Posted on 12/03/2013 6:37:18 AM PST by Red in Blue PA
SAN FRANCISCO — With blood oozing from deep lacerations, the two patients arrived at California Pacific Medical Center’s tidy emergency room. Deepika Singh, 26, had gashed her knee at a backyard barbecue. Orla Roche, a rambunctious toddler on vacation with her family, had tumbled from a couch, splitting open her forehead on a table.
On a quiet Saturday in May, nurses in blue scrubs quickly ushered the two patients into treatment rooms. The wounds were cleaned, numbed and mended in under an hour. “It was great — they had good DVDs, the staff couldn’t have been nicer,” said Emer Duffy, Orla’s mother.
Then the bills arrived. Ms. Singh’s three stitches cost $2,229.11. Orla’s forehead was sealed with a dab of skin glue for $1,696. “When I first saw the charge, I said, ‘What could possibly have cost that much?’ ” recalled Ms. Singh. “They billed for everything, every pill.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
In other news, War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength!
My 2 year old daughter got a 1/2 inch deep cut on her forehead. Cost - $400. Treatment - Doctor applied superglue.
My 2 year old daughter later got a 1/2 inch deep cut on her cheek. Cost - $0. Treatment - I applied superglue.
California Pacific Medical Center is part of Sutter Health, a not-for-profit healthcare system. Their CEO, Pat Fry, was paid $4 million in salary and bonuses last year. The money for that has to come from somewhere.
Yup , stitches in the hand this summer.About 3 grand.Hospital charges the dr for the use of the room,nurse and tetanus shot.The Dr. that works for a sub contacting firm charges for the hand clean up and stitches done by a student who isn’t being paid she is in training,never saw a DR.
Its called double billing and total BS.
California asked for this. They asked for it because they freely allow non paying illegals into the state, they allow most any deadbeat unfettered emergency access to healthcare facilities, they encourage torts and mal practice suits, over regulate the medical industry and then proceed to tax, license, fee free enterprise to death.
I have no sympathy. Go sew those cuts up yourselves if you don’t like it.
Smart parent.
Oh yes and they were going to bill me all over again to remove the stitches.Did it myself.
Get the government out of the medical system and prices will drop up to 86%.
Yes some people in the medical industry make very good money. Usually they have studied for many many years and spent hundreds of thousands on their education and training.
They also work holidays, weekends, nights when other people are with their families.
On top of which the massive regulations for the healthcare industry are astounding. A few hundred thousand pages of various regulations which change constantly. Added on top of a legal system which makes it easy to sue them for any imagined infraction.
The wasted money isn’t in the healthcare system, its in the insurance companies.
We’ve destroyed any choice or natural cost-saving or free-market incentive in health care
Now all the sheep should begin bleating “SINGLE PAYER” right on cue
The main reason for high hospital costs in the United States, economists say, is fiscal, not medical: Hospitals are the most powerful players in a health care system that has little or no price regulation in the private market. …Price regulation is going to bring down costs? There is no regulatory environment with a bloated FDA and HHS breathing down your neck? Really?
Chelsea Manning, 22, a student, received bills for close to $3,000 for six stitches after she tripped running up a path. Insurers and patients negotiated lower prices, but those charges were a starting point. …This is not the “former” Bradley Manning, for the record.
So you think having all those skilled people just waiting for you to show up is cheap?
You could have waited and made an appointment with your doctor. Seen them in 2-3 days and only paid $50.
Medicaid has to be paid for. As usual, it comes out of our pockets.
By removing the person footing the bills even further away from the person providing the service?
LOL. Dr. Mom.
In 1961, although I had a good job, $5.00 was a lot of money.
Having watched them take out my appendix stitches a few years earlier, I bit the bullet and saved Five Bucks....
Obamacare is one plank of a real-life Directive 10-289.
It seems as though the effort to make health care “affordable” should have been applied to the front end of the rope - - the source of inflated health care costs. Instead, dear leader applied the effort (ha) to the opposite end, i.e. the cost of insurance to pay for the inflated cost of health care services. So it will be a never-ending cycle, the costs on both ends will continue to rise (did the ACA mention anything about increased premiums?). They think it’s expensive now, give it a couple of years - unless a miracle happens.
Look on the bright side, a stitch in time saves nine. So we saved $4,500.
“The wasted money isn’t in the healthcare system, its in the insurance companies.”
Ain’t that the truth!
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