Health Insurance 101: Gallbladders are Sexpensive.
I'm not naive enough to think medical bills don't get (s)expensive, but I'm also one of those people who have to experience it first to believe it. And as my good friends Ace of Base would say - I have now seen the sign baby! And it has surely opened up my eyes.Medical bills are indeed expensive. And I praise the Good Lord for providing us with enough health insurance to cover most of "the incident"! Especially before our rock star plan got downgraded a bit. As a guy, I never think anything's going to happen to ME. But now that there's a WE and I'm getting a little wiser (some may say due to marriage), it's now come to my attention that this stuff really IS important.
This "incident", if you recall, was the gallbladder removal of '08. Remember that? It took the doctors an entire week to figure out Mrs. Budgetsaresexy needed that thing pulled out before she jumped off a bridge - which incidentally occurred on voting day! Luckily we were able to sneak away and cast our opinions before the polls closed, but it was def. a close one. (although not as life threatening)
So last time I posted about this I had people guess how much the surgery would cost in the end. And the numbers were pretty scattered - We had some around $20k, some at $40k, and then others up in the $70k-$80k range. We actually even had one for $0! You Canadians out there now what I'm talking about ;) So now that we've cleared up some billing issues and finally received the last of the statements, here's what it all "cost":
- Inpatient services (3 nights/4days): $9,482.38
- TV charge (wtf?): $15.00
- Gallbladder surgery: $3,610.00
- Anesthesia: $1,504.00
- Emergency Room: $1,302.65
- Radiology: $980.00
- Labwork: $709.00
- X-Rays: $627.00
- Consultations: $325.00
- Outpatient Services: $197.39
- ------------------------------------
- TOTAL COST: $18,752.42
- ------------------------------------
- TOTAL AMOUNT WE PAID: $95
- ========================
If you're still around TightFistedMiser and Mr. Anonymous from my original post - you guys win the prize for the closest guess @ $17k! I would have liked to mail you the burnt off gallbladder for your winnings, but sadly I didn't think of it at the time ;) So instead, please accept our warmest thoughts & make sure you're staying healthy over there. I wouldn't wish hospitalization on anyone, not even this chode.
Labels: in the real world, insurance
posted by J. Money at
8:27 AM
14 Comments:
You know, I don't like to brag about this because I don't want to make people with worse plans feel bad, but Mr. 444 had a hernia he needed emergency surgery on right over the week of Halloween. He ended up in the surgical intensive care (he was OK! They were just being really careful due to some minor complications) and since it was a full week, I'm sure the bill was higher than what you tallied up; we didn't add it up like you did. But our cost:
$0. OK, maybe there was a $30 we had to pay - believe me, with a bill like that, when some department or other says send in just $35 after a list that totals umpteen thousand, you just send it in... we kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and it never did. So... his company must have gotten the best insurance - when you visit the dr. for routine purposes, it's going to be 30 bucks and you're going to pay a few dollars for Rx's too, but visit the surgical wing for a week and the bill is NADA. We were happy with that bill, needless to say.
I'm glad you guys didn't get reamed out by that bill.
Wow! That is ridiculous - I can understand the cost of the surgery and even maybe the Anesthesia... but the inpatient and emergency room service costs... considering hospital rooms are a far cry from the Ritz and the room service leaves a bit to be desired, it seems more than a bit overpriced for what you're getting.
It definitely attests to the importance of health insurance as well. Too bad the cost of health insurance is out of reach for so many people... Of course, I remember some promises from our President that we might have a solution to this problem on the horizon; although of course I'm not hearing as much about this now that he's in office...
I wonder if any of this would have been cheaper if you had paid in cash. I know some doctors do give discounts to non-insured patients who pay cash up front, but it seems like a lot of the fees wouldn't necessarily have been discountable in this situation.
Lucky you only paying that amount. Makes me wonder about your deductibles etc.
I had surgery too, not fun!!!
Got bills....less fun.
Glad to have insurance as what I paid compared to what was billed was a low amount.
If I were to have this problem with my insurance:
* ------------------------------------
* TOTAL COST: $18,752.42
* ------------------------------------
* TOTAL AMOUNT WE PAID: $2000
* ========================
I would hit the out of pocket maximum at $2000. :(
ug. i have fairly decent insurance and have to pay a little over $800 for a *just my portion* of a freakin' MRI.
good deal you got, though :)
Another day to be glad to be Canadian. (Hint: free health care, if you don't mind the wait!) My condolences on the loss of your GB, congrats on the new scar.
Oh yeah, we totally lucked out on this one...but i really just wanted to get the point across that it's VERY important to have health insurance "just in case". You never wake up and think - Hey! Today's a good day to get rid of my gallbladder! haha...plus, from being around the Mrs. throughout it all, it does NOT feel good. If only insurance would cover both the costs AND the pain ;)
@Coupon Artist - Yes, I'm fairly certain that if you were to pay cash that you could get a really good discount - at least for the charges associated with the doctors/surgeons themselves. We got billed from like 9 different places, all wanting their cut, so you'd just have to be up for negotiating all over the place :) But our surgeon did mention something about that, but as you mentioned then we'd have to pay out of our pocket instead of our health insurance.
@lulu - Nope, had absolutely no deductibles at that time. our insurance was *that good*. Now we have a lot more in place and it probably would have cost us at least around $2,000-$3,000 if not more. Needless to say we were grateful it occurred when it did!
That's some pretty good insurance you have, my bill would be a lot higher and we have decent coverage. I think the in patient co-pay is something like $500, I'm glad I've never had to find out!
Wow. I wish I had insurance like that. My surgery bills wee about $35k and I had to pay $2k out of pocket.
I feel your pain--I'm dealing with a COBRA issue right now on a cardiac cath for my husband. What a nightmare and sometimes, it seems like they want you to do it wrong so they don't have to pay.
Your gall bladder surgery was pretty cheap considering my guess was based on my cost in 1993.
On a side note when I tried to go to this post while at Panera Bread this site was blocked as pornography. I guess anything "sexy" is porn.
@Miss M - $500 copays suck for sure - i hope you never DO have to find out!
@Midwest Chick - $2k isn't that bad though :) But you're right, we got REALLY lucky in insurance at the time...
@Yo Prinzel - That's harsh, i'm sorry :( It's enough to deal w/ the medical problems themselves, but then to worry about the billing and all? It's sad.
@Tight Fisted Miser - You're the 3rd person to tell me that referencing Panera Bread! haha...sexy apparently doesn't fly at that place. which sucks not only for that reason, but that i can't ever blog from there either :( appreciate you coming back and leaving the comment!
Eighteen grand is not bad for gallbladder surgery. An appendectomy cost my insurance company something over $20,000 about three years ago. Cost to me: $75 for the emergency room, because they didn't officially keep me in the hospital 24 hours (wuz there that long but I couldn't prove it).
In both cases, though, the cost is cheap considering the alternative. If I'd been born a hundred years earlier, I would have died from acute appendicitis. Don't know if gall bladder problems are potentially fatal...but nothing that hurts that much could be good for you!
Wow, $75 ain't bad at all! 100 years ago we'd all be F'd for sure :) Yup the Gallbladder infection could def. be fatal from what the doctors told us....we actually tried to go home cuz we were so tired of being @ the hospital, but they basically said we'd be idiots to do so cuz it could rupture at any time and needed to be taken care of ASAP. Obviously we weren't going to tempt it ;)
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Back to Budgetsaresexy.com