Posted on 02/23/2010 6:25:45 PM PST by Touch Not the Cat
Every 911 call begins with a question.
Dispatcher: "Do you need the police or the paramedics?"
But if you dial 911 with a medical emergency and call for an ambulance, the bill is coming to you.
And it doesn't matter whether it's city, county or private ambulances that come to your door -- you're still going to get a bill.
"Base, ambulance ride: $685.25. 55; miles: $1,540, a total amount of $2,225.25.," Myleen Chepin, a bill recipient, said.
Chepin of Simi Valley is facing more than $13,000 in ambulance bills.
"My husband was having an attack, so we called 911. The insurance pays their portion and we ended up having a big amount to pay on top of it," Chepin said.
And that was just the beginning. Months later, Mylen's 18-year-old daughter had a severe allergic reaction to some prescription medications, resulting in another ambulance call.
Her daughter Kelly was in such bad shape she had to be transferred from the nearest hospital to UCLA, some 55 miles away.
"Well you can't drive them there yourself once they are in the hospital. The paramedics have to take them from place-to-place. And for going 55 miles, we got charged $2,200," Chepin said.
The Chepins filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and they are not alone. We found complaints filed from all over Southern California, disputing bills that range from the hundreds to the thousands.
"I've seen bills for either five or ten miles range easily into thousands of dollars," Jerry Flanagan, of ConsumerWatchdog.org, said.
At ConsumerWatchdog.org, Flanagan keeps an eye on the health care industry.
"When you call 911, we think that we are talking to the public protector. The public sector, not the private sector that is looking to make a buck off unnecessary service," Flanagan said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbs2.com ...
Amp-a-lamps can be expensive!
Our town has charged for an ambulance for years! It’s up to about 700-800 dollars. Didn’t know until this that not all towns charged.
Stuff costs money.
Don’t whine about this unless you want socialized healthcare. 24/7 ambulance (amber lamps) availability costs money. Or do you want your neighbors to pay for your health problems?
Hmmm...
Well, she coulda called for a city vehicle to transport him. But I’m sure he’d have died waiting.
But, I guess she wants that...
Or else she’s another Marie Antoinette... thinking everything in the world is free and available to all, able to have her cake and eat it, too.
She needs to meet up the consequences of this, preferably without harming the less retarded members of society.
“Well you can’t drive them there yourself once they are in the hospital. The paramedics have to take them from place-to-place. And for going 55 miles, we got charged $2,200,” Chepin said.
So is it against the law to hire your own transportation or for that matter drive yourself?
Though I will say that the price of an ambulance trip would go down if there was a free market, with more than one ambulance company they could call.
Socialism is a great thing, squelching that evil capitalism! Do your part, suffer more for ideology!
Brutal!!
Look people, do you or don’t you want healthcare reform?! Make up your minds.
Medical stuff costs money. Medical insurance comes with deductibles, and not everything is covered under medical insurance.
Buncha wusses. Live well, die happy — a motto I wish Dick Cheney would adopt. Guy’s lived long enough. His kids are grown; he’s met his grandkids. But everytime he gets indigestion the US government gets a hospital bill for at least $100,000....
Don’t know if this is common everywhere, but for about $60/year you can buy a membership with the largest ground EMS provider in our area which will reduce your fee by 60%. The cost of helicopter EMS service is through the roof.
911 paramedics don’t cost, but an ambulance ride to the hospital (the 911 paramedics don’t transport) will cost you money. It’s been this way for years in our area.
My friend fell off his bike two blocks from the hospital. He was charged over $2000 to be transported. I understand that it’s the response that’s expensive, not the distance, and that one is paying for the equipment and training. Still—!
If you think ambulances are expensive, try Life Flight.
Seriously, its over $10K.
And worth every penny if you daughter is being carried to a burn unit for emergency treatment.
Do wish to clarify the Vice President Cheney remark?
Must be on O’Bammy’s Death Panel...
Maybe taxi cabs should offer a premium service if just quick transportation is needed. As for Cheney, he just had a heart attack today. Hopes to be out in one of two days. Have to be saved by repentance and faith before you go though, on Jesus expense and credit, thanks be to God.
The correct pronunciation is “amber lamps.”
You could sign your kid out AMA (against medical advice) and drive her, if they didn’t call Child Protective Services. You could certainly sign yourself out, no question. But considering that the severe allergic reaction could start up again - that’s why the child was being transferred to a specialty hospital - you want a paramedic and a nurse and a mobile ICU for the trip.
So the question is the cost: 2K is certainly in line with tying up an expensive room (like an OR) for two or three hours. The insurance company pays a discounted rate; the individual with no coverage gets hosed.
When my son was transferred in the specialty pediatric ambulance that cost as much as a house - he was apparently its first patient - the insurance company covered it.
OTOH our local rehab facility sends out patients who show up intoxicated in an ambulance, to go to the hospital for medical clearance, even though a perfectly competent family member drove them across state in said intoxicated condition, and is perfectly competent to drive them half an hour to the hospital for labs and back. Maybe the ambulance is a guarantee they won’t imbibe/ingest from a hidden stash en route.
After the private ambulance providers have been driven out of business by gov’t, unionized EMS services (fire depts), then EVERYONE in the city or county gets to pay a share for whomever utilizes the service, even if they themselves don’t. Then when each “Medic” unit’s costs are going from $500K/year to $1 million/year, the gov’t. unit finds out that it can’t afford it anymore and start charging for the services, same as the ‘private’ providers were doing before. Then they find that all the welfare recipients, homeless drunks and druggies that they have to treat and haul repeatedly and constantly but don’t get any payment/reimbursement from gov’t insurers or private insurance, they start adding the ambulance bill to the local gov’t utility bill, like water or sewer or power.
Don’t have the money to pay the inflated utility bill? Tough. Then it’s the gov’t. holding the gun to your head to collect, put tax liens on your property, etc. In other words, use every gov’t power to hold the gun to your head to take your money or your property.
‘Course, if the local gov’t hadn’t tried to take over the EMS/healthcare and put the evil, profit driven ambulances out of business by gov’t subsidized competition and onerous ‘licensing’ regulations, there would be an alternative. But killing off private enterprise all under the guise of being oh-so-concerned about the health and well being of everyone from cradle to grave is what creeping gov’t socialism does. Then someone looks back and finds out that maybe it wasn’t really that bad to have the private sector working and healthy. At least then, if you used the ambulance service, you had to pay. But you didn’t have to pay for everyone else’s use of it also.
Up until 20-25 or so years ago, when local fire depts started taking over EMS, the fire dept was the only gov’t agency that put money back in the pocket of taxpayers. Once they took over the EMS field and drove the private providers out of business - or relegated them to routine ‘pack jobs’ between nursing homes and hospitals only - they had to start sucking tax money through EMS levies and the like. They quickly found out that it’s EXPENSIVE to provide EMS and that private providers can do it better and less costly than any gov’t can. But by then it’s too late to turn back, so those taxes keep on rising. When they can’t get enough tax money, then they bill the user and use the force of gov’t to collect.
What the bill recipients in this story don’t realize is that the cost is in “waiting to be called”, not being called. And how would they like it if the bill was from the local gov’t and if they didn’t pay it, they’d lose their property? All they have to do is wait a bit, and they’ll have the opportunity to experience that pleasure the way things are going.
Don’t have the money to pay the inflated utility bill?
~~~
Around here we get stuck for $10.00 per month on the water
bill to pay for the deadbeats no matter what coverage we
already pay for...
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