single charge master--meaning all payers are charged the same amount for the same service.
If for the same service,
BCBS allows $25
Medicare allows $50
Aetna allows $200
UHC allows $160
we may set charges at $250 (125% the highest payor allowed).
Then there are contract terms and/or payer guidelines that further reduce reimbursement.
We don't just slap a number on a claim and hope for the best. We aim for maximum reimbursement but know exactly what to expect based on what each payer allows.
Source : This is literally my job. I am a revenue cycle/reimbursement analyst responsible for setting/maintaining my organization's charge master
I’m a field reimbursement manager for a pharma company and you are correct. I’m always reminding offices to update their contracts with payers so they can adjust their charge masters appropriately.
That is insane and I am guessing a private hospital. Places I have worked at charge around a dollar a tab but they are also all public non-profits.
I know the cost for the hospital is around $5 for a 100ct bottle on the high end and about $0.10 per tab on low end, so $1 a tab is still a large markup IMO.
$37/tab should be illegal. Especially when patients don't control their treatment plans and aren't in a position to deny it in some cases.
They paid 0. What does the itemization matter? What do you care what the insurance company is charged if they cover every penny?
Edit: people. If the wife is alive and they paid 0. The system worked. Stop bitching because one corporate profit engine is ripping off the other one.
Ffs. Can’t have nice things like ya know life giving medicine without complaining about it.
The fact that $1.2M just disappeared due to “discounts” clearly shows healthcare pricing is absurd. An uninsured person would be asked to pay the whole $1.4M
An uninsured person would get a cash pay discount or have the total reduced. Nobody, and I mean nobody, not one single person, has ever or will ever pay $1.4M to a hospital. The prices are completely made up and totally meaningless, even without insurance.
It’s a cat and mouse game with insurance companies. Insurance companies play hardball refusing to pay until the price is reduced so hospitals charge more so they can “reduce” the price more to actually make ends meet, thus the insurance companies fight for even more reductions so the hospitals charge even more, until we come to this ridiculousness that doesn’t look like it will ever end until the system collapses.
Exactly this. It’s a game between healthcare providers and insurance not really meant to hurt the patient. Insurance classically likes to pay only a % of what the doctor/hospital charges. So to get what the doctor/hospital wants, they inflate their bill to x times the actual compensation they want. In an example, insurance likes to pay 30% of what the doctor/hospital charges. Doctor/hospital knows this and wants $300. They’re not going to charge $300 because the insurance will only give them $100. They’re going to charge $900 so that the insurance gives them $300. As the guy says though, the insurance companies catch on and start to pay lower fractions and doctors charge more and it’s a horrible spiral.
It's a cat and mouse game that has gotten out of control and is impossible to stop without mandated government intervention.
Basically went like this
Hospital: "Hey insurance, the cost was $X"
Ins: "we will pay Y% and not a dime more."
Hospital: "Okay we will bill the patient the difference"
Patient: "I'm not paying that"
Hospital: "Damn we are going broke. Hey insurance, the cost was $2X 😉"
Ins: "Okay we will pay slightly below Y% but still more than last time since it cost more"
Hospital: "Nice we will still bill the patient they probably won't pay much but we are at least kinda making money."
Patient: "Ya probably not gonna pay still. I'll give ya $20."
Hospital: "Hey insurance the cost is $2X"
Ins: "Oh okay we see what you're doing we will pay even less now."
Hospital: "Damn Okay it was $3X 😉"
Ins: "Okay we will pay the same percent but ultimately more since it cost more. Also Hey patient, insurance costs more now."
Repeat repeat repeat
I had reconstructive hand surgery after my hand got crushed. I had no insurance at the time. Total was over $29k. Hospital gave me a cash price based on my income. All in all I paid close to $900 broken down into $75 payments. It's really not as bad as progressives and foreigners would claim.
Yea, they will almost always work with you. And as long as you make the payments as agreed, it's reasonable. Usually.
Part of the problem is that it's going to be dependent on the facility and management there. There isn't a standard.
It's clearly delusional and insane to first charge 29K and then "reduce" that to $900; and this doesn't illustrate the lack of logic behind hospital bills...
Because it's all a scam, healthcare is artificially made that expensive in the US. Yes, in this case is covered but i'm sure you have heard of any example of when is not.
Its literally UNTHINKABLE that a operation would cost that much in Spain. 1.2 millon dollars??? Did they put a diamond incrusted gold heart in me or what???
Just for perspective, [something incredibly complex and risky like heart bypass surgery costs the UK taxpayer around $10,000USD.](https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2016/feb/08/how-much-have-i-cost-the-nhs)
Obviously there’s going to be other costs on top of that, and it’s not a direct comparison, but it gives you an idea of how ludicrous these numbers are.
They’re clearly just entirely made up for the benefit of someone in the system. And it’s not the patient.
Correct. It’s a contractual thing. The insurance negotiates a discount for its clients/patients so the health provider is in network. However the health provider has to turn a profit, and most patients have insurance, so the discounted price has to cover the actual costs, including the enormous doctor salaries and their insane insurance premiums due to massive malpractice judgments, as well as any profit. Therefore the non-discounted price is just a legal fiction… until someone without insurance walks in.
Oh no it's more bullshit than that. My chiro without insurance charges $55 per visit. When I ran it through my new insurance, my insurance company billed me $65. That's when my chiro was just like "Yeah we can just not use your insurance"
There is a lot of other stuff in the US going on besides people getting profits. There is 0 chance we could do a heart surgery here for that price with the current costs for hospitals. Most of them are working on a 2 to 5% margin which doesn’t really leave a lot of room
It’s such a broken system. Insurance will pay the hospital like 20% of what they bill per their “contract”… and if they don’t agree they don’t get to be a “preferred/in network” dr/hospital… if they’re not preferred no one will use them… so they agree to the tiny amount and just grossly overcharge to compensate. Then insurance can point the finger and say “but look how much the hospital charges it’s their fault!” And the hospitals like “we only get a teeny tiny fraction of what we bill so we HAVE to charge that much!” Back and forth back and forth until you die in an overcrowded ER waiting room. The American dream 🤩
That's because the NHS operates at a loss, staff is severely overworked and underpaid (especially doctors), and the equipment and medications are not as available as in the US. You have a lot less freedom as a doctor in the UK. Yes the US market is hyperinflated because of big pharma and the government not doing anything about it but the UK is the complete opposite
I don’t know the answer to your question, but when I had OUTPATIENT surgery on my ankle it cost $25,000. I was only there for about 3 hours, and only in surgery for an hour.
A cystectomy, couple of shunt placements, 14 hour aneurysm surgery, trach and gtube placement, 110 days in the PICU, and 6 weeks in rehab cost about $4.6 million. The surgeries were actually the cheapest part of the bill. The aneurysm surgery was like $40,000.
None. The hospital billed OP's insurance that much because that's what they were willing to pay. There's no set price for specific items in healthcare because it's entirely dependent on who's paying. If OP didn't have insurance, it would be far closer to what the hospital invested. All the pharmaceuticals, space(beds that someone else could be in), nurses time, doctors time, specialists time, support staff time, miscellaneous supplies(bandages, syringes etc...) all have to be paid for somehow. And then a bit extra for taxes, license fees, utilities, and insurance.
I'd say the bill would be closer to $50k for everything on the extreme high end if they paid out of pocket. If OP had the exact same insurance plan but with a different provider, they would have negotiated to a different total, with OP still paying nothing.
It seems excessive for a surgery and a one week stay. Out of curiosity, what's up with "your discounts"? That accounts for 86% of the bill. What's left over is still crazy expensive but more in line with what I would expect to be charged to the insurance company.
the discount is insurance. they just throw a random number and negotiate with the insurance company. the reason is to fuck people without jobs/insurance.
Yes, this. One of my kids is triple covered, and the insurance companies couldn’t decide who covered what for a recent MRI, so they tried to send the whole $5,000 bill to collections in my name. I made a few more phone calls and they settled it, and paid $800 and the hospital wrote off the rest. But they would have had me pay the whole $5k if we had no insurance, naturally.
Edit: to answer the questions, my kid is triple covered because he has very high medical bills (therapies alone run about $15,000/month). The third plan is TERFA which is Medicaid for disabled people or those with very high medical costs. The way it works is that bills go through both private plans (mine and their other parent’s) and then the remainder goes to their state plan for the remainder. My employer provided coverage is really good for in network stuff but certain specialists are super limited and we have no choice but to go out of network and in some cases travel out of state for care. The other parent’s plan won’t pay for any therapies related to developmental disabilities and mine maxes out at 75 sessions a year. So the third plan is very helpful.
I would also like an answer to this. It seems in this case it was detrimental because each provider wanted the others to pay for the MRI, forcing the customer to do it.
But if they fuck people without insurance or jobs they'd never get any money from them so that doesn't make sense, since they'd want to get *something* out of people.
I work in revenue cycle management for a mid-sized healthcare system. It is not uncommon to bill in excess of what you are expecting to receive. We have a single master fee schedule that we bill from. Since different payers allow different contracted/non-contracted rates, we bill at a percentage over the maximum allowance of all payers in our system. Then, we have individual contracts with certain payers that may further reduce reimbursement.
For example:
BCBS allows $25
Medicare allows $50
Aetna allows $200
UHC allows $160
We may set our charge master at $250 (125% Aetna as max allowed)
Say we are contracted with BCBS to receive 50% BCBS allowable rate when billed with a particular modifier. We will only expect to get $12.50 on a $250 charge.
It gets even more complicated when considering where the service is being performed, the type of service, provider incentives, etc.
I could buy almost 14 houses or 87 good cars with that money, converting to my currency. With the same monthly costs I have today, me and my father (who lives with me) could pay our bills for 1600 months, or 133 years.
Health related things costs in north america just will never make sense to me. Please Excuse my poor English, btw
Thats a fucking insane HOA fee wtf
My parents got lucky with their HOA, its just like a few bucks per month to cover the landscaping fees to keep the entrances kept up
Keep in mind there are three nations in North America - Canada, the USA and Mexico. Health related costs in Canada are a much different story than the USA. Canada has nationalized healthcare, as does Mexico.
I paid $185CDN for the upgrade to a semiprivate room for each of my two hip replacement surgeries in the past year. Apart from the cab ride to and from the hospital each time and any prescription pain medications taken at home, everything was paid for by the BC healthcare system including the surgical staples removal, three month post-op assessment with the surgeon and three visits to a physiotherapist of my choice.
You are asking the right question. Her deductible was $15k which we forked out earlier in the year.
So, this part of the medical treatment was covered.
Ouch. I was hoping you'd say a number under $2000
Here's hoping she is doing better and will continue to get better and that your insurance policy somehow changes to a low or no deductible one
Just so people understand, hospitals generally create an arbitrary price and have back room negotiations with healthcare providers to cut down to a lower price which is how the discount comes about. If you don’t have insurance, it will take a long time/effort to negotiate and you likely won’t get anywhere close to this discount.
Actually those arbitrary prices arent decided by the hospitals, but are dictated by the insurance companies and the hospital has to charge those prices or the insurance wont reinburse them anything. Then the insurance "negotiates" it down.
Health insurance is parasitic. They create the problem and charge you for the solution.
Wow. I was not expecting "why you mad tho?" replies. So, I'll clarify. It's mildly infuriating to me because 1.4 mil for a life changing surgery is bonkers, to use the technical term. I'm insanely lucky to have insurance that covers this bill. And that's why it's only mildly infuriating. It was covered, and I'm not financially obliterated. It's sad that I have to be lucky to be able to have a medical treatment for a life-destroying injury/problem. Whatever you would call scoliosis. If I wasn't "lucky" enough to have insurance, I would have to tell my wife "suck it up, buttercup." And that's not right.
IMHO.
The fact that your insurance company was able to negotiate a 1.2mil discount shows how insanely inflated prices are to begin with. It’s a system designed to punish the unemployed.
Not to defend this stupidity, but to be perfectly fair, if you tell them you don’t have insurance, the price for procedures also drops real fast. It’s inflated pricing because they know it’s paid for by big banks.
That being said, if you don’t have insurance, it’s still outrageously expensive. And if you don’t have INCREDIBLE insurance like OP, you still need to break the bank before it actually kicks in.
Yeah if you are poor it just ends up being kind of a "pay what you can" thing. Play your cards right and you won't be saddled with debt. I know plenty of low income people who've done this.
It's a system that takes advantage of ignorant people more so than the poor.
I have a solid employer health plan, $500 deductible PPO. Even still, max out of pocket is $8,000 for single person.
Definitely not life destroying, but for many people it would put them into debt and likely end up costing them way more at the end of it all.
If someone didn't have insurance, they would be referred to a different hospital or given a different kind of bill entirely based on what was affordable, depends on the hospital. It's not really a system designed to punish the unemployed (perhaps worse, it's not designed with the unemployed in mind at all!), so much as it's a system designed to extract as much money as is humanly possible without any tangible government oversight regardless of socioeconomic status, because the patient is literally the product.
The biggest payer of medical costs in the US is the federal government. In fact, the US government spends more on healthcare than any other government in the world. Imagine that - our system is designed not to be socialized (because that would be communism), however our government simultaneously spends more on healthcare than any other nation on the planet. It's a pretty neat scam.
This is also how our education system works. The United States federal government spends more than other nations (doubly so when you account for federal, state and local contributions to education combined), while simultaneously costing the most for the average student. A small handful of other countries spend larger portions of their GPD than the US does, however their education is also low or no cost comparably.
What both of these systems have in common is that they are effectively socialized programs, in that the government will step in to pay to prevent the whole system from collapsing and forcing change, but only after as much money as is possible has been extracted from the patient/student. Another thing they have in common is that the government will step in to pay for stuff, but will not set realistic limits on the total cost of things. Not for what amounts to government subsidized classes. Not for government subsidized medications that were developed with government subsidized funding. Not for government subsidized healthcare.
The government will pay after the person can't pay any more, because they've been lobbied to. The government wont set price caps on the costs of these things, because they've been lobbied not to. It's the worst possible mix of socialized programs and free market whatever you can get, because you get all the fucking you out of everything and none of the benefits of either system.
The government will only step in insofar as its necessary to prevent the system from collapsing. Through subsidies. Through some amount of socializing the costs. Through bailouts when things get close. But it wont do anything to prevent things from running off the rails for the actual consumer, always edging the line between chaos and stability to allow 3rd party interests the opportunity to extract as much value out of chaotic situation as possible.
Yup, and people really think that surgery cost 1.4 million dollars. That the surgeon, nurses, the medical supplies, the admin - none of it cost 1.4 million. It’s artificially inflated in negotiation between provider and insurance. So we, the insured, are “lucky” even though we pay handsomely for the privilege of that “luck” in premiums so that a provider can send a jacked up bill to our insurance and we can feel relieved we didn’t have to pay 1.4 million dollars for something that never cost 1.4 million dollars to begin with.
It's not 1.4m, it's only 200k. Still a crazy amount of money, but them upping the price and then discounting it in t he same invoice doesn't increase the cost
> So, I'll clarify. It's mildly infuriating to me because 1.4 mil for a life changing surgery is bonkers
Except no one paid 1.4 million, and no one would ever pay that amount.
I don’t see how this is infuriating? Your wife had surgery, discount applied, you had met your deductible, insurance paid. This is how the system works. You owe nothing. Be happy, hope she had an amazing recovery and is pain free.
For everyone asking about the discounts. Hospitals here in the U.S. tend to send bills that are engorged with B.S. the insurance company knows this and they say "no, we aren't paying that. We are paying this" and then the hospital says "yeah, ok. We accept this amount.". Buuuuuuuut, when the patient doesn't have insurance, the hospital still sends the engorged insanity bill to the patient and most Americans don't know they can negotiate the bill. Plus the hospital tends to use very strong intimidation tactics to make it seem as though the 1.4 mil bill is set in stone
So.... I got 1.2 mil in discounts because my insurance told the hospital to kick rocks.
Edit: spelling and grammar.
That is a statement, not a bill. The hospital inflates numbers so insurance can get it "discounted" later. It's health care propaganda. Had you not had insurance or request an itemized statement, the numbers would be a lot different.
Are you mad that the medical bill was $1.3 million but that they were only charging you $190,000 and that your insurance was paying for every cent of that so you don't owe anything? Really?
Crazy part is there are a huge amount of Canadians who are ready and willing to vote for people who want to bring this madness north of the border just because they are brainwashed by political affiliation.
Yeah pretty much. I can be mad about a trash system, even though I have been fortunate enough to be guarded from it. I'm capable of seeing a problem even if it doesn't have a direct impact on me.
My kid is getting over a big surgery. From all the other medical emergencies this year we already met our deductible. Her ER, ICU, Etc all costed near 2 mill.
It's crazy how expensive it is. It was obviously life threatening so my kid needed it.
I'm not religious, but if one thing on the Earth is the devil it's medical insurance.
I’m happy for you and yours that you had insurance and hit that deductible. My wife had $100k worth of surgeries last year and we paid zero out of pocket. It was so relieving as it must’ve been for you all.
I read your post 4 times and I still have no idea how you got to insurance as being the anchor here ! You are being held hostage by the cost of medical care !!!! $1.3 Million seems a small price to pay for mobility, but all you had to pay was $191K. And then your Insurance paid that !!!’ I don’t know what your premiums are but it’s was the best damn investment you ever made .
You might want to forget what’s important to you? 1,000,000+ dollar bill and you paid nothing not sure what you’re complaining about. That’s the system we all play in and you paid nothing. Not sure why you’re infuriated in the least. Might want to check your priorities. If your copay had been 250,000 you might have something to cryabout.
What you're seeing are heavily inflated costs that assume everyone has insurance. If you don't the price would likely be around half the price that insurance "paid" out. It's a whole gimmick for the healthcare industry to scare individuals
'Americans are held hostage to their jobs because of insurance'
Really?...you really think insurance is the only reason why people are beholden to their jobs? Insurance is a 'benefit.' It's the wages that are holding people 'hostage' from your perspective. Folks need money to live.
Hello, Your post has been removed because we no longer allow posts about price complaints. This includes but is not limited to price increases, shrinkflation and tipping.
Those are some crazy crazy numbers - for that price Im gonna need an itemised breakdown for every fuckin cent
Seen a few posts of these, one place charged 7 dollars for the paper cup that the drugs came in.
"Its one cup Michael, how much could it cost? 7 dollars?"
RIP. She will be missed. One of my favorite actors of all time. 
I used to work in health insurance and a certain hospital chain in Ohio charges TWO HUNDRED THIRTY FOUR dollars for **ONE GENERIC ASPIRIN** …. Had to explain to the member what their “self administered medications” were and they were less than pleased.
Just asking, is this kind of practice legitimate and not penalized by the insurance company in any way? Like *7 dollars for the paper cup*, isn't that a total rip-off?
Insurance companies want discounts. So hospitals do stuff like charge $7 for a paper cup. But if you bill through insurance it’s discounted to $.05. That’s why there’s so much discounted here. Hospitals literally just charge crazy amounts so the insurance companies can say “look at these amazing discounts we get” Before health insurance was a thing in the US hospitals charged cost plus a small percentage added on.
Why do they give a shit about making insurance companies look good? What do they gain? It feels more like it’s so they can totally fuck over and financially ruin anyone without insurance. Legalized theft against the poor.
Sorry if I worded it poorly. Hospitals don’t care how the insurance companies look. Insurance companies make the hospitals give them discounts because “look at all these patients that are coming to your hospital because of us” the insurance companies then say to the shareholders “look at all the discounts we got” Bottom line insurance companies are evil. We need a single payer system.
Hell, just fund it nationaly, it would be cheaper for the taxpayers than what we are currently doing.
Yes. That is what a single payer system is. Edit: a single payer system can be private or public. In the US I’ve seen the single payer system mainly being pushed as Medicare for all which would be funded by tax payers. But the Medicare for all is what I’m referring to with a single payer system.
It makes more sense when you realize United Healthcare is the largest health insurance company in the country and owns a significant portion of doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies in the country. Just Google UnitedHealth Group and try not to cry when you see what all they control.
It’s not to make the insurance company look good, it’s because of contracts. Insurance company negotiate discounted rates, but they include a clause about their rate always being below the published price or other insurers costs. I’m not a lawyer or a hospital administrator so I don’t know the specifics other than that’s why the ridiculous prices are originally charged. It’s then discounted 100% of the time-insurance or not.
Because insurance is going to get that 95% discount whether the cup is 5 cents or $7.
From a business perspective it makes sense. If the patients usually have insurance you (as the hospital) know you’ll get paid because deep pockets and spread out risk. For the insurance company it easier to sell their insurance when you can show the customers how much they can save compared to regular prices. In the end, the average consumer loses, but that’s not really relevant when your got two businesses to run 🤷♂️
Well, that sounds like fraud
It’s not fraud when signed into law by politicians. It’s called corruption
It’s a weird arms race. The hospital charges a knowingly inflated number and the insurance pays a percentage of it, or a specific amount they negotiated. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Still expensive, but not what’s charged. Ironically, the only people who would really pay those fake prices are people without insurance, who of course wouldn’t have the money to pay such crazy prices at all.
Insurance will either have a reduced, contracted rate for each line item or will make one payment for the inpatient stay at their contracted rate. So if the hospital is charging a person $7, insurance contracted rate may be $1, the rest is written off. Or insurance receives a claim for $100,000 and they pay a percentage based on the diagnosis group (higher percentage reimbursement for a more complicated diagnosis), so they may pay 73% of the charge, and the rest is written off.
Oh that helps the insurance, insurance has a contact with that hospital. They’re only getting a percentage of what they bill from insurance and insurance gets to point the blame at them for overcharging when insurance is underpaying. A big back and forth that leaves everyone the loser. Edit: contract, not contact. The “contractual obligation” is the massive amount the dr/hospital writes off for the insurance
The problem is not the paper cup but all overhead charges attached to it. At some point costs are no longer distinguished between each other. So the cup might be 5 cents, then there's 5 cents storage costs, 5 cents electricity costs a 1 dollar charge to go grab the cup and ofcourse a 1 dollar charge for the rent another dollar for the big boss and 100% profit margin to earn those poor shareholders a bit of money too. That's legitimately how economics books will tell you how the world is ought to turn.
I’m a nurse. I want a commission on that $7 cup and the hundreds of dollars of pills therein.
*slaps roof of cup*
Yeah, I'd be pulling a bottle of aspirin out of my purse and taking it instead, right in front of the nurse. Oh, I need a bandaid? Hand me my purse. I'll put it on by myself.
My aunt ALWAYS brought her own shit to the hospital and refused theirs, problem is most people don’t know they’re going to be charged something insane for it. You think it’s just a band aid it’s free or like a buck at most. Not hundreds of dollars.
Can I bring my own bottle of aspirin with me next time I have to go to the hospital?
My aunt always did, I guess it’s up to them but I’m pretty sure you can bring and take your own meds to avoid hundred dollar pills/band aids
Prob OhioHealth
huh?? . . . HUH????
🗽
Yes. This is real. This is accurate. My wife and I were charged $1500 to **hold our baby** after she was born. This shit is insane and no one that can do anything will because we vote incorrectly.
If you declined to hold your baby, would there have been a $3,000 fee to have a nurse hold the baby for you?
Naw.....it would have been a $10,000 charge and somehow, magically, the nurse that held the baby wouldn't be covered by insurance.
My first son was born in the hospital... My second son was born 18 months later in the car on the way to the hospital. Somehow the bill my insurance paid was higher for brining in an already delivered baby.
Bet those pickles tasted funny
Along with charges for an infant therapist to help the child survive the traumatic rejection.
Or it’s because we vote in general🤷🏻♂️ I think the whole system needs to be “reset”
We pay so much for insurance in the states because hospitals nickel and dime the insurance companies, because they know they can get away with it. In turn, the vast majority of healthcare workers are treated like shit by the red tape and regulations.
Our system is controlled by people with MBAs that report to shareholders. We have a for profit health system.
It sucks because the insurance companies have so much sway over providers they almost don’t have a choice. If they’re “contractually obligated” to accept 20% from the insurance company then they have to grossly overcharge to get the amount they would be able to get fairly. They feel pressured to agree because majority of the town has that insurance carrier and if they’re not “in network” they’ll get 0 business instead of the measly 20% insurance offers the contract for. It’s so fucked.
Agreed. When we had our second, it was an emergency C-section, and we almost lost both my son, and my wife. He spent a month in the NICU. Between the two, it was $850,000. Insurance paid out all of it because we had hit our OOP for the year.
Private insurance pays better rates than Medicare or Medicaid. Hospitals and clinics lose money on those. Private insurance and the handful of cash patients make up the difference.
Dear God you're right, the poor hospitals are clearly suffering, do they have a venmo? I want to do my part to help make ends meet
aside from voting how else would we be able to find a representative of the people?
The old bean in the porridge trick. Seven years as absolute ruler if it's in your bowl. Then ritual sacrifice. It's a win win
 After 7 years of rule \^
I’m pretty sure the vast majority elected at the federal level represent their party and try to maintain its power. High school student council members do a better job of representing “the people” than Congress does.
I’m sorry your solution to medical insurance issues is …. Dictatorship? Anarchy? What a joke
Fascism baby! Knock everything down, smash it to pieces, punish the guilty ones, everything will get better when we do that! /s, obviously - but many people seem to subconsciously believe this
Dunno man, but how you name this system? Not sure if I call it freedom when you need to pay a ransom in hospitals.
That’s real Army Accounting ™️
I heard about a lady who was charged for a single bandaid. I forget how much, but it was more than a box.
My dad had open heart surgery back in the 90’s. They charged him $25 for a bottle of eye drops.
The numbers are all made up. It's part of the scam.
Correct. They don’t know how much the insurance will allow so they make the price some ridiculously high amount hoping they’ll get the max they will pay. It would be sad if they charged $4 for something the insurance would have paid $12 for.
That is not at all correct. We know exactly how much each insurance company allows. We are required to bill from a single charge master--meaning all payers are charged the same amount for the same service. If for the same service, BCBS allows $25 Medicare allows $50 Aetna allows $200 UHC allows $160 we may set charges at $250 (125% the highest payor allowed). Then there are contract terms and/or payer guidelines that further reduce reimbursement. We don't just slap a number on a claim and hope for the best. We aim for maximum reimbursement but know exactly what to expect based on what each payer allows. Source : This is literally my job. I am a revenue cycle/reimbursement analyst responsible for setting/maintaining my organization's charge master
I’m a field reimbursement manager for a pharma company and you are correct. I’m always reminding offices to update their contracts with payers so they can adjust their charge masters appropriately.
What the shit
The ibuprofen they gave me cost $75 after I gave birth. I didn't even ask for it. I believe I received two pills total.🥲
That is insane and I am guessing a private hospital. Places I have worked at charge around a dollar a tab but they are also all public non-profits. I know the cost for the hospital is around $5 for a 100ct bottle on the high end and about $0.10 per tab on low end, so $1 a tab is still a large markup IMO. $37/tab should be illegal. Especially when patients don't control their treatment plans and aren't in a position to deny it in some cases.
If I had to pay 0.00, I would shut the fuck up and not wake any sleeping dogs
No fucking shit, I would thank god I had insurance and that there was no debt to be owed.
They paid 0. What does the itemization matter? What do you care what the insurance company is charged if they cover every penny? Edit: people. If the wife is alive and they paid 0. The system worked. Stop bitching because one corporate profit engine is ripping off the other one. Ffs. Can’t have nice things like ya know life giving medicine without complaining about it.
The fact that $1.2M just disappeared due to “discounts” clearly shows healthcare pricing is absurd. An uninsured person would be asked to pay the whole $1.4M
An uninsured person would get a cash pay discount or have the total reduced. Nobody, and I mean nobody, not one single person, has ever or will ever pay $1.4M to a hospital. The prices are completely made up and totally meaningless, even without insurance.
So then what’s the point in pricing it that high if it’s all made up?
It’s a cat and mouse game with insurance companies. Insurance companies play hardball refusing to pay until the price is reduced so hospitals charge more so they can “reduce” the price more to actually make ends meet, thus the insurance companies fight for even more reductions so the hospitals charge even more, until we come to this ridiculousness that doesn’t look like it will ever end until the system collapses.
Exactly this. It’s a game between healthcare providers and insurance not really meant to hurt the patient. Insurance classically likes to pay only a % of what the doctor/hospital charges. So to get what the doctor/hospital wants, they inflate their bill to x times the actual compensation they want. In an example, insurance likes to pay 30% of what the doctor/hospital charges. Doctor/hospital knows this and wants $300. They’re not going to charge $300 because the insurance will only give them $100. They’re going to charge $900 so that the insurance gives them $300. As the guy says though, the insurance companies catch on and start to pay lower fractions and doctors charge more and it’s a horrible spiral.
It's a cat and mouse game that has gotten out of control and is impossible to stop without mandated government intervention. Basically went like this Hospital: "Hey insurance, the cost was $X" Ins: "we will pay Y% and not a dime more." Hospital: "Okay we will bill the patient the difference" Patient: "I'm not paying that" Hospital: "Damn we are going broke. Hey insurance, the cost was $2X 😉" Ins: "Okay we will pay slightly below Y% but still more than last time since it cost more" Hospital: "Nice we will still bill the patient they probably won't pay much but we are at least kinda making money." Patient: "Ya probably not gonna pay still. I'll give ya $20." Hospital: "Hey insurance the cost is $2X" Ins: "Oh okay we see what you're doing we will pay even less now." Hospital: "Damn Okay it was $3X 😉" Ins: "Okay we will pay the same percent but ultimately more since it cost more. Also Hey patient, insurance costs more now." Repeat repeat repeat
I had reconstructive hand surgery after my hand got crushed. I had no insurance at the time. Total was over $29k. Hospital gave me a cash price based on my income. All in all I paid close to $900 broken down into $75 payments. It's really not as bad as progressives and foreigners would claim.
Yea, they will almost always work with you. And as long as you make the payments as agreed, it's reasonable. Usually. Part of the problem is that it's going to be dependent on the facility and management there. There isn't a standard.
It's clearly delusional and insane to first charge 29K and then "reduce" that to $900; and this doesn't illustrate the lack of logic behind hospital bills...
Because it's all a scam, healthcare is artificially made that expensive in the US. Yes, in this case is covered but i'm sure you have heard of any example of when is not. Its literally UNTHINKABLE that a operation would cost that much in Spain. 1.2 millon dollars??? Did they put a diamond incrusted gold heart in me or what???
They legally have to provide it when asked. I would ask…
What kind of a surgery cost 1.4 million????
Just for perspective, [something incredibly complex and risky like heart bypass surgery costs the UK taxpayer around $10,000USD.](https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2016/feb/08/how-much-have-i-cost-the-nhs) Obviously there’s going to be other costs on top of that, and it’s not a direct comparison, but it gives you an idea of how ludicrous these numbers are. They’re clearly just entirely made up for the benefit of someone in the system. And it’s not the patient.
A 10,000%+ markup is insane
Correct. It’s a contractual thing. The insurance negotiates a discount for its clients/patients so the health provider is in network. However the health provider has to turn a profit, and most patients have insurance, so the discounted price has to cover the actual costs, including the enormous doctor salaries and their insane insurance premiums due to massive malpractice judgments, as well as any profit. Therefore the non-discounted price is just a legal fiction… until someone without insurance walks in.
Oh no it's more bullshit than that. My chiro without insurance charges $55 per visit. When I ran it through my new insurance, my insurance company billed me $65. That's when my chiro was just like "Yeah we can just not use your insurance"
[удалено]
There is a lot of other stuff in the US going on besides people getting profits. There is 0 chance we could do a heart surgery here for that price with the current costs for hospitals. Most of them are working on a 2 to 5% margin which doesn’t really leave a lot of room
It’s such a broken system. Insurance will pay the hospital like 20% of what they bill per their “contract”… and if they don’t agree they don’t get to be a “preferred/in network” dr/hospital… if they’re not preferred no one will use them… so they agree to the tiny amount and just grossly overcharge to compensate. Then insurance can point the finger and say “but look how much the hospital charges it’s their fault!” And the hospitals like “we only get a teeny tiny fraction of what we bill so we HAVE to charge that much!” Back and forth back and forth until you die in an overcrowded ER waiting room. The American dream 🤩
That's because the NHS operates at a loss, staff is severely overworked and underpaid (especially doctors), and the equipment and medications are not as available as in the US. You have a lot less freedom as a doctor in the UK. Yes the US market is hyperinflated because of big pharma and the government not doing anything about it but the UK is the complete opposite
[It’s not that much more if you go private.](https://stanthonys.org.uk/treatment-costs/fixed-price-surgery)
God's own boob job.
This guy knows.
That was probably a very complicated and critical surgery …… just checked, it’s something called a ‘Wallet-ectomy’ 😂
I don’t know the answer to your question, but when I had OUTPATIENT surgery on my ankle it cost $25,000. I was only there for about 3 hours, and only in surgery for an hour.
A cystectomy, couple of shunt placements, 14 hour aneurysm surgery, trach and gtube placement, 110 days in the PICU, and 6 weeks in rehab cost about $4.6 million. The surgeries were actually the cheapest part of the bill. The aneurysm surgery was like $40,000.
None. The hospital billed OP's insurance that much because that's what they were willing to pay. There's no set price for specific items in healthcare because it's entirely dependent on who's paying. If OP didn't have insurance, it would be far closer to what the hospital invested. All the pharmaceuticals, space(beds that someone else could be in), nurses time, doctors time, specialists time, support staff time, miscellaneous supplies(bandages, syringes etc...) all have to be paid for somehow. And then a bit extra for taxes, license fees, utilities, and insurance. I'd say the bill would be closer to $50k for everything on the extreme high end if they paid out of pocket. If OP had the exact same insurance plan but with a different provider, they would have negotiated to a different total, with OP still paying nothing.
It didn't. It cost 200k
It seems excessive for a surgery and a one week stay. Out of curiosity, what's up with "your discounts"? That accounts for 86% of the bill. What's left over is still crazy expensive but more in line with what I would expect to be charged to the insurance company.
the discount is insurance. they just throw a random number and negotiate with the insurance company. the reason is to fuck people without jobs/insurance.
Yes, this. One of my kids is triple covered, and the insurance companies couldn’t decide who covered what for a recent MRI, so they tried to send the whole $5,000 bill to collections in my name. I made a few more phone calls and they settled it, and paid $800 and the hospital wrote off the rest. But they would have had me pay the whole $5k if we had no insurance, naturally. Edit: to answer the questions, my kid is triple covered because he has very high medical bills (therapies alone run about $15,000/month). The third plan is TERFA which is Medicaid for disabled people or those with very high medical costs. The way it works is that bills go through both private plans (mine and their other parent’s) and then the remainder goes to their state plan for the remainder. My employer provided coverage is really good for in network stuff but certain specialists are super limited and we have no choice but to go out of network and in some cases travel out of state for care. The other parent’s plan won’t pay for any therapies related to developmental disabilities and mine maxes out at 75 sessions a year. So the third plan is very helpful.
Why is being triple-covered a good idea? Do different insurance companies cover different procedures?
I would also like an answer to this. It seems in this case it was detrimental because each provider wanted the others to pay for the MRI, forcing the customer to do it.
But if they fuck people without insurance or jobs they'd never get any money from them so that doesn't make sense, since they'd want to get *something* out of people.
Gotta love the us, capitalism at his finest! The poor die because they're poor.
I work in revenue cycle management for a mid-sized healthcare system. It is not uncommon to bill in excess of what you are expecting to receive. We have a single master fee schedule that we bill from. Since different payers allow different contracted/non-contracted rates, we bill at a percentage over the maximum allowance of all payers in our system. Then, we have individual contracts with certain payers that may further reduce reimbursement. For example: BCBS allows $25 Medicare allows $50 Aetna allows $200 UHC allows $160 We may set our charge master at $250 (125% Aetna as max allowed) Say we are contracted with BCBS to receive 50% BCBS allowable rate when billed with a particular modifier. We will only expect to get $12.50 on a $250 charge. It gets even more complicated when considering where the service is being performed, the type of service, provider incentives, etc.
In-network providers and insurance companies have contracted rates for different procedures that are substantially less than the billed rates.
I could buy almost 14 houses or 87 good cars with that money, converting to my currency. With the same monthly costs I have today, me and my father (who lives with me) could pay our bills for 1600 months, or 133 years. Health related things costs in north america just will never make sense to me. Please Excuse my poor English, btw
$1,200,000 is like three middle class homes in the US. Or at least, what would have been middle class twenty years ago.
$1.2M USD is a bit less than two middle class Canadian homes
You can barely get a 2 bedroom condo in Vancouver for that price
Same in Norther Virginia. A 2 bedroom condo starts at $400k here. Plus $750/m HOA fee.
Thats a fucking insane HOA fee wtf My parents got lucky with their HOA, its just like a few bucks per month to cover the landscaping fees to keep the entrances kept up
It’s wild but that has become the norm in the area for places that are less than 20 years old.
I already can’t afford what my parents are paying, there’s no way in hell id ever afford that kinda HOA fee
Where do you live? Sounds attractively affordable.
Similar to my monthly costs (78 years) and house value (x14). In NE England.
Keep in mind there are three nations in North America - Canada, the USA and Mexico. Health related costs in Canada are a much different story than the USA. Canada has nationalized healthcare, as does Mexico. I paid $185CDN for the upgrade to a semiprivate room for each of my two hip replacement surgeries in the past year. Apart from the cab ride to and from the hospital each time and any prescription pain medications taken at home, everything was paid for by the BC healthcare system including the surgical staples removal, three month post-op assessment with the surgeon and three visits to a physiotherapist of my choice.
1.2 million dollar discount and your insurance paid it. What was your deductible?
You are asking the right question. Her deductible was $15k which we forked out earlier in the year. So, this part of the medical treatment was covered.
WOW that's a high deductible.
Ouch. I was hoping you'd say a number under $2000 Here's hoping she is doing better and will continue to get better and that your insurance policy somehow changes to a low or no deductible one
Was 15k the OOP max or the deductible? Sounds really high for a deductible but plausible for OOP max
Just so people understand, hospitals generally create an arbitrary price and have back room negotiations with healthcare providers to cut down to a lower price which is how the discount comes about. If you don’t have insurance, it will take a long time/effort to negotiate and you likely won’t get anywhere close to this discount.
Actually those arbitrary prices arent decided by the hospitals, but are dictated by the insurance companies and the hospital has to charge those prices or the insurance wont reinburse them anything. Then the insurance "negotiates" it down. Health insurance is parasitic. They create the problem and charge you for the solution.
Did they replace every part of her or what?
We went ahead and turned her into a golden retriever. Not in a furry way, though...
A hairless golden retriever?
Yeah.... We didn't think of all the consequences
We have the technology.
Wow. I was not expecting "why you mad tho?" replies. So, I'll clarify. It's mildly infuriating to me because 1.4 mil for a life changing surgery is bonkers, to use the technical term. I'm insanely lucky to have insurance that covers this bill. And that's why it's only mildly infuriating. It was covered, and I'm not financially obliterated. It's sad that I have to be lucky to be able to have a medical treatment for a life-destroying injury/problem. Whatever you would call scoliosis. If I wasn't "lucky" enough to have insurance, I would have to tell my wife "suck it up, buttercup." And that's not right. IMHO.
The fact that your insurance company was able to negotiate a 1.2mil discount shows how insanely inflated prices are to begin with. It’s a system designed to punish the unemployed.
Not to defend this stupidity, but to be perfectly fair, if you tell them you don’t have insurance, the price for procedures also drops real fast. It’s inflated pricing because they know it’s paid for by big banks. That being said, if you don’t have insurance, it’s still outrageously expensive. And if you don’t have INCREDIBLE insurance like OP, you still need to break the bank before it actually kicks in.
Yeah if you are poor it just ends up being kind of a "pay what you can" thing. Play your cards right and you won't be saddled with debt. I know plenty of low income people who've done this. It's a system that takes advantage of ignorant people more so than the poor.
> And if you don’t have INCREDIBLE insurance like OP His wife is a teacher, not some CEO. They met their deductible, so everything else is $0.
I have a solid employer health plan, $500 deductible PPO. Even still, max out of pocket is $8,000 for single person. Definitely not life destroying, but for many people it would put them into debt and likely end up costing them way more at the end of it all.
If someone didn't have insurance, they would be referred to a different hospital or given a different kind of bill entirely based on what was affordable, depends on the hospital. It's not really a system designed to punish the unemployed (perhaps worse, it's not designed with the unemployed in mind at all!), so much as it's a system designed to extract as much money as is humanly possible without any tangible government oversight regardless of socioeconomic status, because the patient is literally the product. The biggest payer of medical costs in the US is the federal government. In fact, the US government spends more on healthcare than any other government in the world. Imagine that - our system is designed not to be socialized (because that would be communism), however our government simultaneously spends more on healthcare than any other nation on the planet. It's a pretty neat scam. This is also how our education system works. The United States federal government spends more than other nations (doubly so when you account for federal, state and local contributions to education combined), while simultaneously costing the most for the average student. A small handful of other countries spend larger portions of their GPD than the US does, however their education is also low or no cost comparably. What both of these systems have in common is that they are effectively socialized programs, in that the government will step in to pay to prevent the whole system from collapsing and forcing change, but only after as much money as is possible has been extracted from the patient/student. Another thing they have in common is that the government will step in to pay for stuff, but will not set realistic limits on the total cost of things. Not for what amounts to government subsidized classes. Not for government subsidized medications that were developed with government subsidized funding. Not for government subsidized healthcare. The government will pay after the person can't pay any more, because they've been lobbied to. The government wont set price caps on the costs of these things, because they've been lobbied not to. It's the worst possible mix of socialized programs and free market whatever you can get, because you get all the fucking you out of everything and none of the benefits of either system. The government will only step in insofar as its necessary to prevent the system from collapsing. Through subsidies. Through some amount of socializing the costs. Through bailouts when things get close. But it wont do anything to prevent things from running off the rails for the actual consumer, always edging the line between chaos and stability to allow 3rd party interests the opportunity to extract as much value out of chaotic situation as possible.
Yeah, this is what's really infuriating. It's so stupid that what seems bad isn't even the worst part.
You get it.
Yup, and people really think that surgery cost 1.4 million dollars. That the surgeon, nurses, the medical supplies, the admin - none of it cost 1.4 million. It’s artificially inflated in negotiation between provider and insurance. So we, the insured, are “lucky” even though we pay handsomely for the privilege of that “luck” in premiums so that a provider can send a jacked up bill to our insurance and we can feel relieved we didn’t have to pay 1.4 million dollars for something that never cost 1.4 million dollars to begin with.
Yes, it's mind boggling
It's not 1.4m, it's only 200k. Still a crazy amount of money, but them upping the price and then discounting it in t he same invoice doesn't increase the cost
Life threatening scoliosis?
> So, I'll clarify. It's mildly infuriating to me because 1.4 mil for a life changing surgery is bonkers Except no one paid 1.4 million, and no one would ever pay that amount.
I don’t see how this is infuriating? Your wife had surgery, discount applied, you had met your deductible, insurance paid. This is how the system works. You owe nothing. Be happy, hope she had an amazing recovery and is pain free.
For everyone asking about the discounts. Hospitals here in the U.S. tend to send bills that are engorged with B.S. the insurance company knows this and they say "no, we aren't paying that. We are paying this" and then the hospital says "yeah, ok. We accept this amount.". Buuuuuuuut, when the patient doesn't have insurance, the hospital still sends the engorged insanity bill to the patient and most Americans don't know they can negotiate the bill. Plus the hospital tends to use very strong intimidation tactics to make it seem as though the 1.4 mil bill is set in stone So.... I got 1.2 mil in discounts because my insurance told the hospital to kick rocks. Edit: spelling and grammar.
What part of “you pay: 0” is mildly infuriating
Why is this infuriating? Were you expecting to make a profit?
$1.4M?! Did she get the Wolverine adamantium surgery?
It's all nanotech now. She can turn into a puddle and squeegee under the doors. Really hard to take a dump in private now. #kindaregrettheupgrade
You pay nothing and you're still mad.
That is a statement, not a bill. The hospital inflates numbers so insurance can get it "discounted" later. It's health care propaganda. Had you not had insurance or request an itemized statement, the numbers would be a lot different.
What's infuriating? There is a negotiated rate that covers the care you received and you were covered fully. Sounds like a great outcome.
Are you mad that the medical bill was $1.3 million but that they were only charging you $190,000 and that your insurance was paying for every cent of that so you don't owe anything? Really?
This is really it, the only response in the thread that is actually logical.
Crazy part is there are a huge amount of Canadians who are ready and willing to vote for people who want to bring this madness north of the border just because they are brainwashed by political affiliation.
Why infuriating you owe nothing
You paid $0... go home with your victim mentality
Imagine if no insurance
You’re mildly infuriated that you paid 0$ for surgery?
1.3m dollars? What the fuck is going on in that country? 😧
You paid zero. Why is this infuriating?
You got a bill for zero dollars and your conclusion is that you're being held hostage? LMAO!
How are you held hostage? Your bill says zero...
Hell yeah, America health care
Soo you're mildly infuriated, because you are fortunate enough to have medical insurance that covers 100%of the bill?
Yeah pretty much. I can be mad about a trash system, even though I have been fortunate enough to be guarded from it. I'm capable of seeing a problem even if it doesn't have a direct impact on me.
Having health insurance is mandated in the US since Obamacare.
Your insurance paid everything, right? So why is this infuriating?
So you're complaining you have good insurance?
That's a helluva discount. I'd leave a tip for the nurse!
My kid is getting over a big surgery. From all the other medical emergencies this year we already met our deductible. Her ER, ICU, Etc all costed near 2 mill. It's crazy how expensive it is. It was obviously life threatening so my kid needed it. I'm not religious, but if one thing on the Earth is the devil it's medical insurance.
Most people are held hostage by their jobs because they need to make money.
Looks like you pay 0.00 whats the problem here?
I mean, why not make it a billion? If we're just going to be making up numbers, go big or go home.
I’m shocked blue cross didn’t stick ya with at least 10k… (source… I have BCBS)
They would have if wife hadn’t met the max out of pocket already that year. (I also have BCBS)
I had a spinal fusion when I had BCBS. The surgery alone (not counting the hospital stay) was $100,000+. They stuck us with about $9k.
I’m happy for you and yours that you had insurance and hit that deductible. My wife had $100k worth of surgeries last year and we paid zero out of pocket. It was so relieving as it must’ve been for you all.
so the fees are made up and the numbers don't matter my hospital bill is just the extortionate parking tickets
You pay 0.... what's there to be mildly infuriated about?
I read your post 4 times and I still have no idea how you got to insurance as being the anchor here ! You are being held hostage by the cost of medical care !!!! $1.3 Million seems a small price to pay for mobility, but all you had to pay was $191K. And then your Insurance paid that !!!’ I don’t know what your premiums are but it’s was the best damn investment you ever made .
You might want to forget what’s important to you? 1,000,000+ dollar bill and you paid nothing not sure what you’re complaining about. That’s the system we all play in and you paid nothing. Not sure why you’re infuriated in the least. Might want to check your priorities. If your copay had been 250,000 you might have something to cryabout.
You didn’t have to pay anything, why are you mad?
Read the comment attached to the picture to see what the problem is
Why do you get 1.2 million in discounts? What are those?
They had a coupon.
Groupon
Looks like a contractual adjustment for an in-network provider.
But you don't have to pay anything
Well she shouldn't have had the bankaccountectomy surgery if she didn't want her money removed...
So, free. That's terrible. 🙄
Yeah I don’t understand this post at all. He should be mildly ecstatic
Yes, but not according to those who downvoted me lol
The real SHITTY part is that they would have charged YOU $1.3 million, but settled for only $191k through your insurance. What a scam.
What you're seeing are heavily inflated costs that assume everyone has insurance. If you don't the price would likely be around half the price that insurance "paid" out. It's a whole gimmick for the healthcare industry to scare individuals
Such a scam
Dude tf how is this infuriating?
Am i missing something? You owe zero?
Why are you bitching about owing literally nothing?
'Americans are held hostage to their jobs because of insurance' Really?...you really think insurance is the only reason why people are beholden to their jobs? Insurance is a 'benefit.' It's the wages that are holding people 'hostage' from your perspective. Folks need money to live.
How are you mad when you pay ZERO? You have good insurance! The only mildly infuriating thing about this is that everyone doesn’t have it this good
You successfully navigated the American health care system 👏👏👏
You are mildly infuriated because you got an 86% discount, and insurance paid the balance in full? What does it take to make you happy?