[This is what happens when ER is in network, but the doctor who treat you isn’t.](Surprise Medical Bills: ER Is In Network, But Doctor Isn't : Shots - Health News : NPR")
That should be the first sentence of the first post of every American health care payment thread.
It’s like watching a train wreck – riveting in a sick sort of way.
+1
But all of this can still be done for less than a hundred bucks at an urgent care/walk-in clinic.
People do have to take accountability for their healthcare choices when it’s possible. Sore throat? Yes. Heart attack and associated rehab? No.
And I’ll add like everyone else – the US needs *payment *reform, *billing *reform, and single-payer, no bullshit exceptions.
The difference is that ERs (I believe) don’t require payment up front while walk-in clinics do.
Saturday nights at ERs in Britain are apparently quite a picture, gushing blood and broken bones on the scale of an average night in Glasgow in the olden times.
I think they’re including the 12 months at $150 insurance cost in the total, so it’s $1800 + $500 + $400 = $2700
Threads like this make me want to go buy the NHS something nice, maybe some quality truffles and a bunch of flowers.
Oh, and while you are always going to get a few muppets who go to the ER for a stubbed toe, making sure there is a well publicised 24hr alternative does cut it down a hell of a lot- even for the terminally selfish. You show up at a UK A&E with a stubbed toe, and you will get seen (if just to check that’s all the problem is), eventually, after everyone else, but you’ll get some very snarky comments from the person who sees you, and probably a leaflet saying who to call next time (possibly your mum to kiss it better, in that case).
The part that steams me most is the utter failure of American conservatives to explain why the perfectly reasonable seeming regimes in other countries are so horrible, especially in forums like this one where residents of those countries can respond. It’s not just that the ones I’ve seen are SO unconvincing, it’s that most of the time, they don’t seem to even bother to think about it. It’s infuriating.
They usually employ a sort of reverse American Exceptionalism - America is just different, by which they mean worse.
As an outsider it’s interesting to see this general area of debate has shifted away from phrases like ‘death panals’ and ‘socialized medicine’.
After decades of lobbyists successfully wrapping the issue in a patriotic flag, it does seem like real progress - justice, even - is being made. This is really great news for the common man (woman, family …).
Hell yes. Almost entirely late teens to mid-twenties in alcohol-related injuries. You have to be a saint to cope with that shit.
“What’s all the fuss about? The woman was only billed $50K. That’s nothing! The hospital saved this ingrate’s life, and she’s quibbling over chump change? This is a AMERICA! GET A JOB! And maybe she should lose weight or exercise more so this doesn’t happen again. Because choices. Choices determine what happens to us. So somehow this is all her fault. I just know it.”
-Typical American Conservative.
They’re paid good money by lobbyists and corporations to not think, and to convince the public they do.
A kid has an apple. Someone comes up to the kid and offers to trade two apples for the kid’s one apple. The kid refuses and has a tantrum.
A great many people present at emergency wards when they should have presented at a clinic or nursing station or called in over the phone. Why not offer that level of care at or contiguous to a hospital so as to divert them to the appropriate level of care rather than have them clog up the emergency ward?
Oh, wait a minute, I get it now – that wouldn’t work very well unless there was a health care system in the first place.
America is exceptionally incompetent, according to these arguments. Exceptionally stupid. Exceptionally corrupt. Exceptionally unable to handle math (okay, that one is true).
+1
It is happening in some places. The hospital closest to me does just that. They have an “urgent care center” which is open late and early and weekends, and handles primary care stuff. They have an ER for things like broken bones, gushing blood, heart attacks. So if a kid has a sore throat, the kid is sent up to the urgent care center. If grandma has chest pain and is acting weird, she goes to the ER. Frees up the ER, reduces wait times, and saves money.
Some hospitals are signing up with the g’vt to be accountable care organizations for Medicare, which means they are judged by how well they save money – including keeping people out of ERs and inpatient hospital stays (the two top-dollar locations for care). As they come up with ways to save money for their ACO population, they will roll those changes out to the non-Medicare population as well.
Exactly.
A lot of people who defend the current system of healthcare in the United States argue that things would be much improved if Americans would simply use health care properly. So, for example, if people didn’t clog up the ER with minor ailments, everything would be better.
This is true, but it puts the cart before the horse. In many cases, the reason that people clog up the ER for minor ailments is that they know someone will treat them eventually, and will probably do it for free. If poor people had affordable options for everyday medical care, they would be far less likely to go to the ER for a mild fever or a chronic condition.
We have universal healthcare–a term that means coverage is available to all. With Obamacare providing subsidies for income our system in terms of coverage is no different from Germany, which no one denies has universal healthcare.
So actually, having universal healthcare doesn’t at all address the problems brought up here. Instead the problems you’re running into here are unique issues, basically a mix of:
-Charge master amounts for hospital services versus “negotiated” amounts
-Refusal by some hospitals to work with some insurance companies on those negotiations / and vice versa (but the blame is far more on hospitals)
These are all a function of no real price controls on health care, since Obamacare only addressed the coverage issue we now have universal health care but no real fix to the cost problem–something I said from the first day PPACA was passed.
Poor people have affordable options. They can get either Medicaid or subsidized market plans, which by law cannot charge for preventive care.
The US does not have universal healthcare. Your apparent definition is “coverage is available to all” would be true if health insurance cost a billion dollars a year and only 50 people had it.
You can be too poor to be required to buy health insurance, and then you may or may not be eligible for medicaid. It’s certainly not guaranteed. Republican governors across the country are turning down federal money to expand their medicaid roles because fuck Obama, fuck Obamacare, and fuck the poor.
Even then, the coverage is often shitty. If you’re barely able to afford insurance with subsidies, good luck with your $5000/year deductable if you need medical care. I’m sure everyone who needs subsidies can easily spare $5000 more dollars per year for medical care.