I really do NOT advise using a credit card. Once they have your number they can charge things to it under assumed permission and the next thing you know your bill is skyrocketing. Use checks whenever possible, it’s a lot harder for them to tack on extra charges to your checking account that way.
Unless you have no alternative, of course, sometimes you just have to.
You rode the spinning tea cups at Disney World, didn’t you? tsk tsk
Definitely ask about the “uninsured price” wherever you go. “Rack rates” for anything tend to be anywhere from 2 to 50 times what they expect to actually get.
As a side note: check into getting some kind of insurance coverage, even if it’s a bare-bones policy through the exchances. If your symptoms turn out to be anything more than stress (and certainly with a job change / move coming up, stress is a feasible explanation), you’ll at least have something in place.
Just THINKING about those is enough to put me in the hospital…
So I decided to placate you all 
and I left work early to run to a MedCheck.
My blood pressure was a tad high but nothing too bad (I am only 29 after all) and when he did the stethoscope-to-my-chest thing he said he didn’t he didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary or anything that was super concerning to him. I wouldn’t know if it’s some kind of heart palpitation thing (he named a couple disorders) until I got insurance proper and got a full ekg, but from what he could gather it wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait until then.
He gave me a script for lorazepam that I could take at night to see if that helps. If it does then we can agree that it’s probably anxiety/stress made worse by my high caffeine intake and low pure-water intake.
So basically I’m gonna have to drink more water, drink less soda, try and walk some, and do what I can to de-stress from losing a job, my impending move to Florida, trying to find a job, being scared about money (no job/move) and the like.
Yoga anyone?
Wait, I thought you already moved here?
Next Friday I’m loading the truck, driving down on Saturday, unloading the truck Sunday, claiming myself a resident starting Monday
Good to see you did go to a doctor, and appear to be OK.
Whatever your lorazepam dose is, take half of it. Learned my lesson about that.
Congrats! I’ll buy you a beer. If the doctor signs off, anyway. 
I’m glad to hear this doesn’t seem to be anything major. Do follow his suggestions…
I’d also strongly, strongly encourage you to get at least a catastrophic care plan. Florida’s hospitals are far more likely to charge uninsured people more than ten times as much as the cost of care. (Florida has 20 out of the 50 hospitals mentioned in thisarticle.) You do not want to be in Florida without insurance and have a major event.
Oh, and Florida hasn’t expended its Medicaid coverage. The state’s attitude toward Medicaid recipients is essentially, “Fuck you.” Ironic since the governor bilked billions from the government when he was CEO of HCA hospitals (which operates 14 of the price-gouging hospitals in the article linked above).
Assuming you live in the US, this is illegal. Also pretty much impossible. Card information is not kept or scanned legally. The swipe is for the charge at hand. That you sign a receipt for. Anyone doing otherwise is breaking the law and the usual remedies apply.
Cite: I work in a medical clinic and take cc payments all the time. The equipment does not store the number. If I make a mistake, I have to have the card back and rescan. Every. Single. Time.
Clue me in here please. I thought everyone in the US was now required to purchase health insurance; isn’t that the Obamacare platform?
I think the fine (or tax or whatever you want to call it) is still cheaper than the insurance if you can’t afford it.
Only if your income is above a certain level, and even then the IRS is limited in how it can enforce the penalty.
Below that, you were supposed to be able to get Medicaid, but the Supreme Court gutted that part of the law and many states have chosen not to offer it to adults who aren’t disabled.
Fuuuuuck.
What can I say? We are a country of scofflaws.
OK, I totally believe you that it’s illegal. And ethical people wouldn’t do such a thing.
I am also telling you I have experienced otherwise.
As in, being a self-pay patient going in for something specific, where I have pre-negotiated the price and payment arrangements, saying explicitly “You may charge X for Y but DO NOT charge anything else without asking me first” only to find three other charges on the bill. For things no one informed me would happen, despite my very careful pre-discussions about what ALL the charges would be, and my concerns being dismissed as “oh, we always do that, it’s part of Y.” Then why the frack didn’t you TELL ME THAT when I was asking about costs in advance? And THEN you charge my card without telling me when I EXPLICITLY STATED I was authorizing only so much?
“Usual remedies”? Do you honestly think someone unemployed is going to have the resources to apply legal remedies to such a thing? Not to mention the time frame involved in resolving some disputes.
The incident I refer to above? It took me SIX MONTHS to get that resolved, and I was getting threatening collection calls for four of them.
Maybe YOUR outfit is honest, law-abiding, and ethical but a surprising number are not.
Honestly, it’s getting to the point a person should force the doctor/clinic/whatever to give a written and signed statement that the total charges will be $X and kept it on file for when other things get tacked on. But yes, that would be excessive.
Keep in mind, too, that their definition of “disabled” is frequently much different from what you or I would use.
When I was fired from my longtime job because of completely disabling migraines, I was unable to get Medicaid.
Literally, I spent every day throwing up, unable to go out, tolerate noise, or…well, anything. In pain, and taking heavy painkillers, migraine-specific meds, and anti-nausea meds. On top of that, I was seriously depressed and suicidal and taking antidepressants. And the woman at Medicaid told me that they could cover me if I got pregnant. Because that would be a *great *idea. :smack:
Thanks, Florida!
Yeah. My spouse’s spina bifida apparently is not a disability according to our state of residence.
Well, disability enough to get a parking plate for the blue slots, but apparently not for any other purpose according to them.
You’re both right.
I never got it because I couldn’t afford it, and when my taxes asked me about it I checked the “couldn’t afford it” box and it came back as “Sounds good!” and I never got a fine or anything.
So it’s supposed to happen, but they certainly don’t enforce it much