Medical Bill Advice?
- Thread starter CV355
- Start date
I don't think that'll work out in this case. My wife and I bring in a decent chunk. The reason it hurts is that we were already out $17.5k this year due to home repairs, vehicle repairs, and the amount we owed in taxes. This year is stinging pretty bad, and last year was no walk in the park either. Walking to the mailbox is a $3000 gamble lately.
My HDHSA is set up so that there is a minimum deductible, and an out of pocket max. This was the first thing that ever hit insurance, and it maxed it out. Meaning, my bills total my maximum out of pocket value. In one swipe. Insurance took care of 2x that amount.
What is your out of pocket maximum? Must be at least $7500 if not $10k I'd guess.
We just had a baby 18 days ago and between the 2 days in the hospital prior to his birth, a C-section and 4 days after that I know the bills are gonna be large and screwed up. I work for a small company that has a pre-ACA insurance plan though and the out of pocket max is $1500/person and $3000/family so I know I won't get destroyed by this. That is assuming that insurance covers everything that happened in the hospital.
Remember also that you can have certain people in the same hospital that are "out of network" even though the hospital itself and most of the doctors and such are. There was just a big news story on our local channel about a couple who experienced this.
$5.5k deductible, $11k out of pocket max.
The way it is set up, it's:
You pay 100% up to your deductible
After your deductible, insurance pays 80%
Once you hit max out of pocket, insurance pays 100%
Good to know, will keep an eye on it and complain like hell if that is the case. The out of pocket max doubles for out of network providers
Pretty steep deductibles and out of pocket max. Thanks Obama...
I went through this, the doctor thankfully was in network that delivered our baby but had she been out because she had vacation planned around my wife’s original due date the stand in doctor was part of the hospital staff and out of network. Our doctor had her own practice but uses the hospital to deliver. I still got some nursery bills for the night we were there in the hospital but the delivery cost me a 350 deductible in network vs 5k out of network. It was all a bit confusing but all in all the bills I got were still around 1700 or so from the hospital alone.
I understand now. These are the bills you received to reach your out of pocket max.
Payment plans are the way to go.
you have nothing to lose....just go to the hospital and ask for a deduction. You may be surprised. These people mess us billing ALL the time. Not to mention with proof of financial burden they may just cut the bill in half. Like I said, it's just a question to them, and you have nothing to lose.
Certainly you’re not referring to the doctors who saved your daughter’s life as assholes, just because they want to get paid, are you? Doctors get paid much less these days than previously and patient expectations are sky high. Everyone is an internet doctor too.
My advice, call the hospital, and set up a payment plan. The people who did your home improvements you paid for, and certainly the irs are not at all flexible on you paying them, but sadly, hospitals are. This country has the best healthcare available, yet in general, we value health much less than other countries.
I see your point, and I agree, but there's also the markup factor. I worked in the medical device field for a while and know what those parts/components cost vs what the billing is for. If 9 people don't pay, the 10th does. Insurance paid their portion, which was about 2/3 of the total cost (Thankfully). I intend on paying the bills, but as others pointed out I may be able to negotiate a little. The hospital won't be losing money. Looking at it from a man-hours and materials cost, they're averaging $1500-$2000 per man-hour right now for this operation.
Update: The payment plan puts me at $700/mo. That's what I pay on the friggin Shelby.
Last edited:
my comment wasn't totally directed towards you, more towards the guy saying "**** medicine" in the same sentence he talked about his daughter going to the NICU--not even realizing many countries have such inferior care, that she may not have even made it.
the hard part about medicine is that you're billed an inflated rate for many reasons::
we know certain insurance companies will pay more if the bill is higher, so charges get inflated in order for the hospital to get reasonable reimbursement from certain insurance plans
working in the implant industry you know that implants are billed according to the R&D that went into designing the device. if a device cost $10 to make, but $10M went into the design of it, then its crazy to think you're getting billed $10. the bill is going to be $1000 at least, and likely more.
you're also paying for the preoperative visit, and 3 months of aftercare all bundled into the surgical bill. imagine getting your hip replaced. the hospital bill might be $70,000. the insurance company might pay $40,000 of that. the actual metal hip might be $5,000. the surgeon gets $1,200-$1,500, and the rest goes to paying the nurses, anesthesia, operative room, hospital room, etc. that $1,200 includes seeing you in the office before the surgery, doing the surgery, making rounds on you for the 1-2 days you're in the hospital, and seeing you 2-4 times in the office for the first 3 months after the surgery. once the surgeon pays his 30% overhead, that $1,200 shrinks to $800. after he pays taxes on that at the end of the year, it might be $500. shit, people pay that money to have someone install an exhaust system on their mustang. food for thought
I didn't have much of a pre-op visit. Went into the MD360 after being in pain for about a day and a half. Within 2 hours I was getting a CT scan, and an hour after that I was at the hospital getting ready for surgery. All in all it was a quick process. I was home within 12 hours total.
And you are 100% spot on about the amortized cost of engineering. A lot of people don't consider that. Those costs are massive on newer technologies since the lifecycle of the product/tool hasn't been matured, costs aren't fully recovered yet. For more common items though, the price markup is to account for those who don't pay. A good example- about 12 years ago, I worked on a product line that had been around since the 80's. We had to "modernize" the entire manufacturing processes, engineer new tooling, etc. Of course the price goes up. Legally I can't name the device or company (technically I can be sued directly if there's ever a failure deemed as loss of life as the result of a manufacturing defect within the validated limits), but it went from being $8.50 per package to like $13.50 each. That increase was a distribution of engineering labor, capital equipment/tooling, and a very light profit margin adjustment over the course of 24 months or so. After shipping, our customer sent them through a sterilization and repackaging process, slapped a label on them and sold them for ~$150 each. Billing for this particular procedure is $15,000 on average. That's just one of many. There's bookoos of money to be made and lost in that industry.
My father had something similar a few years back. Thanks to CT's Dan Malloy, a walking collection of festering fecal matter, the hospital my father worked for had cutbacks. They laid him off. The same week, he was diagnosed with 3 types of cancer. A year later, he had 4 strokes. I think his actual out of pocket for everything was around $65k. COBRA, or whatever it was, cost him somewhere on the order of $700/mo on top of the medical bills. There was something about "pre-existing conditions" and the insurance didn't cover a lot of it. He didn't share all the details, just sold his Corvettes and now sits around the house sad all the time. He could have retired 4 years ago, but he's still working to try to make up for those losses.
So yeah, Dan Malloy can go to hell. And all the people that get free healthcare because they don't pay, well, in a perfect world they simply wouldn't GET healthcare. I don't see it as a "right," personally.
I didn't say doctors. I was saying insurance companies. THEY are the ones causing doctors to get paid less. So yeah, **** the insurance companies. For the amount of money we pay we shouldn't pay ANY deductibles. It's the biggest scam in American society IMO.
you mean the Mexican illegals. Yeah, this healthcare system is PERFECT isn't it ....
I mean a lot of people.
Yup, and everyone up the ladder (meaning companies not the docs/nurses) has record profits, and giant salaries for the CEO.
....it's almost as if there's a better system that exists in tons of other countries where none of this happens.
Ah yes, that's evil socialism. The ****ing you received at the hospital, that's American freedom. You should be grateful.
Last edited:
Users who are viewing this thread
