Posted on 06/23/2008 8:34:39 AM PDT by vimto
My lad is in America waiting for a visa to live there and marry a lovely American lass. He was taken ill and went to hospital where an appendectomy was performed. The bill is $28,000 minimum. We think he has medical cover but we don't know the datils ...is ths figure about right? Anyone out there with any advice?
Hit a nerve? Are you a doctor?
I don’t care what kind of excues you come up with, it wasn’t worth $9000. I mentioned nothing about anyone else paying for it. I think I should pay for it.
We just had our local hospital flooded out. Now the hospital officials are on the media saying the public has to come up with $2 million before they will open up the emergency services. Sounds like extortion to me.
And don’t bother responding to me, Im done with you already.
Thailand?
Hospitals generally get about half (sometimes less) from insurance companies than what they bill individuals. They say it is because the insurance company will pay whereas hospitals typically only get a fraction of what what is billed to individuals.
Hospitals will negotiate but you get the best deals before the procedure.
Correction: you get the best deals if you tell them your name is Jose and give them a phony address.
Well, in a roundabout way the same is true over here. Seems like thsoe who work hard get milked the most. Wait till you get the price tag for what Obama intends to do to America. We will both be weeping in our beers!
“Don’t be so sure, you might be receiving an invoice. LOL”
Ha! I had to laugh at that. That is true! I got bills from doctors or whoever that I didn’t even see. Maybe they looked in the room and seen me. That’s the part about hospital bills that disgusts me.
You’re right.
When I’m unisured and self-pay, I get around a 40% discount on everything, office visits to births.
I have informed everyone I know that has no insurance that if they need to go to the hospital er for any reason......look them straight in the eye and tell them you are in the country illegally, no ss#, live at 1234 Main St. and phone number is whatever. Dare them to ask otherwise.
If everyone in the country started doing this the hospitals would be screaming for the free care to illegals to cease as they would all be going broke.
Pricing for various medical procedures in the USA by HCA http://www.hcahealthcare.com/CustomPage.asp?guidCustomContentID={C7403AAF-2EFC-4CC9-BEC9-3D5815D11C45}
When my wife-to-be came over here from England she bought travel insurance before she left. The policy she had was good for a year but they sell policies good for as little as a week or 2. Compared to getting sick they are a bargain, and she did get sick while she was over here. She went to a clinic, then had an allergic reaction to the medicine they gave her so she had to go back. Altogether the bills were about $2000, I had to pay them right away but her insurance company reimbursed me 100%. Hopefully your son bought insurance before he left or he’s about to learn a very expensive lesson.
I can't understand why. Virtually every American insurance carrier will cover emergency treatments overseas. My own carrier, Blue Cross, even waives a number of domestic requirements under emergency conditions when travelling. I think it would be wise to check with NHS and see what their requirements are. Your son has undoubtedly been paying through the nose for health care since he started working, and there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to get benefits simply because he got sick while travelling in a foreign country.
Per a Social Worker at the MA General Hospital, it is illegal to impersonate an Illegal Alien for the purpose of procuring free healthcare and I am not joking. Howver undet Canada’s “free” healthcare, a firned of mine who suffered severe pain in the lower abdomin while skiing in Qubec chose to go back to Vermont to be treated. Upon opening him up a healthy pink Appendix was observed. Hpwever, a strong smell of stool was detected. The perforated bowel was repaired and all was well. The attending surgeon who at the time was the VP of the AMA told him that if he had stayed in Canada the surgeon would have closed him up and sent him back for rediagnosis upon finding the healthy but useless organ. To wit, he would have died from Peritonitis.
Usually, you have insurance through your travel ticket.
He might be covered - so long as he has not exceeded his legal stay.
If you are paying cash, dispute the bill and point to specific line items that are egregious. They will settle for less. Maybe half, maybe a quarter.
This is absolutely not true! And if any hospital or clinic ever does it, that is against the law, so report them to the Federal Medicare program immediately!
There is a huge misnomer out there that hospitals charge different amounts to different people. They can not do that, unless they are not contracted Medicare providers. There is in the law, that every person must be charged the same amount. Where the confusion is, is that although they may not bill different amounts, they can collect different amounts.
If they accept Medicare, they have to accept Medicares fees. They also have the ability to negotiate fees with other insurances. So the end result is that the self pay patient is probably the only one that pays the full amount. The rest is written off.
I encourage every patient that has no insurance to go into the billing office of their physician or hospital, and ask if they would be willing to take the Medicare rate for their bill. Many places will, or at least will be willing to offer some other discount.
The dirty little secret is that the Federal government has made it illegal for the hospital to offer these deals without having the patient request it. You must ask for the help, because they can't give it without being asked, and documenting a "need" on the patients part. Starks laws dictate that a provider can not do anything to "entice" a patient to use their services, and one of the "enticements" is they can not offer to discount, or even write off a bill without being asked!
$28,000 is a bargain for an artificial appendix machine. I hope the hose isn’t too short.
American hospitals often charge more for patients who are not insured. There used to be a website that would negotiate lower rates for consumers, but it looks like they are no longer doing that. I don't know if there are others in this business.
Call the medical social worker at the attending hospital. If he is covered under your socialised medical in your country the first attempt will be to secure a chargeback against it. Failing that you have other options. There is one-time adult Medicaid, under EMTALA there should be rights for him, especially since you said he had a valid visa, right? Call the social worker. Hopefully they know the ins and outs. If that doesn’t work call DHS and if that fails the consulat. They will be able to get you the information you need to take care of the bill.
Okay, so I left a point out. EMTALA rigths... If he meets financial guidelines they should charge it off.
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