A Little Lost
4 weeks ago
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Lemons
Not sure how to make lemonade out of this situation. I am feeling so - UGH - I don't know if I can even write about it...but here I am typing into my blog. Guess I just need to get it out. Let's just say this was not a good weekend. I could really use some good news or to win the lottery..if only I gambled. The emergency room is not cheap, and even if they hardly do anything to help you apparently they can charge you thousands of dollars for it. I just want to share with you all this lesson I have learned: In this day and age; even as relatively healthy, relatively young people -- it pays to have insurance! As overpriced as insurance is and as much of a gamble as it seems if you are a healthy individual with only so much money to spend - not having it is more of a gamble. I am embarrassed to admit to being such an idiot as I feel myself to be right now, but maybe someone reading this will pass it on and someone will learn from my mistakes! That is just the way our system is, so please don't be naive. I am grateful for modern medicine and for pain relief, and am grateful that Mike is OK. It could have been worse (...but then this still isn't over and the final tally still isn't in.) That's my best job at sweetening it up. Sorry it still tastes sour! Feeling discouraged.
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5 comments:
I am so sorry :-( I learned the lesson the easy way, while I was covered by insurance before I had Marianne. Once I saw those medical bill costs and how much the insurance write offs saved us. After that, I made sure we never went without it. When I took the consulting job part time from home when I had Marianne, I negotiated to take home significantly less an hour but have medical benefits. It was a lifesaver multiple times!!! (Every member of our family has had an ER trip at least once now...Just the "observation" for Jared & Brie when they drank Brie's medicine cost more than $1000 each.)
You should sit down and talk to the billing administrator and see if they might give you an "uninsured discount." It could save you thousands, often as much as the insurance company's negotiated discounts.
That stinks. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that you had such a bad experience.
We have chosen to be uninsured for mostly all of a decade now. For us it makes since.
Mathmatically speaking insurance that would cost us $700 + a month in addition to co-payments (if we actually used the insurance and went to the doctor) would be insane!
There was a year, I think maybe 3 years back where we did the total for the year, even with two ER trips for stitches we had really spent so little compared to what we would have spent.
We usually spend in a years time what we would have spent in a month...for us it has been an impossibility for a long time, and even if I had that money I would rather save it than waste in on insurance. NOW, there are very different circumstances and ongoing health issues in other families and my biggest concern....lest I start ww3 here is that the terror I feel at the thought of health insurance not being a CHOICE anymore.
I LOVE that I can choose no, and someone else can choose yes.
Some do offer discounts, my dentist gave 10% for paying in cash, others like my husbands doctor visit this week didn't care at all and we paid the same $800 as anybody would have.
I figure 1,000 ish a year, much better than 12,000 ish a year. So I choose "we'll be self pay today ;)
I don't think health insurance should be forced either. Normally it makes so much more sense for us to just pay as we go. Doctors give us discounts for paying cash and we hardly need to go, and these days so many generic medicines are available for $4 or not much more. I was just shocked that Mike could go into the emergency room for something not even considered that serious, basically be given pain medicine and be sent home to deal with it on his own and be charged enough money for us to have paid for our own health insurance for several years. And health insurance is not cheap. It is ridiculous how much they can charge and the whole situation would have been a lot less stressful if we'd been insured and just had a co-pay. I don't really think it's right. I think it's unfair that hospitals can take advantage of someone in pain and use unnecessary and over-priced methods without even consulting you about the cost, but they do it. It's a screwed up system - both the insurance and the cost of care. Going in to find out whether you have a kidney stone or appendicitis should not be a situation to financially destroy someone. They charged over $1000 just to walk in the door.
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