Contact your insurance compay, demand a fully itemized bill, complete with every single diagnosis and procedure code from the hospital, and don’t pay a dime until you get the Explanation of Benefits from your insurance company on this claim.
I’ve gotten a bill from a hospital before, when the claim hadn’t been processed by insurance yet. I just ignored it and it was eventually paid by insurance. Maybe something like that happened here?
$1000 for the ER…cheap. Lucky they did not throw you in the MRI. Yeah a racket. Most of the prices are just made up, with no basis in reality at all. It is called “cost shifting”. And nobody ever pays it anyway. The insurance company gets a special rate, and if you still owe deductable they will let you know (probably). If you keep getting bills, something may have gotten screwed up.
A)No, it doesn’t sound that out of line for an ER visit.
B)Did you get an X-Ray or CT Scan done?
C)If at all possible go to an Urgent Med, then it would probably be closer to half that.
D)If this is something you’ve done in the past, have your doc paged at home. If you’re lucky he can call in some pain pills (or even NSAIDs or muscle relaxants) on the promise that you’ll come in on Monday.
The thing that bothers me is that you paid a co-pay AND got a bill. IME if you pay a co-pay, that’s all you pay. At the very least, make sure the $100 is applied to the bill. You might want to call your insurance company and make sure that it’s on the up and up. Some hospitals will ‘accidentally’ send you a bill for what the insurance didn’t pay. Your insurance company will go to bat for you and straighten them out.
OP, you didn’t pay for medication. You paid for the doctor to figure out what was wrong with you and evaluate the appropriate treatment. You paid for the convenience of an ER visit, rather than waiting for your doctor to be in their office, and to get an appointment time. You paid to have immediate access to: labs, imaging, almost any specialist you can imagine, surgeons, anesthesia. All available 24/7/365. Don’t need all that? Urgent Care is your friend.
ETA ask the hospital for an itemized bill.
Depends on your insurance. You can have a co-pay and a deductible.
You got lucky. A friend was charged $9,000 at an ER in Las Vegas for a similarly simple visit - 2 pills and 1 minute with a doc. It’s crazy. My brother is an ER doc and doesn’t even know what his group charges for any of the procedures he does.
After my cataract surgery, my insurance company sent me itemized statements for every little thing, and how much they paid, and what my copay was. Everything was listed, the surgeon, anesthetist, nurses, etc., and all were paid. Fine. Then weeks or months later, they sent me a statement that there had been an additional $8,000 charge for the use of the building where the surgery took place. The insurance company paid it, in full.
Talk it over with your insurance company, and pay a reasonable copay. Beyond that, don’t even try to figure out what all the charges are for. The charges are figured in some alternate reality that has no connection to our own.
If your insurance doesn’t pick it up, talk to the hospital. Just posted this in another thread.
ER (severe bronchitis) bill $2800. Insurance didn’t pay (deductible). I call hospital, explain I don’t have $2800. New number: $600.
Yes, its a racket. Now that the fed is subsidizing insurance for just about everybody who needs it, eventually there will be Medicare-type limits on what is allowed and what is paid.
Reason may yet prevail.
Last year I was hospitalized for a few days for a mysterious and recalcitrant recurring nosebleed. Without asking for it I was given an itemized bill. I noticed several items that were incorrect. A few of my prescription meds were incorrectly dispensed and I refused them, but they were billed. Also they billed for oxygen therapy which was not received. It would have been impossible for me to have the normal nasal thingy since both nostrils were thoroughly packed with gadgets to stop the bleeding. The only way I could have received oxygen therapy would have been intubation or a mask over my mouth, neither of which happened.
I called the hospital, got to the appropriate department, and explained. All items were removed. It didn’t matter to me financially, since my insurances covered everything except a pittance of a co-pay and deductible, but Medicare is funded out of public money, and there’s no reason for them to overpay.
E.R. visits are the most costly type of medical care. The overhead is HUGE.
You’re not paying by the hour for most medical care anyway. You’re paying for the medical professionals to know what to do. Or, what Inna Minnit said.
And you are paying for everybody else who did not pay. Hospitals are always hoping for a sucker with no insurance and lots of cash who will make up for all the people who do not pay at all…"$178,000 for my nose bleed? Jolly good, do you take American Express? "
In my opinion the government requiring ERs to treat people for no money is a bit like trying to end hunger by making restaurants feed everyone with no money.
It would sort of work, for awhile, but a Happy Meal would cost $75, the line would be 5 hours long, and there would be homeless people sleeping in the ball pit.
Last time I went to a hospital ER was also for a slipped disc…I arrived there in the back of an ambulance because I was totally immobile. :eek:
Ended up spending a night in hospital, as by next morning (after much pain relief) I was able to walk again. The hospital sent me home with more anti-inflammatories and pain killers, so all was good.
Total cost: $13.20 for the meds.
And again I thank the stars and geography of my birth that I live in a country where emergency health care is a basic right, not contingent upon my ability to pay.
*Yes, I pay via my taxes for this ‘privilege’…last year it cost me $475 for the year. I also pay for Ambulance Insurance, which covers any ambo ride I might need anywhere in Australia…that costs me (IIRC) about $45 per annum.
Come on USA…come join the enlightened countries who understand that crippling people with debt or bankrupting them is not good for the health of a individual or a community!
It’s all very well to cure somebody of their dreaded lurgy in hospital…but do you really want to give them a heart attack when they open the bill of treatment?
Geez. I went to ER last December with a really nasty bronchitis. (Thread about that.) I have Medicare, and belong to Kaiser, and went to the Kaiser ER. I went in the evening, and they kept me there all night. Blood tests. Took an X-ray (portable machine, like a large hand-held camera, that the tech brought into my room). Stuck in IV in my arm, through which the nurse gave various meds all night (prednisone; some benzo to help me sleep which didn’t work at all; some antibiotic). Two nebules of inhalation therapy (albuterol). AND they let me keep the nebulizer machine.
All this for one single (non-itemized) low out-of-pocket price!
$85.00Yeah, you read that right: A whole night in the ER and all that treatment and a nebulizer – For just $85.00
Honestly, I was flabbergastibulated.
And on top of all that, when I mentioned to the nurse that I was hungry, she found a little jello somewhere.
The also gave me prescriptions of all those same meds to last me all week. I had to pay separate co-pays for those. All about $30.00 each, IIRC.
