[QUOTE=Antinor01]
Oh yes, fourthing. A broken leg will run about $20,000, heart attack about $40,000, the median cost of a hospital stay in 2005 for uninsured patients was $9,907.
[/QUOTE]
A recent example of hospital costs: Typo Knig had sinus surgery last fall. Endoscopic sinus surgery, turbinates trimmed, deviated septum corrected.
Our out of pocket cost was 2,000 when all was said and done. That was painful.
The billed amount from the providers - for something like 90 minutes of surgery - was something over 40,000. The hospital charge was something like 22,000; the surgeon’s fee was like 18,000 and there were miscellaneous other charges from X-ray and anesthesia that were a few thousand dollars.
Now - those amounts are clearly fictional. Our insurer pegged the allowed cost at something less than 10,000 for everything. Which is mad enough for 2 hours of medical care anyway, but is still quite large. I think, honestly, the hospital and surgeon jacked up their fees to an insane figure knowing they would realize only a fraction of the cost, and figuring it didn’t matter what they said the charges were.
BUT - if we didn’t have health insurance with “negotiated rates”, I’d bet a year’s rent they’d try to collect the full 40,000-plus.
This actually really pisses me off. Instead of listing fees that are something realistically close to what they’d expect to receive even if it means a small writeoff, they quadruple (or more) the supposed fee. That was, frankly, NOT a 40,000 dollar procedure.
