lansbury

Early September I slipped going from the house to the garage. Missed the 3 steps down into the garage and landed on the concrete floor.

Three weeks later my shoulder was still painful and I had loss of movement and strength in my left arm. So visit to doctor which resulted in 2 visits to an orthopedic surgeon, 1 visit to a neurologist, 2 MRIs, 1 set of x-rays, another visit to my doctor and 9 physiotherapy sessions. Seems all that determined I had tweaked a nerve and muscles in my neck where I had surgery previously. I had sort of guessed that myself.

So one silly accident cost my Medicare Advantage plan in round figures $8500 and me personally in co-pays $500.

MidAtlantic

Good example for those who say they will do without insurance for a while.

Rete

You didn't want to claim it under your house insurance?

RICH

For $9 grand you got confirmation that you hurt yourself falling over. Are you cured?

lansbury

It is. One slip was a costly accident.

That has a $1,000 deductible so I would have been worse off.

Just that. My doctor back in England would have said take some aspirin and come back in a couple of weeks if it still hurts. Cheaper and would have achieved the same result. Not yet cured still have restricted movement and less of strength in the arm but just using it improves it.

Hiro11

I was recently hit by a car on my bike. I wasn't badly injured but the police were worried about concussion. I had an ambulance ride to an ER, a "level 5" ER visit, three xrays and a brief doctor visit. This came to an absolute astounding $10K total. Particularly galling is that the hospital charged my insurance $600 for EACH xray. $1,800 of expense for ~10 minutes of work using technology invented a century ago. All to prove I had some deep bruises, torn muscles and a slight dislocation where my clavicle meets my sternum. Give. Me. A. F%^&*ng. Break.

We weren't done yet. Oh no. A followup doctor appointment for a referral to a follow up orthopedist (both totaling an incremental ~$600 in cost) resulted in a recommendation for an MRI. The MRI required insurance pre-approval and would have cost an increment $3K.

At this point, 6 weeks later, my shoulder is feeling a bit better if still sore. I have some minor muscular pain and tightness when raising my arm over my head but nothing worse than I've had from overtraining back when I was a competitive swimmer. I'm able to do 60 mile bike rides without any pain, carry heavy weight with my left arm etc. I was so fed up with the cost that I didn't do the MRI. I'm doing some rotator cuff PT I learned from previous sports injuries and I'll likely be fine in a few more weeks.

This whole episode was completely ridiculous. I had a relatively minor shoulder injury and a tight IT band in my left leg for a few weeks and it resulted in almost $15K worth of expense. The hospital and doctors offices I visited were all appointed like luxury hotels. All offices were teaming with smiling highly paid professionals in beautiful clothing, a Rolex on every wrist. I received numerous beautiful custom printed and bound materials indicating what they had done, next steps and recommended additional appointments. It was ABSURDLY over the top.

This is one of numerous examples of my health care costs being out of control. For example, a few years ago I had a bloodtest after running a marathon that resulted in wacky results and $5K worth of worthless tests to prove I'm fine and that you shouldn't run bloodtests within a few days of the patient running a marathon. My daughter injured her shoulder (fairly seriously but not catastrophically) and it resulted in ~$30K worth of surgery and care. Etc. I'm an employee of a large company, I make a good income and I am lucky enough to have gold plated, low deductible and extremely comprehensive insurance. My out of pocket was maybe $500 for the entire "hit by a blind driver" experience. As such, I had little motivation to question if any of this was necessary and the medical professionals had every reason the pile on the charges and tests. It's clear to me that something is wrong with incentives in healthcare in the US. We need to fix it. We need to reduce the cost of care. My entire experience was infuriatingly wasteful and frankly disturbing.

mrken30

Thank goodness you did not have a high deductible plan. Friend of ours just had a baby. They called before the baby and were told it was going to be around $1000. After the baby they got a bill for just over $1000. 2 months later they got a bill for over $6000, the insurers reply, was that they had made a mistake with the first bill.

anotherlimey

Amateur numbers.

One machete accident cost my insurer over $30k. That included time in ICU for what was an inch and a half cut.

mrken30

Did that happen when filming for the walking dead?

joto

DH was taken into hospital last week, and got all sorts of MRI and CAT scans and a few days in hospital, so we're dreading the bills, even with insurance.

lansbury

Hope he is doing OK and nothing too serious.

I was lucky with my 2 MRIs. Thought my co-pay was either 20% or 50% but when the bill came in both MRIs cost $1740 and my co-pay for each was $49.95.

Rete

Are there medicare supplemental healthcare plans with high deductibles?

Hiro11

Yeah. I pay through the nose for it (even after employer subsidies), but at least I have the comfort of knowing my out of pocket will be reasonable. Still, IMO that's part of the problem. Perhaps if patients like me were confronted with ~$15K bills for minor injuries, we'd be more proactive about demanding evidence that care was necessary, cross-shopping, negotiating cost of care etc. Today we have the worst of all worlds: astronomical costs, no incentive for consumers (meaning me) to be efficient and heavy incentives for doctors based on quantity of care rather than care outcomes. All of it is further larded by employer subsidies and governmental subsidies. Everything seems designed to drive costs ever higher, driving healthcare increasingly out of reach for those who can't afford it. Messed up.

MidAtlantic

High deductible plans go some way towards that. It creates far more awareness of costs. High deductible, with much lower premiums and combined with an HSA, is still a very good alternative.

petitefrancaise

oh yeah, I saw this the other day, which looks like it could be a very useful tool for finding out medical costs.
https://amino.com/