Emergency Room Visit - Can Anyone Justify This?

[JiveTurkey]

Okay, I'll keep it short and sweet.

I visit the emergency room with a severely abscessed tooth. Just looking for a few pain killers and hopefully a shot of penicillin.

I wait in lobby for 30 minutes.

Go back to see doctor.

Doctor says:

"Open your mouth for me..." (whips out the pen light and inspects the tooth for about 10 seconds"

says

"Your tooth is very decayed." (really?)

touches my head and says

"You are a little warm." (infection and fever?? really??)

hey walks away

writes me a prescription for 10 lortab.

has nurse give me a shot of something (still not sure what but I think it was an anti-inflammatory)

I am discharged after a 10 minute visit with the doctor.



My bill: $579.12



Anyone?

[Alessandra]

mine was 900 for several nebulizers, a chest xray...and me sitting and feeling like I was dying for 2-3 hours. =\

condition?

Bronchitis.

with Allergy induced asthma.

[theeindiee]

i went to the emergency room once and they didn't do shit. I'm still in pain. You're lucky. My bill was 2000 some dollars. Yep... by the people, for the people... the rich people. Everyone else can just die, Jive. Are you rich? If not, then you can just die... but they'll be real polite while you die slowly in agony. "Everything's fine. Everything's fine. Everything's fine."

[theeindiee]

I just didn't pay it. They're not gunna do anything except harass you.

[theeindiee]

I mean.... how can they enforce someone to pay when they have no money and they come in for help? They CAN'T! All they can do is harass you and send you bills every week.

[Alessandra]

yeah I still owe my 900.... lol

[theeindiee]

Call the police! A poor dying person didn't pay their extravagant medical bills for being treated like shit. If we're consumers, we have the right to a refund if the product doesn't meet our expectations. It seems as though the alcoholic depression that many doctors face as a result of seeing dying people all the time MIGHT JUST BE KARMA RELATED.... PERHAPS!?!?!?! Oh yeah they have got it so rough.
I feel bad for the nurses and the assistants who actually CARE for the patients and are underpaid as shit.

[theeindiee]

Is SCRUBS and E.R. supposed to be propaganda that shows all doctors and hospitals as empathetic and lovable? Short answer... DEFINITELY. I've never seen any doctors that enthusiastic about what they do. Some may be genuine people... and that's too bad they got suckered into such a shitpit with a horrible reputation of fucking poor sick and dying people over.

[JiveTurkey]

I wouldn't mind paying the bill if it was reasonable but damn.....that equals out to $3472 an hour for doing NOTHING but stating the obvious.

How the hell is that shit even close to reasonable? Does making these emergency room docs "independent contractors" give them to right to just throw out whatever number they choose?

I can even understand doctors charging a high fee to help them offset the cost of their education...but DAMN....almost $3500 an hour for them not doing anything at all but scribbling some chicken scratch on a piece of paper and telling me to open my mouth for a second?

Hell, I could have someone killed for less than that. Or I could just get 10 decent hookers and have them tell me to open my mouth while performing an around the world on me and still have some money to spare just in case I decide to get some "freaky" sex as well.

[lala]

Far out we don't have that here. . . hospital is free. . . doctors about $20 for kids and $33-$45 for adults depending on weather you have a health care card [low wage earner] and pay for script on top but if you have a card they try and sort the cheapest out for you. . . . and if your always getting medication after the 20th script they will ajust your benifit to cover and refund you. a
As I'm just going through that with my down brothers scripts, the chemist guy said that we will get it all back and if I have any problems he'll sort it. . . . shit that just insane . . . Start garglering h2o2 . . . 3% it will help its cheap I've been doing it on and off for 6 months now still no cold . . . . still alive ha ha ha . . . Just have to find 35% food grade, water down with pure water 11 to 1 . . . . when you first start to gargle try half and half with boil/water so you won't think your foaming at the mouth . . . :D

[theeindiee]

Well the medical establishment has people killed daily: anesthetics, mercury laden innoculations, chemotherapy, dangerous pharmaceutical perscriptions, MIXING dangerous pharmaceutical perscriptions, neglect, letting people die who are uninsured while treating the well insured, umm... I'm probably forgetting another. AH! Hospital food...

isn't h2o2 .... shit my brain just farted. Had it and lost it.

[theeindiee]

Hydrogen peroxide

[Ducky]

Okay, I'll keep it short and sweet.

I visit the emergency room with a severely abscessed tooth. Just looking for a few pain killers and hopefully a shot of penicillin.

I wait in lobby for 30 minutes.

Go back to see doctor.

Doctor says:

"Open your mouth for me..." (whips out the pen light and inspects the tooth for about 10 seconds"

says

"Your tooth is very decayed." (really?)

touches my head and says

"You are a little warm." (infection and fever?? really??)

hey walks away

writes me a prescription for 10 lortab.

has nurse give me a shot of something (still not sure what but I think it was an anti-inflammatory)

I am discharged after a 10 minute visit with the doctor.



My bill: $579.12



Anyone?

What the fuck?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

That's a hefty bill.

Inquiry?

Why didn't you see a dentist in the first place before any doctor? What would the dentist charge?

[Ducky]

It's obviously different up here in Canada than down there in the U.S.

That's why I asked the question.

[skunk]

If you don't have great insurance, you get fucked by those asshats.

[Ducky]

If you don't have great insurance, you get fucked by those asshats.

So in other words, if one doesn't have INSURANCE then the best one can expect, is to visit an 'out-patients' or 'emergency clinic'?

Jesus H.

Knowing what little I know of the U.S. medical system, even one visit can be so goddamn costly. Holy fuck.

[JiveTurkey]

Okay, I'll keep it short and sweet.

I visit the emergency room with a severely abscessed tooth. Just looking for a few pain killers and hopefully a shot of penicillin.

I wait in lobby for 30 minutes.

Go back to see doctor.

Doctor says:

"Open your mouth for me..." (whips out the pen light and inspects the tooth for about 10 seconds"

says

"Your tooth is very decayed." (really?)

touches my head and says

"You are a little warm." (infection and fever?? really??)

hey walks away

writes me a prescription for 10 lortab.

has nurse give me a shot of something (still not sure what but I think it was an anti-inflammatory)

I am discharged after a 10 minute visit with the doctor.



My bill: $579.12



Anyone?

What the fuck?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

That's a hefty bill.

Inquiry?

Why didn't you see a dentist in the first place before any doctor? What would the dentist charge?

Put it this way...

Extraction: $212
X-Ray: $175
Numbness: $25

Yet, the bill still comes out to around $700 for a simple extraction. (they call it all oral surgery around here now)

The other charges are listed as "other"

[lala]

Hydrogen peroxide

Thats the one, google it and put therapy on the end your be surprised at how many are using it . . . :D

[MBF]

I had a friend that was bitten by a rattlesnake. He went to the hospital and waited in the emergency room for over an hour before they told him that there was nothing they could do for him and he would have to go to another hospital.

[Bitchkoma]

Thank god for government hospitals here. I had a bike accident once and shattered my right big toe. Had to do an X-ray and shit. The doctor took the x-ray, put my big toe in a splint made of ice-cream sticks (or something that looks like it) and put it in a cast. He also gave me two of those typical medicine bottles worth of painkillers.

My bill: RM25.20

That's the price of two McValue meals.
The downside is I had to wait for two hours before they got to me because there was a horde of people in the ER.

[FancyFree]

wow that's insane. Here in canada we don't pay like that but there's a trade off......unless you're seriously dying or in midst of a heart attack it's ALMOST ALWAYS a 6-8 hour wait in emergency, at least, before u even see a dr. and then it's another couple hours for any sort of testing, ect. Just recently i was in the emergency and had been in there for over 9 hours, and all i needed after all the tests and diagnosis had been made was my prescription from the dr. so i could leave........well 2 hours later he still hadn't come back and i was sooooooooooo mad that i pulled out my iv myself and got dressed then got up to walk out, but luckily a nurse saw me and i told her that i wasn't waiting anymore and she could tell how mad i was, and so got the dr. back right away to give me my prescription and i left.

There really needs to be a middle ground between the two healthcare systems. I honestly wouldn't mind paying a DECENT amount if it meant being seen right away.

But then...to me, healthcare and education are necessities and they both shouldn't be either so expensive or unavailable to people who don't have money.

[Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

The problem is that the medical industry is all about exploiting people's health as a resource for profit. Which is why it's so fucked up in these greedy times. It's something that we need and they can charge you out the ass for. Don't like it? You can go ahead and die for all they care.

[hp]

Wraith, yep it's a money making business. The insurance companies launder the money and must do OK as they are getting screwed with overcharges. I just had an eye exam and got a 25% discount for paying before I left. So insurance billing must be 25% higher. The cost of some meds is a joke also.

Everything is about who can get rich by siphoning money from the average joe.

[Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

Yep.
But I have far less respect for those who plunder *understated* while claiming to care about you.

[apeci]

I can even understand doctors charging a high fee to help them offset the cost of their education...but DAMN....almost $3500 an hour for them not doing anything at all but scribbling some chicken scratch on a piece of paper and telling me to open my mouth for a second?

We have a socialist healthcare system. Other countries have gone ahead and concealed the inflated costs by stealing the money from people as a whole over the course of their lives so they never see the bill and instead live under the fantasy of free healthcare or dramatically reduced expenses.

Instead of refusing customers they know will not pay and are abusing their services, hospitals and doctors are forced to accept and treat them. Who pays for these deadbeats? We do, through higher prices. Those people that have posted in this thread that knowingly and willfully refuse to pay their medical bills, refuse to honor the agreement they made when they initiated the use of the services of another, they don't have to worry. The bill will get paid. By us. That $25 cottonball just became a $50 cottonball.

To rub salt on the wound, government courts continue to grant outrageous lawsuit settlements prompting doctors and hospitals to take out multimillion dollar insurance policies to protect themselves. Guess who pays for these settlements and policies? The customers... us.

Government controls and regulations are the single greatest factor in increasing costs and prices, in any industry. They exclude new competition, they maintain the status quo, and they harm both business and customer.

If you want affordable medicine, seek out a cash-only private practice. They don't deal with the insurance companies and all the government red tape bullshit. They often aren't members of the great medical mafia, the American Medical Association, so they haven't been forced to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars in union and licensing fees. But of course, as a result, they are under threat of having their door kicked in and a bullet lodged in their frontal lobe for daring to run a business the way they think it should be run. Let freedom ring and all that.

[skunk]

How do we have socialist health care apeci? Jesus christ its like the boy who cried wolf. We have a kleptocracy/corporatocracy if anything, not full blown socialism.

For fucks sake...

[GhostOfCaptSpaulding]

In the Cali county in which I reside if you're poor enough - and you can prove it - they'll pick up the cost of your medical care though their medically indigent program, provided you have everything done at the county regional medical center.

You just have to wade through *a lot* of red tape to qualify.

It's really saved my bacon when I've fallen on hard times and needed care.

BUT if you're not poor enough, like for instance; you have a job and a roof over your head, you're gonna pay.

One way or the other.

Don't ever use the ER unless it's a life or death situation; it's expensive as hell.

Apeci's got the right idea; use the cash clinics.

And Jive, try a baking soda and water rinse if you can't stomach the hydrogen peroxide...

[apeci]

How do we have socialist health care apeci? Jesus christ its like the boy who cried wolf. We have a kleptocracy/corporatocracy if anything, not full blown socialism.

The forced distribution of suffering is socialism.

[Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

And profiting off the suffering of others is capitalism.
I don't think mankind has found an ideology he can't corrupt should he decide to yet.

[apeci]

Corrupt capitalism isn't capitalism, so neener.

[Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

Neither is socialism the corruption you charge it with. :P

[apeci]

Corruption? I never said such things. Socialism is quite pure. It is crime by its nature.

[Bitchkoma]

I thought it's just a natural function of living in a tribe. Aren't we all living in (modern day) tribes called nations or states anyway?

[Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

Crime against what?
Individual greed?

[apeci]

Aren't we all living in (modern day) tribes called nations or states anyway?
That's what they'd have you believe.


Crime against what?
Individual greed?
Crime against everyone.

[Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

I think we may need to go ahead and disagree about that one Apeci.
Capitalism encourages division and greed.
I call both of those crimes.

[boycotteverything]

Okay, I'll keep it short and sweet.

I visit the emergency room with a severely abscessed tooth. Just looking for a few pain killers and hopefully a shot of penicillin.

I wait in lobby for 30 minutes.

Go back to see doctor.

Doctor says:

"Open your mouth for me..." (whips out the pen light and inspects the tooth for about 10 seconds"

says

"Your tooth is very decayed." (really?)Well just let me say, that God in all her wisdom, made one critical mistake. Teeth. If she had it to do over she's give us hardened gums like an iguana. or maybe she has a brother-in-law in the ER business. who can say...

touches my head and says

"You are a little warm." (infection and fever?? really??)

hey walks away

writes me a prescription for 10 lortab.

has nurse give me a shot of something (still not sure what but I think it was an anti-inflammatory)

I am discharged after a 10 minute visit with the doctor.



My bill: $579.12



Anyone?God in all her wisdom made one critical mistake. Teeth. If she had it to do over she'd have given us hardened gums, like an iguana. All I can think of is that she must have a brother-in-law in the ER business.

[boycotteverything]

Capitalism encourages division and greed.
I call both of those crimes.Well then- wouldn't that mean that most people in the Western world are criminals? Holy shit! Bring on the cops.

[Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

What amazes me is that you can't even grasp a simple concept BE.

Outside of your own inane out of left field bullshit I mean.

[boycotteverything]

ok, mr. watchman- what is a 'crime?'

I call both of those crimes.literally or figuratively? i'll cut you some slack here.

[Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

Ha.
Like I will waste my time explaining attempting to explain anything to you BE.
Given your gift at wanton misintrepretation and downright bullshit editting to suit what you want it to mean skills.
I think I'll go back to not bothering to look at your spew now.
Have a nice day.

[boycotteverything]

Have a nice day.thank ya. thank ya vurra much.