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The bill for treating a gunshot wound: $21,000 for the first 35 minutes
The Chicago Tribune ^ | 7-21-17 | Jennifer Smith Richards, Annie Sweeney and Jason Meisner

Posted on 07/24/2017 6:05:17 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic

The charges started racking up the moment Annette Johnson arrived at Mount Sinai Hospital with a gunshot wound to her left forearm.

Doctors sliced open Johnson's arm and installed a $500 metal plate to shore up her shattered ulna, securing it with numerous bone screws that cost $246 apiece. There were morphine drips to quell pain, tetanus shots to prevent infection, blood screens and anesthesia.

Two years earlier in a different part of the city, Leo Leyva arrived at a North Side hospital with a gunshot wound to his back. His last memory before going under anesthesia was a nurse telling him they were going to take good care of him and to count up to 10.

As the 18-year-old drifted off, the emergency room team at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center went to work to save his life, starting IV lines and X-raying his chest and abdomen before performing an emergency surgery to remove the bullet and repair the damage.

For both Johnson and Leyva, just two of the thousands of gunshot victims in Chicago every year, the first hours and days of their hospital treatment were only the start of what would be costly recoveries that continue to this day.

Still, the bills for their initial treatment were staggering. In his first 35 minutes at the hospital, Leyva had racked up $21,521 in charges, and by the time he was released three weeks later the bill totaled more than $157,000. For Johnson, who spent barely 24 hours at Mount Sinai, the hospital charges approached $27,000.

(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: health; medicaid; medicare
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

And I promise you that they do. The whole system is horribly managed as well. BCBS too 10 months to issue a statement for lab work and an office visit last August. Of course they covered nothing since my deductible is $7500 a year. I wonder if the medicos are trying to get to that deductible in one office visit?


21 posted on 07/24/2017 6:57:40 AM PDT by Sequoyah101 (It feels like we have exchanged our dreams for survival. We just have a few days that don't suck.)
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To: b4me

There has to be a lot of ripoff going on, back in the fifties broken bones were common, on the school yard and off. I was fortunate not to break any but many of my classmates had breaks and simply had their break set and a cast made at the doctor’s office. I never heard stories about insurmountable bills and we would not hear it now had the government kept its “experts” out of medicine.


22 posted on 07/24/2017 6:57:52 AM PDT by RipSawyer
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To: BBB333

$21,000 in 35 minutes to save a persons life seems low...

***
I was thinking something similar.

And the story describes all of these procedures as though we are talking about something as simple as assembling the ingredients and then whipping up an omelette, something anyone can do with some inexpensive ingredients and equipment that has not been produced through exacting standards.


23 posted on 07/24/2017 6:57:52 AM PDT by Bigg Red (Vacate the chair! Ryan must go.)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Chicago

Year to Date
Shot & Killed: 369
Shot & Wounded: 1741
Total Shot: 2110
Total Homicides: 396

heyjackass.com


24 posted on 07/24/2017 6:58:15 AM PDT by KeyLargo
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

The hospitals have to publish not just their charges as billed, but also the actual amounts paid. Insurers negotiate discounts, and Medicare and Medicaid have set charges they pay. People who pay cash due to lack of insurance pay the most, which is to say that the poorest usually pay the most. The quickest reform would be to require hospitals to publish all their charges and payments and to charge cash customers no more than the Medicare or Medicaid payment rate, whichever is lowest.


25 posted on 07/24/2017 6:59:26 AM PDT by Rockingham
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To: Sequoyah101

“Why is it not criminal to sell screws for $242 each? “

They are made of Unobtainium, doncha know! Plus before they are used, they have to be blessed by the “rabbi’s” down at the USDA, “certified to be Halal” by the CDC, and get a “stamp of approval” from the VA for use on veterans! You see, the medical profession, knows better than the Air Force how to make “$150 hammers.”
Here you have screws that you get “screwed” using.


26 posted on 07/24/2017 7:00:01 AM PDT by vette6387
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To: afraidfortherepublic

“In our world of infinite wants but finite resources, there are only two ways to allocate any good or service: either through prices and the choices of millions of individuals, or through central government planning and political discretion. This choice is inexorable. Stripped of its romantic illusions, ObamaCare is really about who commands the country’s medical resources. . . .”

J. Regos /WSJ
Sadly gone.


27 posted on 07/24/2017 7:00:59 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT (GO TRUMP!)
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To: RipSawyer

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone break a bone in the last ten years that didn’t have titanium rods surgically inserted and numerous procedures stretching out months.

I also don’t know many women that have given birth in the last 10 years without a C Section performed either.


28 posted on 07/24/2017 7:02:16 AM PDT by The Toll
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To: SkyDancer

They probably see more GSWs than the MDs in Afghanistan.

http://graphics.chicagotribune.com/under-the-gun/2015/stories/ct-trauma-stroger-hospital-20150609-story/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/05/how-bad-is-the-gun-violence-in-chicago-navy-doctors-are-now-training-there/?utm_term=.6909d6ccea0e

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-hospitals-compassion-fatigue-gun-violence-met-20170421-story.html

http://bulletin.facs.org/2017/06/new-adult-trauma-center-on-chicagos-south-side-will-treat-violence-as-a-disease/


29 posted on 07/24/2017 7:02:43 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Some people consider government to be a necessary evil, others their personal Ponzi scheme.)
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To: Sequoyah101
Why is it not criminal to sell screws for $242 each?

Because each screw has to be inspected by a lawyer for five minutes.

30 posted on 07/24/2017 7:04:24 AM PDT by palmer (...if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive)
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To: Sequoyah101

Blue Cross and Blue Shield are a major part of the cost problem.
Their reimbursement is offered under UCR, “Usual, Customary and Reasonable.”
In other words, they will pay the highest rate and allow other doctors to move their fees up to match without pushback.


31 posted on 07/24/2017 7:06:36 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (Baseball players, gangsters and musicians are remembered. But journalists are forgotten.)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Skilled surgeons and skilled nurses and operating rooms and sterile procedures and medicines and an anesthesiologist......

Can’t imagine why that costs money

Oh and I forgot....dozens of Medicaid patients that one foots the bill for


32 posted on 07/24/2017 7:10:11 AM PDT by Nifster (I see puppy dogs in the clouds will parents sometimes foster first but not always)
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To: chris37

They charge those prices because they have to cover the cost of Medicaid patients

You can negotiate some but it won’t drop 70%


33 posted on 07/24/2017 7:11:41 AM PDT by Nifster (I see puppy dogs in the clouds will parents sometimes foster first but not always)
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To: Sequoyah101
I can't seem to find a price for this thing (clavicle repair kit) on line, but I suspect it's rather pricy.
34 posted on 07/24/2017 7:11:48 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: Sequoyah101

They are titanium for starters plus they have to be sterile packed and exactly to spec

The human body can’t use some off the shelf screw from OSH


35 posted on 07/24/2017 7:13:18 AM PDT by Nifster (I see puppy dogs in the clouds will parents sometimes foster first but not always)
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To: Nifster

That isn’t true, and yes it will.

I can show you my bill.

They charge those prices because the hospital admin needs her multi-million dollar salary.


36 posted on 07/24/2017 7:14:15 AM PDT by chris37 (Donald J. Trump, Tom Brady, The Patriots... American Destiny!)
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To: Sequoyah101

Well hotshot the types of medical treatment these folks received is pretty much indispensable.


37 posted on 07/24/2017 7:15:03 AM PDT by Nifster (I see puppy dogs in the clouds will parents sometimes foster first but not always)
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To: b4me

You do not have a clue. In fact infection from gun shot wounds would be life threatening...so would loss of blood

The things you cite are from ignorance. Large portion of charges are do to hospitals covering Medicaid patients for whom they are paid a pittance


38 posted on 07/24/2017 7:18:20 AM PDT by Nifster (I see puppy dogs in the clouds will parents sometimes foster first but not always)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
The good news is the Chicago trauma surgeons know how to treat gunshot wounds better than anybody.

Its like an urban M*A*S*H* unit.

39 posted on 07/24/2017 7:18:29 AM PDT by Don Corleone (.leave the gun, take the canolis, take it to the mattress.)
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To: chris37

The greed of lawyers, insurance companies and their lobby, Democrats and Republicans. ..in that order. There is nothing free market or sane about health care here.


40 posted on 07/24/2017 7:18:38 AM PDT by free_life (If you ask Jesus to forgive you and to save you, He will.)
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