So if you can’t afford to pay, you just stay home and die of pneumonia?
Kneels down and kisses the floor of the NHS.
Just wanted to add, having gone to the hospital for asthma attacks a couple of times, that they take shortness of breath very seriously. There was mere minutes of wait time from triage nurse to being seen and treated by a doctor. Get your roommate to the hospital. Put him in a cab if you need to.
[QUOTE=Joey P;19647353On the off chance it’s being confused, calling 911 and requesting police help or having burglar alarms will typical get you a bill after X amount of false alarms.[/QUOTE]
Unless you call 911, usually repeatedly, for something you’ve been told not to call for, the caller will never face a bill or charges. If your neighbor’s alarm goes off every day, they will get the bill, not you as the caller. Unless there’s something else going on, like it’s really the quitting whistle at the local plant & you call every day at 5 o’clock.
I’d say $1000 - $1500, not thousand(s), plural, but yeah, it ain’t cheap.
This is kind of a unique case. Is he loopy because he’s normally loopy, because he’s drunk, or because he’s got a head injury. A drunk person is usually not considered of sound mind & therefore, can’t refuse treatment.
What? You don’t have taxes which pay for Ambulance service, either government owned or contracted out?
They don’t swipe your credit card before putting you in, for crying out loud. 
The first priority is saving your life, payment is something sorted out later.
People who can’t afford to pay presumably can have a payment plan or a discount thanks to government subsidies. Despite how much certain people villainize American health care, there are many safety nets for people in need. I’ve been dirt poor in the past and benefited from them, especially the first time I had kidney stones.
With all that said, some ambulance companies seem to completely gouge people, reportedly charging you more than $1,000 for just showing up, checking your vitals, and then leaving without taking you anywhere.
Some areas do, but most ambulance services are private for-profit companies in the US.
Oh no, you call, you get the lifesaving help you need, and then you go bankrupt. Duh.
OP spin-off coming.
This is true.
Many Dopers would shriek in horror at this … but for people that aren’t dirt poor, but also can’t pull medical-bill money out of their sofa cushions: it’s not unknown for people to simply ignore some medical bills. Very occasionally, the medical establishment will drop the matter and not even take it to collections or anything like that.
Such actions may or may not hurt one’s credit score eventually. The medical establishments have a lot of leeway on what and when to report to credit companies. On the part of most patients who do this, one hopes it’s not done cynically, but out of a truly perceived need. It ain’t pretty, but it happens.
Yeah, one time when I walked into Northwestern’s ER in Chicago with wheezing/gasping I didn’t even get my first sentence to the triage nurse finished before two big guys bodily picked me up and put me on a gurney. I got the usual interrogation and insurance and stuff AFTER I could breathe normally again.
If you show up at an ER with breathing problems you usually get immediate attention.
We had volunteer fire and EMS for decades, there was no charge for their services to anyone. Then people started abusing the system and would call 911 for an ambulance ride, get a ride to the nearest hospital ER 40 miles away, then walk away. So unfortunately a few bad apples ruined it for everyone.
Moderator Note
Let’s refrain from political jabs in General Questions. No warning issued.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Drop him at the door, tell him you are going to park the car. Park the car back at your apartment. Don’t answer calls from him for a few hours, so you know there is at least a chance he has been seen.
Last ambulance ride I had (a couple of years ago) was about C$300 in Alberta. However the very minimal supplementary health insurance I have covered it except for the $50 yearly deductible. (As I’ve said in the past, UHC covers everyone, not everything, so supplementary health insurance does make sense up here).
A seizure, while scary, rarely requires emergency care. Most of the time there’s little they can do. Many of us with epilepsy have ended up with huge hospital bills by well-meaning but uninformed bystanders. Perhaps the guy should have been a little more polite, but having been in his shoes, I can sympathize.
For future reference, the best thing is lower a person to the floor and turn them on their side, with their head slightly elevated. Make sure there’s nothing near by they can hurt themselves on, and time the seizure. If it lasts any longer than what, three minutes (I believe), THEN you should call for help. And finally, NEVER your hand, or anything else (a wallet, a spoon, etc) in someone’s mouth if they’re seizing. Not unless you want to get bitten. (My mother found that out the hard way!) They’re not going to swallow their tongue.
Yeah, I got woozy one time after getting dehydrated and overheated, and someone called an ambulance for me, and I was on the hook for that and the subsequent ER visit, even though I didn’t really want either one.
Ambulances are not a taxi service, don’t waste their time when you could just as well get a real taxi. That way they will be available to help someone who actually needs urgent care instead of wasting their time on someone who is just too stubborn to go to the hospital themselves.
Being British, I find it unfathomable how it works in North America, but even so, I would assume that if you couldn’t afford to foot the bill… you could either wing it down to something like $5 per month, or not pay and it would be a civil matter and not criminal (akin to credit card or loan debt)?
It’s not a criminal matter, but people routinely go bankrupt over emergency medical bills.
Australia.