# Woman taken to the wrong hospital and now owes a gazillion dollars. This shouldn't even be a thing. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 12, 2014, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486 "2014-11-12T23:59:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/21 "2014-11-13T14:30:52Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > But wait! Didn’t Obamacare fix health care by requiring everyone to have insurance? How would this help the lady in the above situation? > [@VunderBob](#): > > Waaah. She had every right to be transferred to her in-network hospital when stabilized, and didn’t go. Too bad so sad. And honestly i would have expected a little more compassion from you considering your line of work. You see people at their worst all the time. I read the entire article, unlike a few people in this thread. The woman is 29 and now she is facing bankruptcy. And she didn’t do anything wrong. She’s not even fat, so people can’t even say she deserved the cardiac arrest. :rolleyes: Healthcare is fucking ridiculous in this country. Any one of us could have this happen to us: get hit by a bus, have a heart attack, whatever - and BAM! Our fiscal responsibility is worthless. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/22 "2014-11-13T14:57:43Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Where was God? Some years back, St Mary’s, a Catholic hospital ran an ad campaign suggesting God favored them and their patients. > > I suppose in this economy, God must be having some cash flow issues. Don’t be absurd. Think what He could do in the futures market. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/23 "2014-11-13T15:15:11Z")
This is a huge problem, both with facilities and with doctors in in-network hospitals! I would call my insurance company and argue that mid-cardiac-arrest isn’t exactly a time when one can be reasonably be expected to access the website and check that the hospital I’m being transferred to by ambulance is in-network. Even if she’d gone to an in-network hospital, it’s entirely possible that at least one of her docs – and maybe more – was non-par. This happens all the time. No one tells you THAT when you’re going into surgery, either. “Hi, I’m Doctor Bob and I’m your anesthesiologist.” That’s what you get. This crap needs to stop for emergencies. It’s wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/24 "2014-11-13T15:25:04Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > But wait! Didn’t Obamacare fix health care by requiring everyone to have insurance? I know you’re just being a dick for its own sake, but the heart attack occurred in September 2013. The relevant provisions of the ACA went into effect in October 2013 at the earliest. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/25 "2014-11-13T15:30:11Z")
Well, then, why didn’t Obama do it _sooner_? Huh? Answer that one, smarty-pants! ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/26 "2014-11-13T15:32:53Z")
> [@GrumpyBunny](#): > > This crap needs to stop for emergencies. It’s wrong. I am pretty sure Florida requires insurers to cover emergency care provided out-of-network at 100% of the in-network rate. I’m a little surprised to discover that’s not the norm. ---
**Author:** ![Nauplius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nauplius/32/51_2.png) [@Nauplius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nauplius)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/27 "2014-11-13T15:49:02Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Where was God? Some years back, St Mary’s, a Catholic hospital ran an ad campaign suggesting God favored them and their patients. > > I suppose in this economy, God must be having some cash flow issues. Seems to me that God does in fact favor them since they’re the ones getting paid and not Meriter. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/28 "2014-11-13T17:33:52Z")
My comment about Obamacare was two-fold 1. Really has done little to affect health-care costs. It was more about insurance reform. 2. “So she would have been better off without insurance?” Maybe. How did having insurance help her? How much did she pay per month for this non-coverage? My son went to the doctor for strep throat. His cost for insurance is $150/mo. Let’s see what insurance didn’t cover. $500 hospital visit + $400 for the doctor which was literally 10 min to look at throat, say yes that’s strep and prescribe some medicine. So this year that one visit (assuming he doesn’t get sick in the next month) cost $2700 and guess what - next year the deductible is refreshed so we’ll have to pay out of pocket again. The time actually spent on his triage & examination was 30min which mean our health care cost this year work out to $5400 per hour So please explain how Obamacare helped him or would have helped the lady in the story considing she’s a victim of health-care costs and non not having insurance? What we need is health-care COST reform - not insurance reform (although that was a good start). ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/29 "2014-11-13T17:40:39Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I am pretty sure Florida requires insurers to cover emergency care provided out-of-network at 100% of the in-network rate. I’m a little surprised to discover that’s not the norm. What?! You mean make insurance companies actually pay out for health care? What do you not understands about “Pay hundreds of dollars every month and then we still won’t pay because you haven’t met your annual deductable that resets every Jan 1 so you’ll never actually pay it off.” ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/30 "2014-11-13T17:42:50Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I am pretty sure Florida requires insurers to cover emergency care provided out-of-network at 100% of the in-network rate. I’m a little surprised to discover that’s not the norm. Must be a newish law. Last ER visit I had for asthma (admittedly 8 years ago) had all kinds of out-of-network charges, including the physician. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/31 "2014-11-13T18:49:25Z")
_Only 50k?_ She got off easy. What she needed to do was file an appeal with her insurance. It would be rubber-stamped denied at the first level. Then she would file a second-level, plead her case to a panel of “reasonable people” and get it covered most likely. Emergency procedures are frequently covered out-of-network at in-network rates. That’s the remedy. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/32 "2014-11-13T18:53:15Z")
The article says she is facing bankruptcy. Whether declaring bankruptcy is or isn’t a good idea, it is generally possible to arrange a payment plan with a health care provider. It may be $100 a month for the next 50 years, but they can’t say she isn’t paying. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/33 "2014-11-13T19:18:27Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > My comment about Obamacare was two-fold > > 1. Really has done little to affect health-care costs. It was more about insurance reform. > 2. “So she would have been better off without insurance?” Maybe. How did having insurance help her? How much did she pay per month for this non-coverage? > My son went to the doctor for strep throat. His cost for insurance is $150/mo. Let’s see what insurance didn’t cover. $500 hospital visit + $400 for the doctor which was literally 10 min to look at throat, say yes that’s strep and prescribe some medicine. So this year that one visit (assuming he doesn’t get sick in the next month) cost $2700 and guess what - next year the deductible is refreshed so we’ll have to pay out of pocket again. The time actually spent on his triage & examination was 30min which mean our health care cost this year work out to > > $5400 per hour > > So please explain how Obamacare helped him or would have helped the lady in the story considing she’s a victim of health-care costs and non not having insurance? What we need is health-care COST reform - not insurance reform (although that was a good start). How is this a problem with Obamacare? What would have been different before Obamacare? ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/34 "2014-11-13T19:45:39Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > My comment about Obamacare was two-fold > > 1. Really has done little to affect health-care costs. It was more about insurance reform. > 2. “So she would have been better off without insurance?” Maybe. How did having insurance help her? How much did she pay per month for this non-coverage? > My son went to the doctor for strep throat. His cost for insurance is $150/mo. Let’s see what insurance didn’t cover. $500 hospital visit + $400 for the doctor which was literally 10 min to look at throat, say yes that’s strep and prescribe some medicine. So this year that one visit (assuming he doesn’t get sick in the next month) cost $2700 and guess what - next year the deductible is refreshed so we’ll have to pay out of pocket again. The time actually spent on his triage & examination was 30min which mean our health care cost this year work out to > > $5400 per hour > > So please explain how Obamacare helped him or would have helped the lady in the story considing she’s a victim of health-care costs and non not having insurance? What we need is health-care COST reform - not insurance reform (although that was a good start). First of all, if you’re going to a hospital (presumably the ER?) for a sore throat, you are using the most expensive form of health care. You were paying not only for the care you got, but for the care available. We don’t pay for a health care by the hour. We pay for the years of training that enable a doctor to know in ten minutes what is needed. IANAD, but in my experience and from my reading, a strep throat cannot be diagnosed by what it looks like. You need a culture to test what’s there. If there are no bacteria an antibiotic is worse than useless. I cannot imagine that a doctor would charge $900 for an \*office \*visit. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/35 "2014-11-13T20:34:17Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > _Only 50k?_ She got off easy. > > What she needed to do was file an appeal with her insurance. It would be rubber-stamped denied at the first level. Then she would file a second-level, plead her case to a panel of “reasonable people” and get it covered most likely. Emergency procedures are frequently covered out-of-network at in-network rates. > > That’s the remedy. That’s not easy, that’s a Kafka novel. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/36 "2014-11-13T20:46:17Z")
I’m sympathetic, but at the same time comforted to learn that I apparently have several gazillion dollars in my retirement account. And here I was worried! ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/37 "2014-11-13T20:46:48Z")
> [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](#): > > How is this a problem with Obamacare? What would have been different before Obamacare? Because Obamacare was a promised health-care or at least health-care cost reform. While ACA apologists point to where it is supposed to reduce cost theoretically, the fact remains for many of us, relatively minor health issues are still expensive even with insurance. To MLS: Yes it was urgent care because hr took a turn for the worse after hours. I know healthcare is expensive under those circumstances but what is rarely taken into account is the monthly cost for minimal coverage. Insurance is phenomenal for catastrophic coverage. If I didn’t have Kaiser my daughter’s long-term illness and death would have bankrupted us. But is you look at “everyday” coverage like strep throat (and the prescription was for pain killers), ingrown toenail (cost $400) etc. PLUS the monthly cost (insurance ain’t cheap) PLUS that there is a deductable to pay off every year before the serious coverage occurs. It boils down to this: For thousands of dollars per year in premiums, does the insurance company save me thousands in medical cost. If not, it is a net loss and so why am I better off having insurance? Also, I vehemently disagree with the paying for knowledge. 10 minutes of time = $400. That means I paid $2400 per hour for him to confirm it was strep throat. Bear in mind the doctor was told that my stepson currently had a horrible case of strep throat and no culture was taken. Honestly the only use of the doctor was to write a prescription for pain-killers so he could sleep and swallow the tylanol a little easier. Really? You want to justify that the legal ability to sign a script is worth $2400/hr? And how does having insurance help that when they say “Fuck you for having a serious health problem late at night and not already meeting your thousands in deductable.” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/38 "2014-11-13T21:08:21Z")
> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > 😕 You lost me on this last sentence. All of these examples are cases where people did have insurance. Even with insurance, prices can still be crazy. In the mentioned case the insurance paid the absurd charge, though the guy was willing to help them fight it. The “assistant” surgeon wasn’t in network and so the price was not negotiated with the insurance company. If it had been it would have been like $5k, and it would have been even cheaper if the assistant was from the hospital which was what was supposed to have happened. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/39 "2014-11-13T21:30:15Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Because Obamacare was a promised health-care or at least health-care cost reform. While ACA apologists point to where it is supposed to reduce cost theoretically, the fact remains for many of us, relatively minor health issues are still expensive even with insurance. In the last decade health care costs went up 8 - 9% a year. Now they are going up 4 - 5% a year. Some of this is due to the economy, but some is due to ACA. ACA for instance capped the percentage insurance companies could take as overhead, that was a decrease right there. A lot of the eventual decrease will be from evidence based medicine and publishing costs per hospital, which should force expensive hospitals to cut costs or else lose business. But this is going to take a while. It’s been in effect less than a year, you can hardly expect all the benefits to happen. > [@](#): > > To MLS: Yes it was urgent care because hr took a turn for the worse after hours. I know healthcare is expensive under those circumstances but what is rarely taken into account is the monthly cost for minimal coverage. Insurance is phenomenal for catastrophic coverage. If I didn’t have Kaiser my daughter’s long-term illness and death would have bankrupted us. But is you look at “everyday” coverage like strep throat (and the prescription was for pain killers), ingrown toenail (cost $400) etc. PLUS the monthly cost (insurance ain’t cheap) PLUS that there is a deductable to pay off every year before the serious coverage occurs. It boils down to this: If you get a high deductible policy you are gambling that you either have almost no expenses, and just pay the reduced insurance costs, or have only catastrophic expenses where you get the benefit. These policies existed before ACA also, and we discussed them here. I wrote that they could be a bad choice for exactly this reason. I have good employer provided insurance, and paid maybe $400 total for $50K of eye operations for my wife. Anyhow the real benefit of ACA is to let me get insurance if I retire long enough before 65 for COBRA to run out. Before I would have been SOL. Now I can get it. > [@](#): > > For thousands of dollars per year in premiums, does the insurance company save me thousands in medical cost. If not, it is a net loss and so why am I better off having insurance? The benefit of insurance is not just the amount you get back. If that was true term life would be a rip off all the years you didn’t die. The value is the expected value of the insurance, which is the average cost of care time the probability of needing that care, with some value of not having to worry thrown in. When I was younger they made a lot of money off of me, except for a year or two. They still are, but not as much, but I could be a big winner at any time if I had a heart attack. Anyhow, emergency rooms are expensive because they have to be ready for real emergencies, while a GP can have relatively minimal equipment and thus minimal costs. Your son being sick at the wrong time is not an indictment of the medical system. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486/40 "2014-11-13T21:32:46Z")
> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > 😕 You lost me on this last sentence. All of these examples are cases where people did have insurance. Even with insurance, prices can still be crazy. Hospitals have a list price and a price they charge in-network insurance companies. They can differ by a factor of 75 or more. If you are an insurance company, you negotiate the low rate with your network of hospitals. If you are an individual, you pay the high rate. If an out of network assistant surgeon can game the system, he can charge the insurance company the high rate. The high rate is untethered from reality. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-taken-to-the-wrong-hospital-and-now-owes-a-gazillion-dollars-this-shouldnt-even-be-a-thing/704486.md?page=3)