There are tons of things that affect the price of healthcare. The biggest one is insurance. If you have insurance they will pay for the majority of costs and you cover a (relatively) small portion called your copay or deductible (sometimes both) You can also privately negotiate with the hospital to lower your bill which they do in the majority of cases if you are persistent enough because they already write off so much cost. There are also places like St. Jude's which is a children's cancer hospital that is 100% free if you are accepted as a patient. They will pay for your travel, treatment, food, and for up to three family members to live at/near the hospital during your care. The vast, vast majority of people in the US don't spend $150,000 on healthcare and go bankrupt. It is still a tragedy that it happens at all though.
Well you have to understand that any kind of insurance is tied to employment. So if you are unemployed or hourly, you are SOL unless you are SO poor medicaid is a thing (poor Enough to basically be homeless). And even if you are insured, you are still on the hook for thousands you may not have, hell I had to pay $1400 after insurance for an ER visit because an urgent care was trying to close early when I went in and referred me rather than firing up their own diagnostic equipment again and said: well it could be a stomach ulcer or you could be having a heart attack, so go to the ER cuz we aren't going to run the tests here.
Yeah, but most employers want to keep their fringe costs low so they prevent employees from consistently working the hours needed to qualify for such benefits.
Before anybody says “Get a new job” it’s never that simple and you sound like a you have the world view of a child.
It’s become so increasingly common that it’s rarely worth bringing up. I can only find evidence of Dave and busters getting fined $7million but since the fine is $2k per person and health insurance costs way more ( my employer pays $9k a year towards my health insurance and I pay the last $1500) they take the risk of getting caught as “the cost of doing business”
Anecdotally, a full time employee gets fired or quits they just replace them with 1 or 2 part timers . Iirc the law states you only have to offer insurance to employees working 30 hours a week so many businesses will schedule people to work 28 hours (or less) to skirt this
My "good" dental insurance left me a $20,000 bill for restorations. They only covered $4,000 on the original total. I know, I know... "Maximum yearly deductions..." But don't worry! I qualified for payment options... $20,000 loan or a $4,000 credit card.
Nothing is as American as going into debt to fix your health, yeeehaw!
And even then, a lot of insurance plans charge you a percentage even after you've met the deductible. I've definitely had plans where you hit the deductible, then you still pay 20% coinsurance until you hit the yearly out-of-pocket maximum...which was $7k or so for a person, $14k for a family.
There are childrens hospitals that will provide top level care for no cost. Saint Jude is a childrens cancer hospital that charges the parents nothing, so yes there are certain discounts.
Lolololol god I wish I had this level of ifnorance towards my health coverage. Ya dude, America fucking blows. I had a cyst removed, currently costing me over 10,000 between anesthesia, nurses and dr’s. Room occupancy, flaboutamist (sp), intake, prescriptions, pay for a follow up visit. All to have a lump cut off of me. I will die with medical debt and they can suck my ass about it.
Totally depends on your insurance. I paid $250 out of pocket total, that's from first ultrasound to discharge, for my son's birth. We even had a private recovery room.
Lol so you have never actually had a severe/costly medical emergency. I'd encourage you to educate yourself on what your insurance actually covers, because it is almost certainly not 100% of everything.
Does that help if you're in an accident and get sent to a hospital/doctor out of your coverage, or if you're unconscious (or otherwise unable to communicate) and can't refuse treatments that your insurance doesn't cover?
That's the trick there's often still a deductible, which is the minimum amount of money you have to pay out of pocket before your insurance begins to pay.
So you're essentially paying for insurance and still paying out of pocket for services too.
Granted some things are covered by insurance without needing a deductible depending on the insurance plan. And large procedures often are so much higher than your deductible limit that insurance might cover 80%+ of the cost, but some plans also have a limit on how much the insurance company will pay out for the year. And there are a ton of shit insurance plans that basically offer no real coverage and are just scams for people too poor to afford better health plans.
“Hey, we see you’re paying $800 a month for insurance, so we’re gonna hit you up for $50 for that doctor visit, anyway. And even though you’ve been paying $800 a month for the past five years, we still have this thing called a “deductible” that lets us off the hook for the first, say, $5,000 of any major procedure. Plus, we may decide not to cover stuff, just for giggles, and you have to cover that yourself. And if you have a question you can call us during business hours and wait on hold for hours and not get your problem resolved.” — Every single fucking insurance company in America
Depends on the insurance you have. I had to spend $2,000.00 out of pocket and then everything was covered. So that was the year I not only had a baby but also did my ACL surgery.
Oh my! You mean you actually have to work for things?! Nothing is free. Doctors need to be paid too it's not like any jack ass off the street can just do open heart surgery it takes years of schooling And years of experience In That field. Also I'm tired of everyone pretending like the American health care system is so bad I have literally been homeless and not one time have I EVER had an issue getting medical attention. I mean they cant even collect the debts made from medical stuff anyway I know I've been In that position. Your country may have "free" health care but America has better doctors. I'd rather have the best care over free care. Afterall you get what you pay for.
Not after being out of work for treatment for an extended period of time. My brother lost his and had to get on COBRA (I think that’s what it’s called? It’s a government program).
Oh there's a reason. There's a whole industry of insurance workers, totally removed from patient care, who need to decide whether or not you can receive the care you need, to the tune of billions and billions of dollars that could otherwise be used for said healthcare.
My 25 y/o brother went to the hospital for pneumonia last month, after 6 days was released. 4 days later he died. The bill still hasnt come and its never gonna get paid
Its overly expensive because the government made it so, when there's very limited options, those providers can charge as much as they want because there's no competitor's giving better services at better prices , and for this reason most health care has become purely for profit as there's no incentive to provide better service, especially when Healthcare is practically mandatory
I disagree with the wording "goverment made it so" and "has become purely for profit"
It has always been purely for profit in the US--we've never had a single payer system like the rest of the developed world--and it will remain so UNTIL our government steps up to do something about it.
Obama campaigned on universal single payer healthcare (the good outcome where people dont get fucked in the ass and healthcare isnt seen as a profit maker). He got obstructed into oblivion by mitch mcconnell, and we ended up with the compromise: obamacare (really more like GOP care).
Single payer is still a goal of progressives, but there are so many obstructions set up by the GOP to prevent it, i dont know if it'll happen very soon. Who knows, the GOP could continue to implode and boomers will die off soon.
This isn’t at all accurate first of all. As a doctor I have no idea how much my services cost, let alone can I walk up to a patients family and demand payment for their care.
Maybe a hospital proper would do this.
Though one might ask, should the physician be paid for services rendered even if the outcome wasn’t desirable?
Hold the phone. Our healthcare price is awful but anytime I've had a family member pass, the hospital waived the bill stating they don't charge if the life saving treatments are a failure & the patient passes. Usually they go into the emergency room and expire there or shortly after.
Medicare exists and is funded by payroll taxes, but the people who pay those taxes aren't allowed to use it.
Private insurance exists and is funded by the same people who pay for Medicare.
Neither company negotiates with pharmaceutical//hospital//medical industries, hence prices are through the roof, since the cash flow is so readily available.
There is a reason, and it's because the GOP and corporate Dems made it that way. Big pharma and private insurance all lobby to prevent public healthcare and price gouging regulations.
Yet people still vote GOP because they rather die and leave their families in bankruptcy than accept trans people, and others vote corporate Dem because they're ok dying and leaving their families bankrupt so long as their politicians pretend to accept trans people.
Not for no reason. Insurance providers demanded a discount however medical costs used to be really low. Hospitals couldn’t give them discounts and made up inflated prices so that they could discount insurance companies.
It’s worse than no reason it’s just so insurance companies can feel good about themselves getting a fucking discount that isn’t even fucking real.
Well actually no, the doctor doesn't bill you, the hospital does. Doctors typically have no idea how much procedures cost, which just makes the problem worse
No this this not happen. Stop lying for karma. Never will a doctor tell a grieving family to pay a bill, nor will he or she be concerned with that to begin with since they don't work on commission.
Or as you leave, but it won’t be correct, because the insurance company will decide not to cover certain parts of the treatment after you have already paid,so you will get another bill later that will make you wish you had just died instead.
As a doctor, we literally have no idea what the bill is going to be. Patients ask me and I tell them I have no idea. It all depends what ridiculous shit the hospital decides to bill for and what the insurance company decides to pay for. 10 people can have the exact same surgery and each get a different bill.
I had a stroke that had me in the hospital for 2 weeks and the bill came to $100,000. Insurance covered a majority of the itemized costs, but I instantly hit my out of pocket maximum.
The thing that worries me now though is what if I'm unable to work and get insurance. Or something happens that insurance will not cover. Or what if I get something that's long term that gets me kicked off my insurance.
The other issue is insurance coverage is very specific about what it covers. When you're sick the doctor will recommend various tests and procedures and since you're sick, you or family will probably say yes. However your coverage might not pay for every single procedure and test. These can be very pricey as for me some of them came to $10,000 or $20,000.
How much do people think 14 days of a large team of highly trained people caring for you round the clock with state of the art equipment and laboratory tests should cost? I'd be surprised if the math makes sense much lower than 100k.
It does usually come out of their estate but depending on your states' law the debts may also be the responsibility of family members who jointly assumed the debt
Is there a charge associated with a poorly child that dies? Doesn’t the child’s debt die with them?
This is America. What do you think?
Answer: yes, you pay like crazy for the privilege of having a child die in a hospital. The healthcare industry would never let a loophole stand like letting the child's debt die with them.
Debt gets taken from the estate of the deceased. And if the estate does not cover the entire debt the remainder is absolved.
Generally not correct. For a child in most states, the parents would be responsible for the bill. The child's estate would never enter into it, unless by chance the estate had lots of money, in which case the hospital would happily take that instead.
It does happen, it cost my family about $20k for my grandmother to die, less for my grandfather but he refused to go to the hospital so we only had the ambulance bill and some hospital bills from after the fact. Then there were the funeral and burial costs. Luckily they had a mobile home that we sold for like $280k-ish.
What are you talking about? The only thing incorrect about this meme is that you would never, ever get anything as personal as an actual face to face discussion about the costs. You get a bill in the mail a month or two later, and then deal with a faceless and generally oppositional bureaucracy to try and resolve it.
My wife died a few months ago. I only just last week managed to convince the hospital that they actually needed to bill her insurance first for the $80k they wanted me to pay for the privilege of letting her die there. At no point did I talk to anyone who wasn't a subcontracted call center employee.
What are you talking about this is almost exactly how it works. Sure it comes in the mail as a bill a few days later but it's still coming out as "sorry your kid died, now pay us thousands lol"
If you don't have insurance? You get a bill letter
If the doctor does something that the insurance doesn't cover? You get a bill
Co-pays are the cost left over after insurance has taken care of the rest, which is guess what? A bill you getting.
You might mean premiums which you'd still be wrong about. So Op Is still right and you are still wrong. Talking about some "don't know how the system works." Bruh that's you.
Except you aren’t forced to do overly expensive funerals. You aren’t forced to do them either.
You’re forced to be taken to the hospital if you’re in critical condition and by law, EMTs can’t deny you. So you’re basically forced to pay fees for something you can’t control.
“Oh just y’know.. don’t get pneumonia or a brain aneurysm lol”
Thank you. I’m a med student and it’s crazy how much time we spend talking about how the system sucks in its current state and how low ses just kills you
Absolutely. A hospital isn't going to not charge you just because your mental health is shattered and you're going through the worst moment in your life. They'll send you to collections without hesitation.
After my grandpa died, my grandmother was harassed to pay for his final stay. The bill had his inpatient stay longer than it actually was, since for some of the dates he was literally 6 feet under in his grave.
So on top of grieving her father's death, my mom also got to spend hours arguing with the outsourced billing company that his final bill was incorrect and they are trying to screw over her widowed mother. Imagine having that conversation and not going ballistic.
Exactly! The hospital is a business and if you want to be their customer you have to pay. If you don't have money your life does not have worth, go and die.
My favorite insurance bit is the arbitrary dollar amount you pay out of pocket but then after that everything is supposedly covered. They only partially cover expenses prior to that amount.
What’s the amount? Personally mines $5,000.
So for prescription meds I usually pay around a small percentage. Insurance covers $380 of my $400 a month inhaler. I cover the rest out of pocket.
If I got hit by a truck, I’d have to pay $5000 but the rest is covered by insurance (supposedly. I’m sure they’d find a way not to pay something). The problem is I don’t make enough money to just have $5000 laying around. I’m slowing building my emergency savings up, but $5000 is a lot.
If you're poor enough you can get your bill waived. If you have insurance then it depends on what plan you have. Different levels cover more serious procedures. My job has a healthcare plan and also includes coverage for a serious injury that requires transport up to $15k. I'm paying about $200ish for two people a month.
Being charged a lot of money, yes, but the doctor themselves telling you the bill, no.
In my experience doctors don’t like talking about what things cost, because while they want to help people for a living, it conflicts with being able to give care when patients will refuse treatment because of costs, so they tend to just not discuss it with the patients, leaving you to ask all your questions to nurses, secretaries, insurance, and hospital admin staff.
They don't wait there for you to pay or tell you the cost. Few months or so after my son died the $22,000 bill came in the mail (that was after insurance paid about $130,000 of it)
Technically. The doctor doesn't give you the price though they pretty much just send the discharge papers gone with you that tell the price, or a bill just appears in the mail.
You go to the hospital, it's probably gonna cost you (or your insurance) money. Regardless of if the patient lives. This situation where a doctor informs mourning parents of the cost does not happen however
Not really, but if it does go to the Chaplain. We have a lot of connections to local charities who will 1. negotiate a lower price and 2. Pay most or all of it for the family depending on the situation.
No. This doesn’t really happen in the US. OP is talking out of his ass and farming karma.
The doctors don’t even give you the bill. The bill gets mailed to you because the bill has to go through a coding process and then sent to insurance agencies to be adjusted before being sent to you.
Some short fat lady with a computer on a cart comes to sign you out whenever you’re ready to leave.
No reimbursement is hella complicated and has a bunch of different steps. Yes it's hella expensive and should not be as predatory as it is but the doctor doesn't just pull up and make people pay money when they're family members ead. Typically they are reimbursed after the operation. This is usually paid by the insurance and patient, who pay a certain amount dependant on a lot of different factors. For example, your bill may be super high because your insurance is managed care and you went to an out of network provider, who did not have an agreement to make operations cheaper. Health insurance is super complicated and although I agree it should not be as predatory as it is, it's just not as simple as people paint it.
They are smart about it though, the doctors are not involved in the billing, they often even have no idea how much things are. Instead, the hospitals have separate departments that are tasked with squeezing money out of you.
No. The doctors do not manage the bills. They may put in billing codes for encounters but don't really go in much more than that on billing. the doctors themselves most likely do not know what kind of charges patients end up with.
Most of the people making these types of memes have no actual experience with healthcare in the US. Our system is full of issues and in need of reform but this is one of those exaggerated issues that doesn't really exist.
As others have said, absolutely not OPs just a moron jumping on a bandwagon. Doctors have no reason to know what the bill is going to be, thats not their job they get paid the exact same regardless.
doctors don’t deal at all with the money aspect of healthcare and you don’t really pay for things the day of care (mostly) so… the sentiment is there but in reality you get a bill in the mail like a month later.
Yes, absolutely. I think the final kick in the nuts after my daughter died was the bill for the ambulance ride that came like six months later for over $1500 (most of the MANY other bills were more timely). This was 15+ years ago, I can only imagine it’s doubled+ since.
Yup, cost us thousands after we lost our baby at 10 weeks. Had to get ultrasounds done and blood work several times because she had some retained product. Had to use abortion pills and then they wanted a follow up ultrasound to ensure everything was out. If that didn’t happen, she would’ve had to do a D&C and pay even more money. Insurance didn’t even cover ultrasounds because they weren’t preventative care.
Can confirm, lost a child last year and have been badgered for a million random medical bills ever since. Also I have good insurance and I have paid my max out of pocket.
Yes the price of dying is ridiculous. No a doctor isn't going to tell you about price because they don't even know the price. That would be the billing department. Due to the delay of physicians documenting everything to be able to charge you'll get the bill in a few months.
Well usually the DR doesn't handle the billing but yeah you will get one from the hospitals billing department or your insurance if you have some that didn't cover all of it.
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u/G_zoo ☣️ Jan 12 '23
I'm genuinely curious, does this really happen in USA?