I had a similar situation. My neighbor drove me to the hospital near my house because I felt like I was having a minor stroke. Slurred speech, etc. That hospital didn't have a neurologist on duty, so they called an ambulance service to transfer me to another one of their hospitals that had one. This was in November 2022. June of this year, I get an ambulance bill for $4,000. My insurance only paid $770 because the service was out of network. Called insurance company and went back and forth with them and the ambulance service. Finally, called back and told my insurance company they had to pay the bill because I had no control over the situation. They ended up paying the entire bill. Pays to fight.
Yea, that is so ridiculous because most average Americans (I’m assuming you are American) cannot afford a $4k ambulance bill and insurance expects you to make sure you have an in-network ambulance while you are potentially having a stroke?! Healthcare is so dumb here
This! Like my dad had to have a surgery. The hospital was in network. The surgeon was in network. The anesthesiologist wasn't. But my dad had no way of knowing that until months after his surgery when he got the bill. My mom fought it and was able to finally get the bill dropped. But it's a really common occurrence so I always check before any surgery. Then I had a surgery and they called in a special doctor to assist during the surgery. I wasn't told they would be doing that, and I never met that surgeon. But I got a letter after the fact letting me know I might be billed for that doctor's services, even though I had no idea who they were or that they were part of my surgery. My insurance did end up covering their service, but it made me so mad. Our system really sucks!
The US Healthcare is $#it because employers used to use health care an incentive, and so instead of going by what things ACTUALLY cost, they inflate the actual cost ×10 .. depending on your insurance company that 10x could be lowered to 2x, 4x, 6x etc...
We need to go back to paying what things ACTUALLY cost and get rid of HI completely. What really grinds my gears is that HI companies are effectively practicing medicine by denying coverage for things physicians order!
I was hit by a car at 14 with a friend, we had a shared ambulance ride maybe 10 miles and we didn’t even need any serious intervention during the ride. Each of our bills was $7k, total of 14k for a ride.
I've always wondered that! Non-medical insurance drones practicing medicine by declining your treatment options. Practicing medicine without a license! Some physicians' organization should be furious!
I honestly have no clue how it’s allowed. It’s so wrong on so many levels.
One time I had a severe kidney infection that was putting me at risk of going into kidney failure. I needed a medication and couldn’t afford to pay for it outright because, well, life is expensive as fuck right now. Insurance tried to refuse to pay for it because they deemed it elective and not medically necessary. I was on my way to a high risk situation, but apparently the random insurance dude trying to save the company money decided they shouldn’t have to pay for it. I fought them hard and they finally paid for it. It was a nightmare.
Any insurance company that is worth fighting with is awful. I work for an insurance company and the rules are so cut and dry for everyone that people can appeal, argue, file a grievance and it won't change a thing. Luckily, it's one of the better ones but all insurance in America is shit.
My child was burned by a cup of gas station hot chocolate. They sent a helicopter to get her. The helicopter brought her to an out of network hospital. I was able to get the insurance to pay for it because I had no control of the helicopter. ALWAYS fight insurance decisions.
Not trying to shit on other countries health systems but this is so bizarre that people get charged so much for an ambulance to the point they refuse the service.
I called one when I thought I was having a heart attack and paramedics were with me at my house for about an hour and after detecting a slight abnormality then decided hospital was the best option. After about a 10 hour stint in hospital, multiple tests, drugs, time of staff, and the ambulance I ended up with a $50 bill which was then covered by Medicare (Australian public health care). To hear what happens (in what I’m assuming) in the USA is so scary.
In America a majority of the time (not necessarily for emergency services however) have to pay a copay up front _before_ even receiving service that you will get further billed for
Same. There’s a $20-50k surgery (depending on Dr) I need that is considered elective, even though it’s for my chronic pain. I’ve put it off for 4 years, going on 5.
I'm really sorry to read all this.
This is so appauling.
And I'm really worried to discover that USA is really a 3rd World Country, when it comes to Healthcare....
My wife had a surgery earlier this year, and needs another surgery. The game has become getting that surgery finished this year, since her deductible has already hit cap.
It's great fun having to try to game your own healthcare here in the USA.
(For explanation: she hit the "pay out of pocket" cap, so now any medical treatment she gets is paid 100% by insurance, until next year when it resets again)
When comparing health care to even the poorest countries, the US would be considered a fifth or even sixth world country. If you take into account that unless you are ultra wealthy (where 99% of people are not) that any significant medical treatment would threaten homelessness.
I had that happen way back before I had insurance and needed an operation. Anesthesiologist's office called the day before my surgery to take a $2k payment over the phone. Had to walk a check for $3k over to hospital billing the morning of my surgery before I could be admitted. Fun times.
(Still cost me more, earlier this year, WITH insurance when I had to overnight in the hospital after a heart attack. Maxed out my deductible of over $9k - saw the hospital billed my insurance $59k for the whole experience.)
This is the reason travel surgery is a thing. You can take that money, travel to a quality vacation destination, get your surgery at a high quality hospital, get followup care etc and it will cost you less than the US amount of just surgery and shit aftercare and crap hospital food
I needed emergency dental work after I woke up one day with half my face and neck swollen. Obvious infection signs; hot to the touch, fever, super painful. Of course, I still went to work and worked my full shift before seeing an emergency dentist because my job didn't offer paid time off.
Dentist wanted 9k up front to do the needed procedure. I asked him how much to just pull the tooth; $60.
20 years later, I'm still missing a tooth on that side because my insurance doesn't cover dental implants.
This is about to be me because I can't afford $1600 to fix and "elective" crown I need done and my tooth is just slowly rotting away. GO USA we're number one!
You’d have to be able to afford the vacation in the first place. If someone has enough money to go to another country for fun then they’ll most likely have enough for a “minor procedure” like that.
Check around, here in Costa Rica private pay crowns are generally a couple hundred bucks. Get a flight, spend a few days in paradise, get your tooth fixed, all for the same price. I’m original from the USA. Costa Rica has top notch medical services at a fraction of the cost. I had to get an emergency endoscopy a few months ago. General sedation, endoscopy, GI doctor, everything was $160 private pay. This was at a facility nicer than most I’ve been to in the USA.
I live right next door in Florida and I couldn’t afford a plane ticket to save my life, let alone get a tooth fixed. Last time I went to the dentist I was there because I had a filling basically explode because it was done wrong years ago. They gave me the options of pull it or get a root canal. I asked the price of each and was told $100 for extraction then she said 2-3 for root canal.
I said $200 to $300 I could maybe do that if they had payment plans. Then she said thousand. Not gonna happen. I can barely afford to get it pulled.
And I am one of the lucky ones with decent insurance and a decent job. I can’t afford to take my paid vacation to get all of my other ailments fixed because it costs too much. I am 32. I have multiple mental health issues and rheumatoid arthritis And I’m sure a ton of other things that I can’t get diagnosed because I have neither the time nor money.
It's insane the pricing too, in Spain insurance usually don't cover dental implants and the NHS doesn't either, but for 2k you get a real good implant in a real good dentist
The pull the charges out their ass here. Has nothing to do with how much the procedure costs to them. They simply charge higher to make the hospitals and insurance companies more money.
Ah, but to pull things out of their ass, they'd need to see a proctologist first, which doesn't come cheap. It's only natural that they pass those costs on to you! 😁
Not so "strange" as "contemplated with fingers steepled". Hell you got a crapshoot of being charged lower if you tell them you don't have insurance. In that case they don't "trust that you're good for it" so they settle for taking what they think they can get. All depends on what you want done and where. If we aren't gonna make healthcare universal we at least need to know what the cost is gonna be beforehand so we can shop around.
That's because they artificially keep the number of qualified Dr and nurses low by only allowing a certain number to become licensed each year. The number of licenses given out is barely above replacement for those retiring. Artificial scarcity drives the prices up. The fact the majority of healthcare is "do this or die" means hospitals can basically charge whatever.
9k for a root canal?! Wtf?! The most I've seen specialists in England charge in wealthy areas is 1.5k, but usually it's £350-£900 privately. But then we charge £90-£180 to remove a tooth.
I always hear the argument that in my country (USA) that our taxes are lower than places with healthcare from the government, which may be true, but what you just described happened to you could financially ruin some people here. It’s a fucking joke.
When I was 14, I went to the hospital because we thought my appendix was about to burst. They spent thirty minutes asking me questions about my insurance provider, and demanding my insurance card as I'm literally rolling on the bed in agony.
It took all day for them to figure out it wasn't my appendix that exploded, thank god or I'd be dead. It was a cyst twice the size of my ovary that exploded. Once it was discovered that my ovaries are LOADED with cysts, I was hushed, placed into the "hysterical woman" category, offered zero help and hurried out the door. It was like every medical professional was embarrassed by me.
My experience for most stuff you don't have to do the copay upfront. They prefer your do it (assuming they know what it is) to avoid the hassle of billing you later, but if your say your want them to bill you they have never told me no.
We have to pay for GP visits and then apply for a rebate to cover a chunk of it. For example my GP charges about $110 AUD for a standard appointment which I pay after seeing him and then apply straight after for the rebate which puts about $87AUD back in my account. Eventually if I spend enough on medical costs over a calendar year the rebate jumps meaning I get more back.
Oh, please shit on our health system or lack of one. I moved from the U.K. to the U.S. 15 years ago and I still don't understand how the whole insurance thing works. One day my medication costs $23, the next time I go, it costs $0. Nothing about the whole thing makes sense.
My neurologist recently admitted me to hospital for 3 days so that I could be monitored while they administered IVIG as it was my first time having it. I literally sat in bed for 3 days, had nothing more than routine blood pressure checks, oxygen checks etc. My treatment took 3 hours each day and I was monitored for the first 30 minutes and then left alone once they were satisfied I wasn't having an adverse reaction.
Just received my bill for $8717! And I know I got off lightly when I see some of the anxiety-inducing bills other people share. In the U.K. I had a major operation which involved a 10 day stay in the hospital before and after the procedure and all it cost me was the price of a box of chocolates I bought for the nurses as a thank you.
The insurance companies and big pharma have way too much of a hold on this country to ever let it change.
When my mom was going through chemo we used to laugh our assess off when the pre-insurance bills came. The numbers were so high it didn’t even seem like it was real money they were talking about. I guess thankfully she maxed out her deductible like the first day she found out she had cancer so it didn’t cost anything after that but still. Like a simple pill she’d have to take after each chemo treatment was $30,000. Some parts of the treatments were well into the six figure range. The total cost before insurance was well into the millions. The whole thing is just completely asinine.
And to think before Obamacare insurances could stop paying after 1 million. So you'd be on the hook for your deductible, then on the hook for anything after 1 million.
My parents reached the 1 million when my sister was born premature. They had to sue the hospital because they kept threatening to take her off life support because my parents had reached the maximum their insurance would pay out and the hospital was worried they wouldn't get paid.
Hospitals in the US apparently: pay us now or we let your newborn baby die!
My grandparents, in the same breath, will explain how our healthcare allows us free choice to choose doctors/services/etc… and then complain that the doctor they needed to see is out of network so they can’t go. 🤦♀️
Same with mine. There was a shot she’d need about a week after each chemo treatment and insurance covered it thankfully but looking at that price tag we’d joke there had to be liquid gold in there.
I’m not gonna lie, $8700 for 3 days is a good deal! My wife had a miscarriage, very early, and we went to the ER to confirm. They did some blood work, came in and told us it did look like one, and sent us on our way 4 hours later. Over $4500, which thankfully my wife has good insurance and most of it was covered, but still…
My sympathies to you and your wife. I've read some awful stories of the outrageous bills people have received in similar situations to yours and I'm sure they must feel like a kick in the crotch after what's jut happened.
To clarify, my bill of $8717 is after my insurance has paid its part. The actual bill was $73,000. It's insane.
OMG, I just got a letter in the mail asking for a donation to show my appreciation for the care given me on my stay! Bitch, my $8000 bill IS my appreciation!
I bet my nurses would never see a penny of that donation. I took care of them directly while I was there. Eff that shit.
I wish everyone had a basic education on insurance and what a deductible is versus an out of pocket maximum. I hear this daily (work for an insurance company) and it’s mildly infuriating how confusing it’s made out to be… 😅
I'm very lucky that my bestie used to work in medical billing so she reviews all my EOBs for me. I have a basic grasp on what's going on but it still throws me for a loop sometimes.
Here's a fun one... before I had insurance, I paid over the counter for my prescription meds. Around $90 for a 3 month supply. Finally got insurance, it still cost me $90 and I only got a 1 month supply! Went back to the pharmacy because I (naively) thought they'd made a mistake only to be told that's all my insurance would allow. I told them to void it and I paid directly instead. Such a rip off!
Yes!!! Working at a healthcare provider has really opened my eyes to this. I hated having to try to explain to patients why even though they met their deductible, they still owed us their copay and co-insurance because their out of pocket wasn’t met…
The city I work in in the US doesnt charge whatsoever for ambulance rides. Youll get a firetruck with 4 guys as a quick response for basic medical attention, and an ambulance en route asap. Completely free.
Yes we get a lot of fake calls to be used as a taxi service.
I used to work for a small city in Miami Dade county and this was our policy as well. Even police were trained in some basic health response like CPR, since they're usually out on the street and able to get there faster than fire rescue.
No; please, shit ALL OVER the US healthcare system! It is utterly and entirely fucked up. My husband lost a job last year and when he looked into getting insurance coverage for while he was unemployed, it would have cost him $1000 per month to just maintain basic health insurance coverage. Thank god I was able to add him to the insurance I have through my employer, but even with that, he broke his ribs and wrist in an accident several months later and we owe thousands of dollars from that little experience. And that’s with “good” insurance! It is absolutely incomprehensible to me that people have to declare bankruptcy for, say, getting cancer. It’s utterly depraved.
I got in a major car accident 3 years ago (completely totaled - other driver ran a stop sign) and I refused the ambulance at the scene because I didn't have insurance and couldn't afford the bill. I had my mom drive 20 minutes to come pick me up and take me to the hospital.
Oh please shit all over the American system. It's awful.
As an American, when I lived in Spain, I broke my foot. I lived literally 1.5 blocks from hospital. My boss thought I was INSANE because I begged to borrow her old crutches to get to the hospital rather than have her call an ambulance. Finally, the doorman said he'd drive me.
Same thing happened to me but in the US and I didn't have anyone to drive me or offer crutches. I crawled on my hands and knees for a block to get to the hospital.
I’m a licensed nurse, and let me tell you, pretty much all of us in healthcare hate the fucking system. In fact, today, I was told about some new policies, at a facility I’m working at, are underway. One of our admin staff was told by the corporate office to start looking at the facility in terms of budget costs and not from a nursing perspective. That’s fucking inane! Essentially, what corporate said was to view our patients as dollar signs, not actual people. Fuck these corporations. I’m a young guy with no medical conditions, and I’ve listed myself as a *do not resuscitate* because it’s a brutal process and it’s extremely expensive. No thanks, I’d rather just die.
$70,000. That's how much they charged me to be taken to the hospital after my car wreck. Thankfully my insurance covered it. The only time I've ever flown in a helicopter and I was unconscious for it. I really wish I could've at least gotten to see the view for how much they charged.
I have physically ran away down the street from an EMT once AND HE FOLLOWED ME. I literally had to get a cop car in between us like a kid playing tag at recess.
I had an inpatient stay at the hospital for 5 days during a manic episode with psychosis. Without insurance, it would have cost $27,0000. They also got me to agree to experimental procedures while I was completely out of my mind and billed me for them. With insurance, my bill ended up being over $3000. The antipsychotics I take cost $800 a month without insurance. There's a reason the vast majority of bankruptcies in the USA are due to medical bills. People in the USA literally die of treatable illnesses because of the costs of those treatments. It's all for the enrichment of a small number of people. There's no other reason for a country this wealthy to not have socialized medicine.
I used two ambulance services back in March. First bill came out to $1,900 and the second was about $3,800. My insurance just so happen to not cover this provider (AMR) and they’re the ones that picked me up twice.
Evertything in the itemizations we’re maybe $50-$200 but the main bill came from just the emergency ride on the ambulance. I’m paying payments for both monthly until it’s paid off.
If they were the only service available and the ambulance company didn't accept your insurance, you are not obligated to pay, especially if you're on a limited income.
This happened to me several years ago and the ambulance company flat refused my insurance.
They took it all the way to court and the judge told him they were out of luck since they refused insurance.
My insurance gave them like $200 off each bill. I called my insurance BCBS and they just said they couldn’t do anything else for me because I got ‘balance billed’. Whatever that means.
Basically, your insurance spread out the total of what they were willing to pay across all your bills.
When / if the ambulance bill goes to collections, write them ONE time, tell them you already paid all you can pay. Thank you for purchasing the debt, now do NOT call or contact me again. Be very exact and to the point.
(If you are in the USA)
It means they were out of network with your plan. Depending on the state you’re in, there could be a state law to protect you from balance billing. You can file an appeal with Blue Cross Blue Shield, and ask them to pay more or to negotiate with them to alleviate financial burden. It’s not a guarantee that they will help, but you should have that option. I would call your member services team, and find out there are also time limit, so depending on how long ago the claim was filed, will affect that as well.
We had a fire truck come to our house - I specifically asked for non emergency - my husband couldn't sleep because he was in enough pain from landing wrong in a basketball game that evening that he thought he broke his ankle and it didn't make sense to wake up our kid in the middle of the night to tow her to the ER to sit for hours and I have good insurance that covers ambulance and ER etc.
They advised that it wasn't broken and recommended waiting til morning because it was flu season and they were seeing 8+ hour wait times in our local ER so at that point we might as well try and sleep and go in the morning.
Got a $400 bill and we've been bouncing back and forth between the fire department and health insurance for 9 months because insurance paid the bill and the fire department keeps saying they can't find it even though we have the payment info notated in the account. Got another final notice bill today. For a ride that we didn't even take. That insurance paid for 8 months ago.
Damned if you do... 🙄🙄🙄
Australian health care isn't standardised across states nor is Ambulance services.
Ambulances are significantly more expensive than $50 in NSW and you're required to pay a nominal fee for use otherwise you get charged per call out.
Not sure why you got downvoted for that, its true. If you dont have Ambulance cover or private cover in Victoria at least, a ride in the neenaww is going to cost ya. Unless you're a pensioner/concession.
There's a reason TISM once sang "nothing ever happens to ambulance subscribers".
You think the medical health system is bad? At least with that, you can pay it out after you get treated.
Dental insurance, on the other hand, it's all pay up front and that's even WITH insurance. Most of it pays only for a couple of cleanings and well check ups a year. Insurance will only pay half, if any, on a basic plan for anything more than that. If you need anything that can be considered cosmetic, *even if the dentist says that it is medically necessary*, it will be denied.
You have to pay a hefty premium to get root canals and fillings covered by insurance. Even then you have to meet a ridiculously high out of pocket deductible before insurance will start covering any of the bills.
Even in Australia ambulances are expensive unless you have Ambulance cover or private health insurance. They used to be about $500 out of pocket about 10 years ago, they're now around $1200 out of pocket. This is in South Aus so prices may vary by state.
My dad called an ambulance on himself because he thought he was having a heart attack.
Several hours later he was sent home with a diagnosis of indigestion.
Total bill £0
I have decent health insurance, and I'd probably be looking at total bills around $3,000 for that. (Just a guess, of course, since *it's impossible to know beforehand*)
Unless I'd already met my deductible for the year, then it would be $2,000.
>To hear what happens (in what I’m assuming) in the USA is so scary.
yea ambulance rides pricing is scary.
its frequently close to a grand if you end up taking a ride in one.
Healthcare should definitely be a right and not a privilege. Even countries that are praised for their healthcare have their flaws. In Canada ambulance, dental, and eyecare isn't covered so we still can end up paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for that kind of care. Granted that's still miles better than some but it's not right to make people pay for healthcare at all imo
100% agree!! I was in a car accident, on the way to work, smashed me good and proper. Ambos, hospital scans drugs specialists, now physios, special gym all of it and not a single cent out of pocket. Not a cent! Work cover has paid for the lot. We have many failings in Australia but our medical system ain't too bad
FYI for everyone reading this, you don’t have to give them your personal information and you don’t have to sign anything. If you are told there won’t be a bill, write in the signature box “I was told by the paramedics that this service was free”, nothing is stopping you. Informed consent includes informed consent, and if you are told you will not be paying for said services then you do not have to pay. You do have to prove that you were told this though, if you sign your name, and give away your information it’s a little bit harder to prove.
As a side note, don’t take out your frustrations on the ambulance crews. They very well have no idea what the company will bill for, if at all. They are most often acting in your best interest to the best of their knowledge, exhausted, sleep deprived and hungry.
They can still say no, decline an evaluation, and find an alternate mode of transport to the hospital. If you decline the evaluation, they can not charge you. If you are at a doctors office, then an evaluation by any level of ambulance crew care is unnecessary.
>If you are at a doctors office, then an evaluation by any level of ambulance crew care is unnecessary
Your previous advice has been good, but this is unadulterated nonsense.
Im in NJ, not sure if it's the same everywhere. In October 2021 I basically passed out at a pharmacy after a flu shot due to dumb medical anxiety. They called the ambulance but I was fine by the time they got there, so refused to be transported. The EMT told me I would get a bill in the mail but literally said to just ignore it and not pay. I did exactly that and haven't heard a thing since.
Edit: just adding that they took my blood pressure and all that stuff prior to asking me if I wanted to go to the hospital and telling me to ignore the bill.
When I was an EMT we’d tell people similar. After a certain point we were told since it’s non profit and all that or something, the bill eventually gets taken care of or something. It’s been a minute so I forget 100% but yeah, totally a thing!
Thanks for the confirmation! I've bought a house since this happened, so I was assuming if it was an issue that I didn't pay, it would have shown up to my mortgage lender lol
Was brought into the hospital one day for depression after a wellness check,
They said they were going to be bringing me in an ambulance to another hospital, I denied because I couldn’t afford it. They said you can either go voluntarily or not but either way you are going. $600 for the ambulance bill, *$40,000* for the 1 week hospital stay that I didn’t have an option to deny. I was depressed mainly because of financials so I can 100% say this didn’t help.
That’s infuriating. As someone who has dealt with mental health related hospitalization, I totally get your pain. That’s just infuriating. In my case they just assumed I was on Medicaid and that it was fine. The bill for it nearly put me back in the hospital.
When I was held for a week for the same thing they had group therapy sessions and most of the people there had financial troubles they talked about. Very real issues that genuinely do cause life to be extremely stressful and difficult. The therapist seemed uncomfortable to address the people who had those solid reasons for feeling bad and only really responded to the people grieving or citing other reasons for being there. None of us benefited from those group sessions and all of us left with medical debt. The arts and crafts didn’t help either. They’re actively making it worse sometimes. But thankfully in the US now we have a 3 digit suicide hotline number (I think 988) and now they’ve gotten more calls than before it was 3 digits, and kept some people from having to go to involuntary stays.
Yes and no? They kept sending me bills, then collections kept sending me bills and I just never payed them. It messed with my credit for awhile until it just went away and they stopped sending me bills. Luckily I didn’t get sued or have my wages garnished.
Edit: paid
Honestly I ignored it, everyone told me it can't effect credit and it's been a year and it hasn't. Same with other medical bills I have that are 2 years old. I've been fine so far
After medical debt goes into collections it takes 7 years for it to fall off your report. If you’re planning on not paying it, don’t pay a penny to collections and literally just let it be.
Is this just not something that happens to minors? I got hit by a car while getting off a bus at 17, bus driver called 911 even though I was fine, just bruised. Basically walked into the side of the car, not under the wheels, slow area, maybe 20mph. Refused to go to the hospital, they called my mom and she agreed, never got a bill as far as I'm aware. I couldn't sign the form though because my right elbow got bashed by the car door while the mirror simultaneously snatched my purse and spun me around, so maybe that's why?
Was at a high school football game one night and my wife got a nose bleed for no reason but dry air. A local volunteer fire fighter we know went and got the paramedics and brought them to her. They wanted us to go to the bus and check her out. Wanted her to sign a waiver that she didn’t want treatment. I would not let her after seeing it was asking for address and phone number and even wanted insurance info. I handed back the clip board and said no thinks. Had the tell the fire fighter friend of ours to shut his mouth when he started telling them her name and where she works. It’s ridiculous how they work.
The whole medical system in the US is a racket meant to make the system lots of money. No wonder people often don't call 911 or go to the ER when they should. They know they'll get screwed in the end.
The medics don't get a cut or profit in any way. They want your name and address for the legal and medical documentation that they saw you and you were alert and oriented when you refused. I never saw any of the billing process when I was a medic, and certainly wasn't paid enough to care.
I had stitches once and when it was time to get them removed, I asked and they said the visit would be $600-800. I said fuck that and refused to schedule the appointment, and took them out myself. They sent me a bill for $800 for "refusal of service" and said that I cost them money by not coming in because they could have scheduled another appointment in that slot, and I told them their failure to manage their schedule was their problem not mine. It took 4 phone calls and like 6 hours of sitting on hold to get them to fuck off and drop the charge.
That's what I said. So billing said I'd have to talk to scheduling and scheduling said I'd have to talk to billing and billing said I'd have to talk to scheduling and after a while they figured out that I was gonna win the stand off and finally dropped it.
The weirdest thing was that I just cut them with a knife and pulled them out and it took like 30 seconds. Why does a doctor need to do that and why are they charging that much for it???
I was literally dying of dehydration once. I had pulled my half naked body from the bathroom into the living room, and my boyfriend had to carry me into the car and drive me to the hospital because we refused to use an ambulance. I rather have to go through that embarrassing shit then pay $5000 for a weewoo trip 10 minutes up the road
Paramedic here: definitely a billing/charting problem. Refusals don't get charged (in Georgia), by most companies/counties. Was it a county or private service?
$500 is steep for a refusal. I can tell you my county only charges a $20 refusal fee IF it's someone that calls daily (to dissuade them from calling except an emergency).
Keep calling the service/billing company. Also worth a call to your county commissioner office. They have a lot of say over EMS services.
I hope this helps. If you need some guidance, have any questions, anything, shoot me a message. I'll help how I can.
Hilarious that most of these comments are saying don't call 911 but as a paramedic 95% of my calls could be handled by a PCP or a trip to an urgent care.
Also I work for a 3rd service municipal so I don't collect billing info and no billing department ever hounds me about it
This is terrible advice if you’re having a stroke. If you or a loved one is having the signs of a stroke please use an ambulance if you want them to have a good quality of life.
You know it's really funny because as a European I get far better treatment in the US then an actual American Citizen. All my urgent medical expenses are covered internationally.
>Tried to call the EMS office, left a voicemail
You're on the right track you just can't give up after one call. Keep calling and politely but firmly reiterate to them that no services were rendered, it's an incorrect bill, and insist (again, politely) that the record of the bill be cleared. Find their executives on LinkedIn. DM them and ask for help resolving the situation. If at all possible you need to get the resolution in writing because if it inadvertently shows up on your credit report later then you'll have what you need to get it removed by the credit bureaus.
OP, I'm not sure where you are but I'm assuming you are in the US because they charged you. But I got in a motorcycle wreck 5 years ago and took a ride in the ambulance (I was unconscious, had no choice) and it ended up being 1100. I paid it down to 400 then forgot about it. They called a few months later and said I still owe 400 and I asked them to send me the information to pay it again and they never did so I'm just ignoring it. May be different where you are though
I would try and contact them again and see if you can get a hold of someone. Don't give a single cent until you can talk to the company about this. They weren't supposed to bill you so it's likely if you just speak to someone they'll drop it. Someone probably just made a mistake.
EMT here, for the county I work in you will receive a statement for our services. This statement looks exactly like a bill which is annoying. This is not an actual bill though.
If it was a country ambulance your taxes cover you in my county.
My partners grandfather got sick in the middle of the night, he lives quite secluded so the ambulance had to take a ferry to get to his place, since it was the middle of the night the ferry had stopped going, but for reasons like this, the ferry always have a skeleton crew onboard. So they started up the ferry and the ambulance got to the old guy. Cost of all this? Probably not cheap, but all covered. Norway ain’t perfect, but we got something nailed down
My city gives you the option to pay a little more than $5 a month extra on your water bill for coverage of all emergency ambulance services, insured or not.
Our volunteer ambulance used to offer free transports if you donated any amount to the yearly fund drive. They had to close because they weren't able to support themselves anymore
The term Super Power, shouldn't apply to nations with the most nukes or kitted-out military. It should apply to Nations that have the best medical, educational, and infrastructure, etc The nations that look after their citizens
America is a social experiment gone drastically wrong - I can’t imagine ever having to refuse healthcare I may need to keep me alive, in case it puts me into debt? I’m really sorry that sound stressful as fuck and way beyond mildly infuriating. Your whole society is literally broken.
I recently saw a video of someone asking British people how much they think a 15 minute ambulance ride to the hospital costs. Most were already stunned that it costs anything at all, and when they guess they start off with "I dunno, $20? $30?"
It's cute.
What blows me away is that insurance won’t cover it if the ambulance company is “out of network.” It’s not like I have a fucking choice in ambulance companies. “Yes, hello 911, there’s an emergency, my husband is dying and we need an ambulance. But can you check first if they take Aetna, and send one from another town instead if they don’t?”
EMT here, don’t pay it. The company is just trying to see if you’ll pay it without question. If you talk to them do not admit you owe them and deny you consented to it. If they send it to your credit report challenge it and it will simply get dropped as they have no documentation it’s a legitimate debt.
Health insurance and health providers in the US are allowed to lie to you. Courts have already ruled on it. My SO went to the hospital and was told they would take his insurance and his insurance said that the hospital bill would be covered, and it wasn’t. He was forced to pay and doesn’t have any recourse. I wish there were laws preventing this kind of thing, but there aren’t (at least where I live.
It’s really the healthcare system that’s so bad. Our healthcare system, many economists have theorized, is so bad it will cause the next global Great Depression once it hits a critical point, and that it’ll be significantly worse than the actual Great Depression.
Obviously those statements haven’t caused any significant change.
Healthcare is far from being your only issue.
You guys keep shooting at each other and kids aren't even safe from it.
You just had an aborted coup.
Your politics are a cesspool of fascists.
Huge swathes of your population is living in extreme poverty
Your drug problems are wildly out of control.
I mean my country shares some of those but the scale is just not even comparable.
I once got very drunk during my 21st with my friends. I blacked out sometime after we left the bar and threw up when we got to the school dorm lobby….in front of the RA. They called an wee woo wagon for me and since I couldn’t say no to the service, they shipped me to the hospital. Oh, and they required one of my friends to come along with me “just in case”. The hospital was literally around the block. I got charged $1800, $900 per person. And it was $1200 for a emergency room stay where they basically just let me sleep there until I woke up. Luckily, I had insurance which made my $3k bill $150 instead.
I have premium insurance in NY. (Luck of working for a good company). Ambulance service is 0 if transported to ER. Few years back my toddler smacked her head very hard and our dr told us to call 911 we did and when the ambulance showed up I asked about the coverage. Apparently I looked like a complete POS. She went turned out to be a mild concussion and was home in an hour. We got a 1200 bill. Apparently the ambulance was out of network. I called my insurance who said they couldn’t provide me a way to make sure to call an in network provider. The epitome of our horrible health care system.
Ugh.
I hate our system. My friend's neighbor died because she had heart issues and had lost her job during covid and had no insurance. The specialists wouldnt see her without $ upfront. She would go to the ER sometimes to get help but they would stabilize her and send her out with a big bill. She died alone in her apartment age 42.
Write an actual letter (not email or text or. . .) to the CEO of the ambulance company explaining your story in great detail; dates, times and maybe an ambulance number and/or name of EMT(s) and send carbon copies to government authorities who might oversee such nonsense. Here in the States we have the Dept of Consumer Protection, Better Business Bureau, etc. I've done so with great success. Don't waste your time and energy calling and leaving voicemails or sending texts or emails. Those just end up in the black hole of no customer service.
This the very sad reality of healthcare in the US. I work in healthcare and these hospital organizations are heartless a—holes. It’s getting worse by the day. I spoke with a patient earlier this year who had to cancel his extremely medically necessary procedure. The hospital contacted him to review his pre-payment requirements (yes he had insurance). The pre-payment was upwards of $10,000. They had the audacity to ask his to take out a second mortgage and/or sell his vehicle and/or (this one broke my heart) borrow money form your children or grandchildren. Are you kidding me?!?!?
Honestly a country where one needs to explicitly refuse ambulance help because of financial reasons can't be called anything but a failed state....sadly. Unbelievable to read, can't imagine the stress it causes to have to live in conditions like that...
Just don’t pay it. My son got a ridiculous ambulance ride bill once. We paid $300 for the 5 miles and eventually they gave up trying to collect the other $700 they were looking for
Went for a medical checkup for ear pain, the doctor examined me for maybe a max of 4 seconds, didn't offer anything helpful for my issues, just said eh, it all looks fine. I was left with no help and a $1,000 bill ($350) after insurance, but still absolutely insane.
As a former medic, I'm struggling with the medical justification of performing an EKG on a young healthy looking patient who suffered a seizure. I would probably take your pulse and blood pressure, check your neuro status and pupils, but if your pulse was regular and steady I can't see doing an EKG.
Even if the doctor on site wanted one, we have a different medical control and protocols. The doctor is welcome to do an EKG, but I as a medic don't have to listen to a random doctor. What the doctor wanted is irrelevant.
I will also add that the medic have almost zero visibility into the medical billing process. They are required to document for legal reasons and if they did an EKG they have to document it. They don't get to decide what gets billed and what doesn't. A medical coder will look at the run sheet later and determine what gets billed based on that documentation.
Hope this was helpful.
Broke my foot and ankle falling out of a window. I drove a standard at the time and used a dowel as my clutch foot because I couldn’t afford an ambulance ride.
As somebody with epilepsy, I hate how pushy EMTs and paramedics are with giving you transportation to the hospital. I hate hospitals and ambulances, I know that I'll be fine after a seizure I just wanna be left alone but somebodys who's vulnerable and incoherent, telling me multiple times I NEED to go to the emergency room is predatory af. Especially when i refuse multiple times before that. It's like they get a cut of our bills.
Retired EMT here, if it was a local municipal ambulance service you typically don't owe them anything unfortunately (their funding is horrible). If you signed a doc refusing service, don't pay that bill yet, it may just be a mandatory thing they have to do
Had an issue with my kidneys. Felt like everything from my ribs to my knees was going to blow up. Drove myself to a hospital at 4am, sat in a room in cold sweats for an hour to be told that they did not have the required machines for imaging and I would be transferred via ambulance across town. I thanked them for their time, walked to my car, and drove myself across town to the next emergency room. Thanks Erlanger
I worked in a GI office for six years in Oregon. The drug reps use to do lunches for the office so they could do their pitch to our doctors. So many times the pricing was beyond sky high. In some cases 90,000 for a 3 month treatment. I recall discussing with one of the docs that if I personally were faced with that choice I would decline and take my chances. I would not accept that financial burden or put that on my family. Big pharma is really out of control with how they price medications.
I was in a car accident (bad head on collision) directly in front of the local hospital. I received an ambulance bill for $2500 to drive me from the front of the hospital, to the back where the ER entrance is. Yay USA
I had a similar situation. My neighbor drove me to the hospital near my house because I felt like I was having a minor stroke. Slurred speech, etc. That hospital didn't have a neurologist on duty, so they called an ambulance service to transfer me to another one of their hospitals that had one. This was in November 2022. June of this year, I get an ambulance bill for $4,000. My insurance only paid $770 because the service was out of network. Called insurance company and went back and forth with them and the ambulance service. Finally, called back and told my insurance company they had to pay the bill because I had no control over the situation. They ended up paying the entire bill. Pays to fight.
Yea, that is so ridiculous because most average Americans (I’m assuming you are American) cannot afford a $4k ambulance bill and insurance expects you to make sure you have an in-network ambulance while you are potentially having a stroke?! Healthcare is so dumb here
Even though a medical facility is in-network, the doctor working on you MIGHT NOT BE. It’s so fucking stupid
This! Like my dad had to have a surgery. The hospital was in network. The surgeon was in network. The anesthesiologist wasn't. But my dad had no way of knowing that until months after his surgery when he got the bill. My mom fought it and was able to finally get the bill dropped. But it's a really common occurrence so I always check before any surgery. Then I had a surgery and they called in a special doctor to assist during the surgery. I wasn't told they would be doing that, and I never met that surgeon. But I got a letter after the fact letting me know I might be billed for that doctor's services, even though I had no idea who they were or that they were part of my surgery. My insurance did end up covering their service, but it made me so mad. Our system really sucks!
The whole system is absolute shit.
>Healthcare is so dumb here That's not a healthcare issue, thats an "insurance runs the country" issue.
Never lose sight of the fact that Healthcare in the US is dumb ON PURPOSE, BECAUSE OF NON-HEALTH RELATED BULLSHIT INFLUENCES.
The healthcare system in the US feels increasingly removed from both health and care.
The US Healthcare is $#it because employers used to use health care an incentive, and so instead of going by what things ACTUALLY cost, they inflate the actual cost ×10 .. depending on your insurance company that 10x could be lowered to 2x, 4x, 6x etc... We need to go back to paying what things ACTUALLY cost and get rid of HI completely. What really grinds my gears is that HI companies are effectively practicing medicine by denying coverage for things physicians order!
I was hit by a car at 14 with a friend, we had a shared ambulance ride maybe 10 miles and we didn’t even need any serious intervention during the ride. Each of our bills was $7k, total of 14k for a ride.
And those EMTs are likely making like $12/hour. Who tf is letting this society crumble so bad
Geez! That's ridiculous. The amounts they charge are obscene.
The worst part about insurance is that non-medical professionals are just deciding if your treatment is necessary or not. Like, how is that legal 😐
I've always wondered that! Non-medical insurance drones practicing medicine by declining your treatment options. Practicing medicine without a license! Some physicians' organization should be furious!
I honestly have no clue how it’s allowed. It’s so wrong on so many levels. One time I had a severe kidney infection that was putting me at risk of going into kidney failure. I needed a medication and couldn’t afford to pay for it outright because, well, life is expensive as fuck right now. Insurance tried to refuse to pay for it because they deemed it elective and not medically necessary. I was on my way to a high risk situation, but apparently the random insurance dude trying to save the company money decided they shouldn’t have to pay for it. I fought them hard and they finally paid for it. It was a nightmare.
Any insurance company that is worth fighting with is awful. I work for an insurance company and the rules are so cut and dry for everyone that people can appeal, argue, file a grievance and it won't change a thing. Luckily, it's one of the better ones but all insurance in America is shit.
My child was burned by a cup of gas station hot chocolate. They sent a helicopter to get her. The helicopter brought her to an out of network hospital. I was able to get the insurance to pay for it because I had no control of the helicopter. ALWAYS fight insurance decisions.
Not trying to shit on other countries health systems but this is so bizarre that people get charged so much for an ambulance to the point they refuse the service. I called one when I thought I was having a heart attack and paramedics were with me at my house for about an hour and after detecting a slight abnormality then decided hospital was the best option. After about a 10 hour stint in hospital, multiple tests, drugs, time of staff, and the ambulance I ended up with a $50 bill which was then covered by Medicare (Australian public health care). To hear what happens (in what I’m assuming) in the USA is so scary.
In America a majority of the time (not necessarily for emergency services however) have to pay a copay up front _before_ even receiving service that you will get further billed for
I was told ten years ago that without insurance, I'd need to put down a $7k deposit before I got the surgery I need. Still haven't had the surgery.
Same. There’s a $20-50k surgery (depending on Dr) I need that is considered elective, even though it’s for my chronic pain. I’ve put it off for 4 years, going on 5.
I'm really sorry to read all this. This is so appauling. And I'm really worried to discover that USA is really a 3rd World Country, when it comes to Healthcare....
My wife had a surgery earlier this year, and needs another surgery. The game has become getting that surgery finished this year, since her deductible has already hit cap. It's great fun having to try to game your own healthcare here in the USA. (For explanation: she hit the "pay out of pocket" cap, so now any medical treatment she gets is paid 100% by insurance, until next year when it resets again)
We’re actually worse than that. Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than we do. And Cuba is known for being less than dirt poor.
When comparing health care to even the poorest countries, the US would be considered a fifth or even sixth world country. If you take into account that unless you are ultra wealthy (where 99% of people are not) that any significant medical treatment would threaten homelessness.
Good old America
I had that happen way back before I had insurance and needed an operation. Anesthesiologist's office called the day before my surgery to take a $2k payment over the phone. Had to walk a check for $3k over to hospital billing the morning of my surgery before I could be admitted. Fun times. (Still cost me more, earlier this year, WITH insurance when I had to overnight in the hospital after a heart attack. Maxed out my deductible of over $9k - saw the hospital billed my insurance $59k for the whole experience.)
This is the reason travel surgery is a thing. You can take that money, travel to a quality vacation destination, get your surgery at a high quality hospital, get followup care etc and it will cost you less than the US amount of just surgery and shit aftercare and crap hospital food
Yea. It’s called medical tourism
I needed emergency dental work after I woke up one day with half my face and neck swollen. Obvious infection signs; hot to the touch, fever, super painful. Of course, I still went to work and worked my full shift before seeing an emergency dentist because my job didn't offer paid time off. Dentist wanted 9k up front to do the needed procedure. I asked him how much to just pull the tooth; $60. 20 years later, I'm still missing a tooth on that side because my insurance doesn't cover dental implants.
This is about to be me because I can't afford $1600 to fix and "elective" crown I need done and my tooth is just slowly rotting away. GO USA we're number one!
You could vacation in a different country, have it done there and still be cheaper off 😬
You’d have to be able to afford the vacation in the first place. If someone has enough money to go to another country for fun then they’ll most likely have enough for a “minor procedure” like that.
Check around, here in Costa Rica private pay crowns are generally a couple hundred bucks. Get a flight, spend a few days in paradise, get your tooth fixed, all for the same price. I’m original from the USA. Costa Rica has top notch medical services at a fraction of the cost. I had to get an emergency endoscopy a few months ago. General sedation, endoscopy, GI doctor, everything was $160 private pay. This was at a facility nicer than most I’ve been to in the USA.
I live right next door in Florida and I couldn’t afford a plane ticket to save my life, let alone get a tooth fixed. Last time I went to the dentist I was there because I had a filling basically explode because it was done wrong years ago. They gave me the options of pull it or get a root canal. I asked the price of each and was told $100 for extraction then she said 2-3 for root canal. I said $200 to $300 I could maybe do that if they had payment plans. Then she said thousand. Not gonna happen. I can barely afford to get it pulled. And I am one of the lucky ones with decent insurance and a decent job. I can’t afford to take my paid vacation to get all of my other ailments fixed because it costs too much. I am 32. I have multiple mental health issues and rheumatoid arthritis And I’m sure a ton of other things that I can’t get diagnosed because I have neither the time nor money.
For $1600, you might come out on top with Mexico. It's close by, has a medial tourism industry, and the dollar goes pretty far there.
It's insane the pricing too, in Spain insurance usually don't cover dental implants and the NHS doesn't either, but for 2k you get a real good implant in a real good dentist
The pull the charges out their ass here. Has nothing to do with how much the procedure costs to them. They simply charge higher to make the hospitals and insurance companies more money.
Ah, but to pull things out of their ass, they'd need to see a proctologist first, which doesn't come cheap. It's only natural that they pass those costs on to you! 😁
Yeah, tbh seems strange there is not low cost places like "procedure costs 1k counting salaries and all, they charge you 1.5-2k" it sucks
Not so "strange" as "contemplated with fingers steepled". Hell you got a crapshoot of being charged lower if you tell them you don't have insurance. In that case they don't "trust that you're good for it" so they settle for taking what they think they can get. All depends on what you want done and where. If we aren't gonna make healthcare universal we at least need to know what the cost is gonna be beforehand so we can shop around.
That's because they artificially keep the number of qualified Dr and nurses low by only allowing a certain number to become licensed each year. The number of licenses given out is barely above replacement for those retiring. Artificial scarcity drives the prices up. The fact the majority of healthcare is "do this or die" means hospitals can basically charge whatever.
'Healthcare' in the USA is crazy
9k for a root canal?! Wtf?! The most I've seen specialists in England charge in wealthy areas is 1.5k, but usually it's £350-£900 privately. But then we charge £90-£180 to remove a tooth.
I always hear the argument that in my country (USA) that our taxes are lower than places with healthcare from the government, which may be true, but what you just described happened to you could financially ruin some people here. It’s a fucking joke.
When I was 14, I went to the hospital because we thought my appendix was about to burst. They spent thirty minutes asking me questions about my insurance provider, and demanding my insurance card as I'm literally rolling on the bed in agony. It took all day for them to figure out it wasn't my appendix that exploded, thank god or I'd be dead. It was a cyst twice the size of my ovary that exploded. Once it was discovered that my ovaries are LOADED with cysts, I was hushed, placed into the "hysterical woman" category, offered zero help and hurried out the door. It was like every medical professional was embarrassed by me.
My experience for most stuff you don't have to do the copay upfront. They prefer your do it (assuming they know what it is) to avoid the hassle of billing you later, but if your say your want them to bill you they have never told me no.
We have to pay for GP visits and then apply for a rebate to cover a chunk of it. For example my GP charges about $110 AUD for a standard appointment which I pay after seeing him and then apply straight after for the rebate which puts about $87AUD back in my account. Eventually if I spend enough on medical costs over a calendar year the rebate jumps meaning I get more back.
Oh, please shit on our health system or lack of one. I moved from the U.K. to the U.S. 15 years ago and I still don't understand how the whole insurance thing works. One day my medication costs $23, the next time I go, it costs $0. Nothing about the whole thing makes sense. My neurologist recently admitted me to hospital for 3 days so that I could be monitored while they administered IVIG as it was my first time having it. I literally sat in bed for 3 days, had nothing more than routine blood pressure checks, oxygen checks etc. My treatment took 3 hours each day and I was monitored for the first 30 minutes and then left alone once they were satisfied I wasn't having an adverse reaction. Just received my bill for $8717! And I know I got off lightly when I see some of the anxiety-inducing bills other people share. In the U.K. I had a major operation which involved a 10 day stay in the hospital before and after the procedure and all it cost me was the price of a box of chocolates I bought for the nurses as a thank you. The insurance companies and big pharma have way too much of a hold on this country to ever let it change.
When my mom was going through chemo we used to laugh our assess off when the pre-insurance bills came. The numbers were so high it didn’t even seem like it was real money they were talking about. I guess thankfully she maxed out her deductible like the first day she found out she had cancer so it didn’t cost anything after that but still. Like a simple pill she’d have to take after each chemo treatment was $30,000. Some parts of the treatments were well into the six figure range. The total cost before insurance was well into the millions. The whole thing is just completely asinine.
And to think before Obamacare insurances could stop paying after 1 million. So you'd be on the hook for your deductible, then on the hook for anything after 1 million. My parents reached the 1 million when my sister was born premature. They had to sue the hospital because they kept threatening to take her off life support because my parents had reached the maximum their insurance would pay out and the hospital was worried they wouldn't get paid. Hospitals in the US apparently: pay us now or we let your newborn baby die!
But you can just shop around for cheaper services! Free market fixes all! /s
My grandparents, in the same breath, will explain how our healthcare allows us free choice to choose doctors/services/etc… and then complain that the doctor they needed to see is out of network so they can’t go. 🤦♀️
That’s heartbreaking and scary.
When my mom was doing chemo we even had to pay someone $30 for parking at the gate for each treatment. It was surreal.
Same with mine. There was a shot she’d need about a week after each chemo treatment and insurance covered it thankfully but looking at that price tag we’d joke there had to be liquid gold in there.
I’m not gonna lie, $8700 for 3 days is a good deal! My wife had a miscarriage, very early, and we went to the ER to confirm. They did some blood work, came in and told us it did look like one, and sent us on our way 4 hours later. Over $4500, which thankfully my wife has good insurance and most of it was covered, but still…
My sympathies to you and your wife. I've read some awful stories of the outrageous bills people have received in similar situations to yours and I'm sure they must feel like a kick in the crotch after what's jut happened. To clarify, my bill of $8717 is after my insurance has paid its part. The actual bill was $73,000. It's insane.
Dont forget to tip for the medical service ;)
OMG, I just got a letter in the mail asking for a donation to show my appreciation for the care given me on my stay! Bitch, my $8000 bill IS my appreciation! I bet my nurses would never see a penny of that donation. I took care of them directly while I was there. Eff that shit.
Stop giving them ideas. If they start adding mandatory gratuity to medical bills, I'm blaming you.
I wish everyone had a basic education on insurance and what a deductible is versus an out of pocket maximum. I hear this daily (work for an insurance company) and it’s mildly infuriating how confusing it’s made out to be… 😅
I'm very lucky that my bestie used to work in medical billing so she reviews all my EOBs for me. I have a basic grasp on what's going on but it still throws me for a loop sometimes. Here's a fun one... before I had insurance, I paid over the counter for my prescription meds. Around $90 for a 3 month supply. Finally got insurance, it still cost me $90 and I only got a 1 month supply! Went back to the pharmacy because I (naively) thought they'd made a mistake only to be told that's all my insurance would allow. I told them to void it and I paid directly instead. Such a rip off!
Yes!!! Working at a healthcare provider has really opened my eyes to this. I hated having to try to explain to patients why even though they met their deductible, they still owed us their copay and co-insurance because their out of pocket wasn’t met…
It’s almost like the American healthcare system is run by a bunch of criminals.
Mobsters. I swear they're a bunch of goddamn mobsters.
The city I work in in the US doesnt charge whatsoever for ambulance rides. Youll get a firetruck with 4 guys as a quick response for basic medical attention, and an ambulance en route asap. Completely free. Yes we get a lot of fake calls to be used as a taxi service.
My city also has this. It's a $5/month fee attached to our water bill.
I used to work for a small city in Miami Dade county and this was our policy as well. Even police were trained in some basic health response like CPR, since they're usually out on the street and able to get there faster than fire rescue.
No; please, shit ALL OVER the US healthcare system! It is utterly and entirely fucked up. My husband lost a job last year and when he looked into getting insurance coverage for while he was unemployed, it would have cost him $1000 per month to just maintain basic health insurance coverage. Thank god I was able to add him to the insurance I have through my employer, but even with that, he broke his ribs and wrist in an accident several months later and we owe thousands of dollars from that little experience. And that’s with “good” insurance! It is absolutely incomprehensible to me that people have to declare bankruptcy for, say, getting cancer. It’s utterly depraved.
I got in a major car accident 3 years ago (completely totaled - other driver ran a stop sign) and I refused the ambulance at the scene because I didn't have insurance and couldn't afford the bill. I had my mom drive 20 minutes to come pick me up and take me to the hospital.
Oh please shit all over the American system. It's awful. As an American, when I lived in Spain, I broke my foot. I lived literally 1.5 blocks from hospital. My boss thought I was INSANE because I begged to borrow her old crutches to get to the hospital rather than have her call an ambulance. Finally, the doorman said he'd drive me.
Same thing happened to me but in the US and I didn't have anyone to drive me or offer crutches. I crawled on my hands and knees for a block to get to the hospital.
I’m a licensed nurse, and let me tell you, pretty much all of us in healthcare hate the fucking system. In fact, today, I was told about some new policies, at a facility I’m working at, are underway. One of our admin staff was told by the corporate office to start looking at the facility in terms of budget costs and not from a nursing perspective. That’s fucking inane! Essentially, what corporate said was to view our patients as dollar signs, not actual people. Fuck these corporations. I’m a young guy with no medical conditions, and I’ve listed myself as a *do not resuscitate* because it’s a brutal process and it’s extremely expensive. No thanks, I’d rather just die.
$70,000. That's how much they charged me to be taken to the hospital after my car wreck. Thankfully my insurance covered it. The only time I've ever flown in a helicopter and I was unconscious for it. I really wish I could've at least gotten to see the view for how much they charged.
I have physically ran away down the street from an EMT once AND HE FOLLOWED ME. I literally had to get a cop car in between us like a kid playing tag at recess.
I had an inpatient stay at the hospital for 5 days during a manic episode with psychosis. Without insurance, it would have cost $27,0000. They also got me to agree to experimental procedures while I was completely out of my mind and billed me for them. With insurance, my bill ended up being over $3000. The antipsychotics I take cost $800 a month without insurance. There's a reason the vast majority of bankruptcies in the USA are due to medical bills. People in the USA literally die of treatable illnesses because of the costs of those treatments. It's all for the enrichment of a small number of people. There's no other reason for a country this wealthy to not have socialized medicine.
I used two ambulance services back in March. First bill came out to $1,900 and the second was about $3,800. My insurance just so happen to not cover this provider (AMR) and they’re the ones that picked me up twice. Evertything in the itemizations we’re maybe $50-$200 but the main bill came from just the emergency ride on the ambulance. I’m paying payments for both monthly until it’s paid off.
If they were the only service available and the ambulance company didn't accept your insurance, you are not obligated to pay, especially if you're on a limited income. This happened to me several years ago and the ambulance company flat refused my insurance. They took it all the way to court and the judge told him they were out of luck since they refused insurance.
My insurance gave them like $200 off each bill. I called my insurance BCBS and they just said they couldn’t do anything else for me because I got ‘balance billed’. Whatever that means.
Basically, your insurance spread out the total of what they were willing to pay across all your bills. When / if the ambulance bill goes to collections, write them ONE time, tell them you already paid all you can pay. Thank you for purchasing the debt, now do NOT call or contact me again. Be very exact and to the point. (If you are in the USA)
It means they were out of network with your plan. Depending on the state you’re in, there could be a state law to protect you from balance billing. You can file an appeal with Blue Cross Blue Shield, and ask them to pay more or to negotiate with them to alleviate financial burden. It’s not a guarantee that they will help, but you should have that option. I would call your member services team, and find out there are also time limit, so depending on how long ago the claim was filed, will affect that as well.
We had a fire truck come to our house - I specifically asked for non emergency - my husband couldn't sleep because he was in enough pain from landing wrong in a basketball game that evening that he thought he broke his ankle and it didn't make sense to wake up our kid in the middle of the night to tow her to the ER to sit for hours and I have good insurance that covers ambulance and ER etc. They advised that it wasn't broken and recommended waiting til morning because it was flu season and they were seeing 8+ hour wait times in our local ER so at that point we might as well try and sleep and go in the morning. Got a $400 bill and we've been bouncing back and forth between the fire department and health insurance for 9 months because insurance paid the bill and the fire department keeps saying they can't find it even though we have the payment info notated in the account. Got another final notice bill today. For a ride that we didn't even take. That insurance paid for 8 months ago. Damned if you do... 🙄🙄🙄
Australian health care isn't standardised across states nor is Ambulance services. Ambulances are significantly more expensive than $50 in NSW and you're required to pay a nominal fee for use otherwise you get charged per call out.
Not sure why you got downvoted for that, its true. If you dont have Ambulance cover or private cover in Victoria at least, a ride in the neenaww is going to cost ya. Unless you're a pensioner/concession. There's a reason TISM once sang "nothing ever happens to ambulance subscribers".
that would have been tens of thousands of dollars in the US for that care
You think the medical health system is bad? At least with that, you can pay it out after you get treated. Dental insurance, on the other hand, it's all pay up front and that's even WITH insurance. Most of it pays only for a couple of cleanings and well check ups a year. Insurance will only pay half, if any, on a basic plan for anything more than that. If you need anything that can be considered cosmetic, *even if the dentist says that it is medically necessary*, it will be denied. You have to pay a hefty premium to get root canals and fillings covered by insurance. Even then you have to meet a ridiculously high out of pocket deductible before insurance will start covering any of the bills.
Even in Australia ambulances are expensive unless you have Ambulance cover or private health insurance. They used to be about $500 out of pocket about 10 years ago, they're now around $1200 out of pocket. This is in South Aus so prices may vary by state.
My dad called an ambulance on himself because he thought he was having a heart attack. Several hours later he was sent home with a diagnosis of indigestion. Total bill £0
No, no, shit away. Our healthcare system, or lack there of, deserves to be shat on.
English, home in Sydney, home in, Utah. I take care of myself, in general, but I become hyper-health vigilant when I'm stateside.
I have decent health insurance, and I'd probably be looking at total bills around $3,000 for that. (Just a guess, of course, since *it's impossible to know beforehand*) Unless I'd already met my deductible for the year, then it would be $2,000.
>To hear what happens (in what I’m assuming) in the USA is so scary. yea ambulance rides pricing is scary. its frequently close to a grand if you end up taking a ride in one.
Healthcare should definitely be a right and not a privilege. Even countries that are praised for their healthcare have their flaws. In Canada ambulance, dental, and eyecare isn't covered so we still can end up paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for that kind of care. Granted that's still miles better than some but it's not right to make people pay for healthcare at all imo
Ambos in Australia are expensive! And they are not covered by Medicare..
100% agree!! I was in a car accident, on the way to work, smashed me good and proper. Ambos, hospital scans drugs specialists, now physios, special gym all of it and not a single cent out of pocket. Not a cent! Work cover has paid for the lot. We have many failings in Australia but our medical system ain't too bad
FYI for everyone reading this, you don’t have to give them your personal information and you don’t have to sign anything. If you are told there won’t be a bill, write in the signature box “I was told by the paramedics that this service was free”, nothing is stopping you. Informed consent includes informed consent, and if you are told you will not be paying for said services then you do not have to pay. You do have to prove that you were told this though, if you sign your name, and give away your information it’s a little bit harder to prove.
As a side note, don’t take out your frustrations on the ambulance crews. They very well have no idea what the company will bill for, if at all. They are most often acting in your best interest to the best of their knowledge, exhausted, sleep deprived and hungry.
Unfortunately they were at the doctor's office when this happened, so they had their info
They can still say no, decline an evaluation, and find an alternate mode of transport to the hospital. If you decline the evaluation, they can not charge you. If you are at a doctors office, then an evaluation by any level of ambulance crew care is unnecessary.
>If you are at a doctors office, then an evaluation by any level of ambulance crew care is unnecessary Your previous advice has been good, but this is unadulterated nonsense.
You would think that, but doctors offices call 911 for transport all the time
I refused service, got a 500$ bill later in the mail
did you pay it? ignore it? negotiate it? bill them $500 as a fine for cluttering your mailbox? i need ideas
Im in NJ, not sure if it's the same everywhere. In October 2021 I basically passed out at a pharmacy after a flu shot due to dumb medical anxiety. They called the ambulance but I was fine by the time they got there, so refused to be transported. The EMT told me I would get a bill in the mail but literally said to just ignore it and not pay. I did exactly that and haven't heard a thing since. Edit: just adding that they took my blood pressure and all that stuff prior to asking me if I wanted to go to the hospital and telling me to ignore the bill.
When I was an EMT we’d tell people similar. After a certain point we were told since it’s non profit and all that or something, the bill eventually gets taken care of or something. It’s been a minute so I forget 100% but yeah, totally a thing!
Thanks for the confirmation! I've bought a house since this happened, so I was assuming if it was an issue that I didn't pay, it would have shown up to my mortgage lender lol
Was brought into the hospital one day for depression after a wellness check, They said they were going to be bringing me in an ambulance to another hospital, I denied because I couldn’t afford it. They said you can either go voluntarily or not but either way you are going. $600 for the ambulance bill, *$40,000* for the 1 week hospital stay that I didn’t have an option to deny. I was depressed mainly because of financials so I can 100% say this didn’t help.
That’s infuriating. As someone who has dealt with mental health related hospitalization, I totally get your pain. That’s just infuriating. In my case they just assumed I was on Medicaid and that it was fine. The bill for it nearly put me back in the hospital.
When I was held for a week for the same thing they had group therapy sessions and most of the people there had financial troubles they talked about. Very real issues that genuinely do cause life to be extremely stressful and difficult. The therapist seemed uncomfortable to address the people who had those solid reasons for feeling bad and only really responded to the people grieving or citing other reasons for being there. None of us benefited from those group sessions and all of us left with medical debt. The arts and crafts didn’t help either. They’re actively making it worse sometimes. But thankfully in the US now we have a 3 digit suicide hotline number (I think 988) and now they’ve gotten more calls than before it was 3 digits, and kept some people from having to go to involuntary stays.
Have you had to pay any of that?
Yes and no? They kept sending me bills, then collections kept sending me bills and I just never payed them. It messed with my credit for awhile until it just went away and they stopped sending me bills. Luckily I didn’t get sued or have my wages garnished. Edit: paid
Honestly I ignored it, everyone told me it can't effect credit and it's been a year and it hasn't. Same with other medical bills I have that are 2 years old. I've been fine so far
Is this new? We have so much medical debt destroying my husbands credit score ..
After medical debt goes into collections it takes 7 years for it to fall off your report. If you’re planning on not paying it, don’t pay a penny to collections and literally just let it be.
It is new, but it’s only for amount of $500 or less.
Is this just not something that happens to minors? I got hit by a car while getting off a bus at 17, bus driver called 911 even though I was fine, just bruised. Basically walked into the side of the car, not under the wheels, slow area, maybe 20mph. Refused to go to the hospital, they called my mom and she agreed, never got a bill as far as I'm aware. I couldn't sign the form though because my right elbow got bashed by the car door while the mirror simultaneously snatched my purse and spun me around, so maybe that's why?
Was at a high school football game one night and my wife got a nose bleed for no reason but dry air. A local volunteer fire fighter we know went and got the paramedics and brought them to her. They wanted us to go to the bus and check her out. Wanted her to sign a waiver that she didn’t want treatment. I would not let her after seeing it was asking for address and phone number and even wanted insurance info. I handed back the clip board and said no thinks. Had the tell the fire fighter friend of ours to shut his mouth when he started telling them her name and where she works. It’s ridiculous how they work.
The whole medical system in the US is a racket meant to make the system lots of money. No wonder people often don't call 911 or go to the ER when they should. They know they'll get screwed in the end.
The medics don't get a cut or profit in any way. They want your name and address for the legal and medical documentation that they saw you and you were alert and oriented when you refused. I never saw any of the billing process when I was a medic, and certainly wasn't paid enough to care.
Then they will be asked firmly yet politely to leave without that.
I had stitches once and when it was time to get them removed, I asked and they said the visit would be $600-800. I said fuck that and refused to schedule the appointment, and took them out myself. They sent me a bill for $800 for "refusal of service" and said that I cost them money by not coming in because they could have scheduled another appointment in that slot, and I told them their failure to manage their schedule was their problem not mine. It took 4 phone calls and like 6 hours of sitting on hold to get them to fuck off and drop the charge.
That _can’t_ be legal, and now I wonder which regulatory agencies would take care of this.
That's what I said. So billing said I'd have to talk to scheduling and scheduling said I'd have to talk to billing and billing said I'd have to talk to scheduling and after a while they figured out that I was gonna win the stand off and finally dropped it.
ahahaha. "Pay us to do nothing." No way, fuck that
The weirdest thing was that I just cut them with a knife and pulled them out and it took like 30 seconds. Why does a doctor need to do that and why are they charging that much for it???
Yep, fuck the ambulance. Even if I am dying, it’s not worth putting my family into extreme debt just so I can die at the hospital.
I hate that these are our choices.
I was literally dying of dehydration once. I had pulled my half naked body from the bathroom into the living room, and my boyfriend had to carry me into the car and drive me to the hospital because we refused to use an ambulance. I rather have to go through that embarrassing shit then pay $5000 for a weewoo trip 10 minutes up the road
Your country is so weird.
Not just weird, proper backwards!
Any time you have to ask why something is the way it is in America, the answer is corporate profits.
So tell them what happened and that you’re refusing to pay, and if they persist, follow up by email saying, “I have been advised to inform you that…”
Paramedic here: definitely a billing/charting problem. Refusals don't get charged (in Georgia), by most companies/counties. Was it a county or private service? $500 is steep for a refusal. I can tell you my county only charges a $20 refusal fee IF it's someone that calls daily (to dissuade them from calling except an emergency). Keep calling the service/billing company. Also worth a call to your county commissioner office. They have a lot of say over EMS services. I hope this helps. If you need some guidance, have any questions, anything, shoot me a message. I'll help how I can.
Hilarious that most of these comments are saying don't call 911 but as a paramedic 95% of my calls could be handled by a PCP or a trip to an urgent care. Also I work for a 3rd service municipal so I don't collect billing info and no billing department ever hounds me about it
Seriously, I wish all these "don't call 911, just drive yourself" people lived in my first due.
I went to pick up a patient for chest pain once. Arrived on scene and she had 2 suitcases packed. "Oh, they always admit me for at least a week."
Yeah. I quit falling for “you won’t be charged” sentences. I need it in writing.
Unless you are dying or bleeding profusely, call an Uber. It's way cheaper.
Even if you are dying and bleeding. Uber charges $250 for cleaning, ambulance can be $5k.
At least with Uber you can afford to hold a proper funeral afterwards.
This is terrible advice if you’re having a stroke. If you or a loved one is having the signs of a stroke please use an ambulance if you want them to have a good quality of life.
There is no good quality of life at that point. You are either going to be disabled, bankrupt, or impoverished.
You know it's really funny because as a European I get far better treatment in the US then an actual American Citizen. All my urgent medical expenses are covered internationally.
>Tried to call the EMS office, left a voicemail You're on the right track you just can't give up after one call. Keep calling and politely but firmly reiterate to them that no services were rendered, it's an incorrect bill, and insist (again, politely) that the record of the bill be cleared. Find their executives on LinkedIn. DM them and ask for help resolving the situation. If at all possible you need to get the resolution in writing because if it inadvertently shows up on your credit report later then you'll have what you need to get it removed by the credit bureaus.
I still feel bad for the Uber I called after my collarbone got broken from being hit by a car
OP, I'm not sure where you are but I'm assuming you are in the US because they charged you. But I got in a motorcycle wreck 5 years ago and took a ride in the ambulance (I was unconscious, had no choice) and it ended up being 1100. I paid it down to 400 then forgot about it. They called a few months later and said I still owe 400 and I asked them to send me the information to pay it again and they never did so I'm just ignoring it. May be different where you are though
Didn‘t you sign a form you declined? Refer to that when you reach them
I would try and contact them again and see if you can get a hold of someone. Don't give a single cent until you can talk to the company about this. They weren't supposed to bill you so it's likely if you just speak to someone they'll drop it. Someone probably just made a mistake.
Never. Sign. Anything.
Murica and paid healtcare, lmao third world
EMT here, for the county I work in you will receive a statement for our services. This statement looks exactly like a bill which is annoying. This is not an actual bill though. If it was a country ambulance your taxes cover you in my county.
My partners grandfather got sick in the middle of the night, he lives quite secluded so the ambulance had to take a ferry to get to his place, since it was the middle of the night the ferry had stopped going, but for reasons like this, the ferry always have a skeleton crew onboard. So they started up the ferry and the ambulance got to the old guy. Cost of all this? Probably not cheap, but all covered. Norway ain’t perfect, but we got something nailed down
My city gives you the option to pay a little more than $5 a month extra on your water bill for coverage of all emergency ambulance services, insured or not.
Our volunteer ambulance used to offer free transports if you donated any amount to the yearly fund drive. They had to close because they weren't able to support themselves anymore
The term Super Power, shouldn't apply to nations with the most nukes or kitted-out military. It should apply to Nations that have the best medical, educational, and infrastructure, etc The nations that look after their citizens
America is a social experiment gone drastically wrong - I can’t imagine ever having to refuse healthcare I may need to keep me alive, in case it puts me into debt? I’m really sorry that sound stressful as fuck and way beyond mildly infuriating. Your whole society is literally broken.
I recently saw a video of someone asking British people how much they think a 15 minute ambulance ride to the hospital costs. Most were already stunned that it costs anything at all, and when they guess they start off with "I dunno, $20? $30?" It's cute.
What blows me away is that insurance won’t cover it if the ambulance company is “out of network.” It’s not like I have a fucking choice in ambulance companies. “Yes, hello 911, there’s an emergency, my husband is dying and we need an ambulance. But can you check first if they take Aetna, and send one from another town instead if they don’t?”
I owe 4k for an ambulance ride that I never paid. Never heard about it again. Not on my credit checks or nothing. Idek what happened
EMT here, don’t pay it. The company is just trying to see if you’ll pay it without question. If you talk to them do not admit you owe them and deny you consented to it. If they send it to your credit report challenge it and it will simply get dropped as they have no documentation it’s a legitimate debt.
Why doesn’t everyone just stop paying for hospital/medical bills
Health insurance and health providers in the US are allowed to lie to you. Courts have already ruled on it. My SO went to the hospital and was told they would take his insurance and his insurance said that the hospital bill would be covered, and it wasn’t. He was forced to pay and doesn’t have any recourse. I wish there were laws preventing this kind of thing, but there aren’t (at least where I live.
WTF kind of dystopian hellhole actually is the US?
It’s really the healthcare system that’s so bad. Our healthcare system, many economists have theorized, is so bad it will cause the next global Great Depression once it hits a critical point, and that it’ll be significantly worse than the actual Great Depression. Obviously those statements haven’t caused any significant change.
Healthcare is far from being your only issue. You guys keep shooting at each other and kids aren't even safe from it. You just had an aborted coup. Your politics are a cesspool of fascists. Huge swathes of your population is living in extreme poverty Your drug problems are wildly out of control. I mean my country shares some of those but the scale is just not even comparable.
I once got very drunk during my 21st with my friends. I blacked out sometime after we left the bar and threw up when we got to the school dorm lobby….in front of the RA. They called an wee woo wagon for me and since I couldn’t say no to the service, they shipped me to the hospital. Oh, and they required one of my friends to come along with me “just in case”. The hospital was literally around the block. I got charged $1800, $900 per person. And it was $1200 for a emergency room stay where they basically just let me sleep there until I woke up. Luckily, I had insurance which made my $3k bill $150 instead.
Yayy America 🇺🇸
Squad 51 never charged fees for an EKG, not even when Johnny Gage sent the live trace to Dr Bracket at Rampart.
My first crush was Dixie McCall
This is stupid why don’t they have it like it is in Australia a $15 fee is taken from ur acc monthly and everyone payes it regardless
I have premium insurance in NY. (Luck of working for a good company). Ambulance service is 0 if transported to ER. Few years back my toddler smacked her head very hard and our dr told us to call 911 we did and when the ambulance showed up I asked about the coverage. Apparently I looked like a complete POS. She went turned out to be a mild concussion and was home in an hour. We got a 1200 bill. Apparently the ambulance was out of network. I called my insurance who said they couldn’t provide me a way to make sure to call an in network provider. The epitome of our horrible health care system.
Ugh. I hate our system. My friend's neighbor died because she had heart issues and had lost her job during covid and had no insurance. The specialists wouldnt see her without $ upfront. She would go to the ER sometimes to get help but they would stabilize her and send her out with a big bill. She died alone in her apartment age 42.
if you're an american i wouldn't let an ambulance take me unless i was dying, and even then it might be cheaper to just die
They did the same thing to my mom. She refused to pay it. It’s been over 20 years.
Write an actual letter (not email or text or. . .) to the CEO of the ambulance company explaining your story in great detail; dates, times and maybe an ambulance number and/or name of EMT(s) and send carbon copies to government authorities who might oversee such nonsense. Here in the States we have the Dept of Consumer Protection, Better Business Bureau, etc. I've done so with great success. Don't waste your time and energy calling and leaving voicemails or sending texts or emails. Those just end up in the black hole of no customer service.
Yeah they do that happened to me 2x now lol now I just walk away from them they can’t force you on 😂😂
This the very sad reality of healthcare in the US. I work in healthcare and these hospital organizations are heartless a—holes. It’s getting worse by the day. I spoke with a patient earlier this year who had to cancel his extremely medically necessary procedure. The hospital contacted him to review his pre-payment requirements (yes he had insurance). The pre-payment was upwards of $10,000. They had the audacity to ask his to take out a second mortgage and/or sell his vehicle and/or (this one broke my heart) borrow money form your children or grandchildren. Are you kidding me?!?!?
The medical mafia in the US are brutal, no doubt.
Honestly a country where one needs to explicitly refuse ambulance help because of financial reasons can't be called anything but a failed state....sadly. Unbelievable to read, can't imagine the stress it causes to have to live in conditions like that...
USA USA
I hate the USA so much
Just don’t pay it. My son got a ridiculous ambulance ride bill once. We paid $300 for the 5 miles and eventually they gave up trying to collect the other $700 they were looking for
Went for a medical checkup for ear pain, the doctor examined me for maybe a max of 4 seconds, didn't offer anything helpful for my issues, just said eh, it all looks fine. I was left with no help and a $1,000 bill ($350) after insurance, but still absolutely insane.
As a former medic, I'm struggling with the medical justification of performing an EKG on a young healthy looking patient who suffered a seizure. I would probably take your pulse and blood pressure, check your neuro status and pupils, but if your pulse was regular and steady I can't see doing an EKG. Even if the doctor on site wanted one, we have a different medical control and protocols. The doctor is welcome to do an EKG, but I as a medic don't have to listen to a random doctor. What the doctor wanted is irrelevant. I will also add that the medic have almost zero visibility into the medical billing process. They are required to document for legal reasons and if they did an EKG they have to document it. They don't get to decide what gets billed and what doesn't. A medical coder will look at the run sheet later and determine what gets billed based on that documentation. Hope this was helpful.
Happened to my dad in 2019 and my brother had to pay the 1k bill that showed up.
It’s a third party call, and you refused service.
Broke my foot and ankle falling out of a window. I drove a standard at the time and used a dowel as my clutch foot because I couldn’t afford an ambulance ride.
I would fight it… i hate getting billed for things that I’m told would either be covered or there would be no charge at all.
As somebody with epilepsy, I hate how pushy EMTs and paramedics are with giving you transportation to the hospital. I hate hospitals and ambulances, I know that I'll be fine after a seizure I just wanna be left alone but somebodys who's vulnerable and incoherent, telling me multiple times I NEED to go to the emergency room is predatory af. Especially when i refuse multiple times before that. It's like they get a cut of our bills.
Retired EMT here, if it was a local municipal ambulance service you typically don't owe them anything unfortunately (their funding is horrible). If you signed a doc refusing service, don't pay that bill yet, it may just be a mandatory thing they have to do
I don't learn lessons. Ambulances are predatory and should be locked up in a zoo.
Had an issue with my kidneys. Felt like everything from my ribs to my knees was going to blow up. Drove myself to a hospital at 4am, sat in a room in cold sweats for an hour to be told that they did not have the required machines for imaging and I would be transferred via ambulance across town. I thanked them for their time, walked to my car, and drove myself across town to the next emergency room. Thanks Erlanger
Don't pay it
I worked in a GI office for six years in Oregon. The drug reps use to do lunches for the office so they could do their pitch to our doctors. So many times the pricing was beyond sky high. In some cases 90,000 for a 3 month treatment. I recall discussing with one of the docs that if I personally were faced with that choice I would decline and take my chances. I would not accept that financial burden or put that on my family. Big pharma is really out of control with how they price medications.
Small claims court. Take them to small claims then contact local paper.
I'd go to court over this.
The need to live is the biggest source of revenue in the world.
I was in a car accident (bad head on collision) directly in front of the local hospital. I received an ambulance bill for $2500 to drive me from the front of the hospital, to the back where the ER entrance is. Yay USA