Pretty soon you're talking about real money

[89th]

Ugh what a disaster. Sorry!

[Axtremus]

Sorry, @Horace , I hope your thumb and the billing issue both work out for you.

[Doctor Phibes]

Jesus, what a nightmare. There shouldn't be this level of uncertainty associated with medical procedures. I can't think of anything else where they get away with just not being able to tell you what something is going to cost.

I hope they get it fixed.

[George K]

The whole "out of network" stuff is a nightmare.

Our group was told that, to renew our contract, we had to be in all networks that the hospital was in. That's how it should be.

D3 needed an operation in June. The hospital that she was going to go to was "out of network." She cancelled...

[taiwan_girl]

@Horace Ouch!!!! That is so bad to have the problems with the thumb and then to add on the problem with the bill

Hope that both get settled in the right way!!!

[Horace]

Thanks everybody. I think it will get cleared up. I have a form they gave me before the surgery where they wrote that my out of pocket expense would be 1,400. That should come in handy. However I never signed anything binding because all their costs were "estimates".

[Aqua Letifer]

Holy shit man. I'm really sorry. I've been in a similar spot a couple of times. It's a crazy time burden on your part but usually you can fight them into something reasonable. Here's hoping.

[Horace]

I think this is a simple mistake. Maybe I'm naive. I'll know more tomorrow. But the surgeon's group is covered by my insurance and the surgery center checked with my insurance before the surgery, which is how they quoted me the 1,400 number. Somehow it got billed as "out of network" which I think may be a clerical error.

[89th]

First, I still don’t understand how medical costs work. The doctors, the facilities, private vs institutions, insurance, networks, etc. Gives me a headache.

Second, I love how $98,000 could be so easily made as a mistake on their end. Pretty sure if you went to buy three or four new cars from a dealership, the price wouldn’t be a guess.

[Horace]

the american system of health care is more bonkers than can really be expressed with mere words.

[Rainman]

Wow, Horace. You're pretty cool and collected about this, I think I'd be a wreck.
Of course the difference is, $98,000 is just pocket change to you, not that big a deal, just a nuisance, a slight bother, just one less bottle of expensive wine, one hour less in the Gulfstream.

The thumb issue though, that's different. As someone that likes to dabble playing the piano, that would be more than catastrophic. I think it would send me into an emotional tailspin.

As I recall, Trump issued an EO that at least prescription prices on ads would need to be displayed, as a first step towards people being able to compare prices in the health care field. Blocked by a court (again).

Good luck and give 'em hell.

[Axtremus]

I keep telling you folks, single-payer universal healthcare FTW.

[Klaus]

American exceptionalism at its best.

Don't worry, though. If you sit in front of a mirror and say "But we have the best healthcare in the world!" a thousand times you can make yourself believe it.

[Aqua Letifer]

@Klaus said in Pretty soon you're talking about real money:

American exceptionalism at its best.

Don't worry, though. If you sit in front of a mirror and say "But we have the best healthcare in the world!" a thousand times you can make yourself believe it.

Klaus, everything is best over here. Because over here is America.

You might not know what that means, but I'll clue you in: everything American is better than everything non-American, simply by virtue of being American. American cheese is better than non-American cheese. The same goes for American German beer, American museums that house European works of art, American incarceration rates, American healthcare debt, etc., etc.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Aqua-Letifer said in Pretty soon you're talking about real money:

American cheese product is better than non-American cheese product .

FIFY

[Horace]

I haven't finalized anything yet, but it is seeming like this surgery center sends these huge bills as leverage to get the patient to pay the smaller amount they are really looking for, asap. Like, before the patient pays any other bills they may have. The problem is that I never received a bill for the smaller amount. Only this estimate they gave me before the surgery.

[Horace]

The surgery center is basically choosing to be a bad citizen by doing whatever they can within the law and clearly outside ethical boundaries, to jump to the front of the customer's priority queue for paying their bills.

[Larry]

@Axtremus said in Pretty soon you're talking about real money:

I keep telling you folks, single-payer universal healthcare FTW.

No. If that had been in place he would have had to wait so long to get his surgery that the joints would have healed leaving him deformed, when he finally did get to have surgery it would have been done by a half trained flunky who didn't give a shit whether or not he did a good job because he's working for peanuts and if you don't like it tough shit because the government writes his paycheck not you.

[Klaus]

1. Single-payer universal healthcare doesn't necessarily mean long waiting times or bad health service. In some countries it works well, in other countries not so much.
2. There are various health systems that work better than the American one that are not single-payer universal.

I have the impression that the healthcare debate in the US is much too focused on a seemingly one-dimensional binary decision, but in reality health care systems have many many dimensions, and there are many incremental improvements on dimensions different from single-payer universal vs private.

[Larry]

What country has single payer and no waiting line?