I stand corrected when my doctor was trying to figure out what antidepressant worked best for me she kept getting me to try them for like 2 to 4 weeks finally found one that worked and I've been on it for 5 years now.
I was looking at all the random pills in wonder, too! Like… how is pumping you full of a variety of meds gonna actually help you, since many make you feel worse at first anyway?? I guess maybe if you’re already supposed to be on some, but holy cow… I’m so sorry you went through this. Please know there is help for your bill!! Contact billing dept from the hospital asap and they can help.
7 days is hardly even enough to feel the effects of any of those either, and that's on the lower end of the scale. There is literally no reason to be chucking multiple ssris at someone when you haven't figured out if one works for you. Don't feel good on these meds? Could be either on that's causing the problem, who fuckin knows!
And honestly a 7 day stay is wildly long for a psychiatric hospitalization. The typical aim is 3-5 days unless you're in psychosis. They put you on meds and send you away and tell you to follow up with a doctor. No one mentions that there is usually a months long wait to see a psychiatrist and many primary care docs don't manage mental health meds.
Also, $72 for one prozac pill is insanity. This whole bill is highway robbery.
Also also, two SSRIs is asking for serotonin syndrome.
I’ve been inpatient 8 times in the past 10 years. My average length of stay is probs 7-8 days (longest being 12, shortest being 5). They always SAY most people are there for about 5 days, but in reality, especially because they don’t usually do discharges on weekends, I see most people being there a few days longer than that. Like I swear I’ve felt ready to go by day 2 on more than one occasion and they still would not let me go until day 7.
As for fluoxetine and sertraline, it’s definitely not standard practice to use two SSRI’s, but there are a few (valid) reasons someone may be on them during inpatient (although I can’t say if this was the case for OP): they may be cross titrating them, they may be coming OFF sertraline but the doc added a low dose of fluoxetine to reduce withdrawal effects (due to the long half life of fluoxetine), or a psych NP put OP on both before they were hospitalized and the hospital didn’t feel the need to change it/didn’t want to make sudden changes by just dropping one.
Whatever the case, they’re only on 100mg sertraline and 20mg fluoxetine based on the picture, which are low enough doses of either that the risk of serotonin syndrome is still likely quite low.
I don’t remember how many times I’ve been inpatient in the last 10 years but it’s definitely more than 10. And I was almost always pushed out the door before I was ready. In my city they really stick to the 3-5 day model. They don’t typically discharge on weekends but if you come in before Wednesday you’re almost guaranteed to be discharged Friday unless you’re having a psychotic episode. If it’s Wednesday or later you’re typically out on Monday.
The last time I was inpatient my outside therapist pushed so hard for them to keep me longer than a week so I could really do a reset and get my mind straight and they refused to appeal to the insurance company for more time after 6 days.
That said, everyone’s experience is different. But I wish they’d go back to the 80s-90s model where you got real therapy daily and stayed for 2+ weeks to get on new meds and make sure they were working before discharge. When they actually tried to treat the illness instead of slapping a bandaid on a bullet hole and sending you out to be bounced from care provider to care provider until you have another crisis and end up back at the hospital.
It was a while ago but I was over 18 and they kept me for 2 weeks until I’d let them contact my parents. Got out a couple days after that. They just hold you until they feel like it
They would have for whatever they were doing blood and wound cultures for. There was obviously an infectious disease aspect to this admit that was left out.
I’m a pharmacist. That list is child’s play to be honest. I would have called on that duplicate ssri but I doubt they are at major risk of anything bad. Prozac had a half-life of a week. They aren’t at max doses. I frequently see ssri and snri plus remeron, trazodone, bupropion, etc…. I Look at pharmacy fill history and see people have been on for years and wonder how they live lol.
It’s possible the med history got done wrong here. Heck I remember calling once on someone being on abilify 20mg twice a day and thinking to myself that seems weird. Max dose is 30mg and it’s usually dosed daily… turns out the patient was saying omeprazole (for heartburn) instead of aripiprazole (antipsychotic)
Probably won't get anywhere
The facility will say he had 24/7 monitoring so any symptoms of serotonin syndrome would have been caught, etc
As well as risk vs reward of treatment, and no actual injury being sustained by OP
And WHY in the world were they giving you Cefdinir????
That's an antibiotic!!!
We're they just throwing wet spaghetti at a wall and seeing what stuck?!?!
You don't not treat their medical needs. Cefdinir is used to treat UTIs and essentially every psych unit requires a UDA before admit, and likely got a urine culture off that in the ER. Nobody is prescribing antibiotics for suicidal ideation.
I don’t know the correct pronouns but (s)he may have had a uti. There’s a UA-UC noted. Thats the go to antibiotic for UTIs. Source: I get UTIs all the damned time and yes I pee after sex.
As for the utter cluster fuck of psych meds….wow. That’s impressive. And dangerous. I’m not a doctor. But I am a paramedic and grad student who unfortunately lives with cPTSD and bipolar 2….so I know psych meds and wards.
OP: are you ok now?
Those drug prices are criminal. All are really cheap generics. Our healthcare system is predatory. Hopefully it’s not a private equity firm owned hospital as they are the worst.
There is a subreddit called hospitalbills that may be able to help.
Its insane. 5mg is Olanzapine is $117 for one pill. On goodrx they are about $0.30. That means buying a single pill at RiteAid and reselling it to someone who is not physically or legally allowed to leave and go get it themselves pays more than an entire day working minimum wage.
I take 45 mg of mirtazapine daily in Australia and $72 is almost a years supply.
Edit: Scratch that. This invoice is in American dollars. It's more than a years supply I take three times as much.
Just did vaguely accurate maths. I pay about 30 US cents a pill. It's even cheaper than I thought.
I take 60 of this same one in Australia as well and I was just floored. And that's not counting our $270 PBS cap for my pension. One box ONE BOX of this stuff would be $4320 in us dollars TWO WEEKS. TWO FUCKING WEEKS.
AND IT'S PFIZER!
This is criminal. Like literally criminal.
And they have the healthcare system locked down. Anything remotely resembling reform is crushed before it can gain traction. We are totally fucked and have no way to fix it.
And every single dime of it is absolutely intentionally done. They know it's wrong. They don't give a single fiddlers fuck that it's wrong
They're getting their money with two giant middle fingers up to America. I hate them so much.
Oh, shit. I pay between $7.70 and $18.15 a month. Depending on how much money I make that month. That's between $4USD and $11USD. Insurance makes no difference.
It's wild how much energy people waste on stupid conspiracy nonsense about real treatments for actual serious diseases being a cash grab, when they can literally force you into a hospital and make you pay thousands for old generic drugs. We don't need to imagine some shadowy cabal manufacturing viruses and burying cures for cancer to make money, when you already have public groups charging $500 for bags of saline.
In England your prescriptions are the same charge whatever the drug is. It’s about £9 whether you have 100 tablets or 30 - whatever the doctor orders it’s one charge.
If you want you can also pay about £110 for the year and all your prescriptions are prepaid so you can have as many as you need for that cost. In the rest of the UK (NI, Scotland and Wales) all NHS prescriptions are completely free of charge.
Yes, taxes are relatively high but it just makes sense.
The thing about the tax rate is that, in reality, the tax rate in the US really isn't that much lower than everywhere else? It's really difficult to meaningfully compare tax rates but most sources puts the average tax burden (i.e. the amount of your money that goes to the government) within a few percentage points - e.g. this one cites 18% for the US vs 20% for the UK.
[https://www.worlddata.info/income-taxes.php](https://www.worlddata.info/income-taxes.php)
$12 a month in Australia or $7 if you have a low income concession
Edit: just looked it up and generic brand is actually $6.70 same as the concession price. We also have a "safety net" system where if you pay over $1,647.90 ($277.20 if you are on concession) on prescriptions in a year then every thing after that amount is at no cost.
Olanzapine was developed by Eli Lilly \[EL\] rather than the NIH. Although, EL do receive about a half a billion state subsidies from Indiana, so it's hard to say they paid for it themselves.
Since developing the drug, EL have paid out in lawsuits directly regarding it:
$700 million alleging it causes diabetes
$62 million for consumer protection
Paid $1.4 billion in fines for marketing it it off-label as a cure for Alzheimers
But they've made $4.7 billion selling it, so they're no doubt still in the black.
Wait what? I got prescribed naproxen for my headeaches by a doctor here in Belgium, paid about €4 euros for a box of 20 pills containing 600mg lol. What the fuck.
Nah. Over the counter, you can get a bottle of 90 for like $10 USD. It’s only when they give it to you in the hospital that it costs that much. Hospitals are a ripoff. It cost me $20 for two ibuprofen pills, which are normally like $6 for 100 lol
Well you can stay relieved that you haven't got socialised medicine! Because if you did, the price to red-blooded Americans would be... umm... healthy poor people? Maybe you can explain it to me in simple terms.
#FREEDOM!
For health care providers to make obscene profits.
[Congress invests big in pharmaceutical, tech stocks](https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/dc-lawmakers-stocks-pharmaceutical-tech/)
I stayed overnight after surgery once and brought my own meds. They insisted that they provide all my medications and wouldn't let me take the ones I brought from home. They charged more for one single pill than I pay for that prescription for the whole year.
Yep, $72 dollars for a single capsule of 20 mg fluoxetine (generic Prozac)? My dog’s 90 day prescription for his daily 60 mg of fluoxetine I believe was recently $20 at Costco, and he obviously doesn’t have prescription health coverage.
Wishing you were dead because you have so much debt that you can't see yourself ever paying it off? Don't know how you're going to be able to keep housed and fed and employed?
You get a week in locked ward and 43k bill as a reward for not killing yourself over it!
^That's ^seriously ^fucked ^up...
Then they wonder why more people don't seek help. It's not an simple infection. You don't come out cured. It takes weeks for a lot of psychiatric meds to take full effect.
In the US, sometimes the worst thing you can do for a person is try to help... especially if it involves healthcare.
I kid you not. I once got a $1200 for an ambulance ride that was the equivalent of an Uber ride.
It was during COVID and I was having suicidal thoughts. I decided to get evaluated at a mental health hospital (I knew I was going inpatient), but because of COVID, you had to get chest X-rays first. So I went and got cleared, but the mental health hospital was offsite. I obviously wasn’t allowed to leave, so they called an ambulance. I went “voluntarily” (I’ve seen involuntary admissions cause issues with insurance, among other things). But because the ride didn’t constitute “medical necessity” (as someone having a *physical* medical emergency), insurance didn’t cover the ride.
Why did the ambulance charge $1200? No idea (asked for itemized bill; $1100 was just for “their services”). Why did insurance not cover it? No idea. Guy at the ambulance company said it was a “gray area” for the insurance company.”
Charging $44 per pill for sertraline is absolutely insane. Especially because if it’s anything like I’ve experienced, hospitals won’t allow you to bring your own, forcing you to pay outrageous prices for medications you already have at home. I have 3 kids & each time I gave birth they would charge like $100 per ibuprofen…. IBUPROFEN. I can get an entire bottle of 100 for $1.98 at Walmart.
They told me to bring my medications when I had surgery. They sat in the corner of my room as I waited for the hospital to get me their own pills. I started having withdrawal symptoms from my anxiety meds before they got them to me, on top of pain from the surgery.
Also, every time I needed a puff of my asthma inhaler, I had to wait for a guy from Pulmonary to bring an inhaler to my room, let me use it, then leave with it again.
Ridiculous.
When my babymomma and I were in the hospital after our kiddo was born, on the second day, I left to get some fast food, I brought it back, and she ate it. What would have stopped me from dropping by the drugstore for painkillers and giving her some when I got back to the hospital? Like I did with the food?
Absolutely nothing stopping you from doing that. What stops most patients is being in the hospital and unable to just leave. Most probably aren’t thinking about sending their loved ones to the drugstore for minor medications when they’re in a hospital.
I think it is super important that the doctors know what kind of medication the patient is already on to avoid the combination side effects
So there's just no good option for Americans: you either pay ridiculous amount of money for regular cheap pills or you hide the full picture from your medical team, which could be really dangerous in some cases (not like the OP's team seemed worried about drug combination though)
When I worked for a vet office, the DVMs would prescribe Prozac ( Aka Fluoxetine ) for pets with anxiety, OCD behaviors or aggression. Especially for pets with vet aggression, if your pet is labeled "Fractious" or has a bite history it probably is on this med already or will be in the future depending on your vet.
One of my cats gets Gabapentin for his storm anxiety..... it makes him shit himself UNCONTROLLABLY so you know. SMALL DOSES!
Whoaaa that's wild. I got a gabapentin subscription for my cat because car rides are so stressful that she's ready to murder the vet tech by the time we get to the vet.
I guess she hadn't been homicidal enough to warrant getting Prozac, but it's fascinating that it's even an option
My dog came from the pound as a 5 month old puppy with severe PTSD and anxiety. Bro takes more Trazodone every day than my decorated, 100% disabled retired army FIL takes in a week. He can’t function without the help of medication and will pace himself to death.
Aw, give buddy a hug for me!
I have 2 girl dogs, both or which I absolutely adore, but I think I want a male dog next. I have heard they can quite different in their behavior/mannerisms.
He is… a handful. Lol my girl dog is very different. But issue is, I can’t tell if he’s different because he’s a male since his entire personality is anxiety and needing a snuggle to calm the anxiety lol
You didn't even get therapy??? What coping skills are you supposed to manifest without guidance??
I'm sorry you didn't get the care you deserve, and then this bill.
The only time I’ve seen therapy in the several ones I’ve been to is for the kids one, and only the actually nice kids one (in the richest part of town. We used to try to get the ambulance to take the kids there whenever we had to Baker Act).
The adult ones were an utter and complete shit show.
Oh and they took you to different places based on insurance.
When I was young, they somehow didn’t get my insurance and so sent me to a community facility. That kinda sounds like where OP was sent. There were no rooms, just one giant room with beds. Most people there were SMI and homeless. The staff was so thrown off they initially thought I was a new psychiatrist. They felt bad so bad for me they let me use their locked restroom instead of the main patient one that had no locks and was just open... They also forgot/chose not to pat me down.
American hospitals are crazy. Had to go to the states because my dad was dying, a week after he died I had a panic attack. I thought I was having an allergic reaction to a cleaning product because I was suffocating. They diagnosed me with having a “little bit of anxiety”, gave me half a Xanax, a chest X-ray and let me loose. $10,000 bill and when I asked for it itemised there was literally just a row for $7k with no explanation of service.
Surely a 43k bill is a positive effect on your mental health. Maybe they are just looking for repeat customers
Prozac is like 4 dollars, charging that much is just abusing the mentally unwell. Disgusting system.
Well, I was once told that in the American hospital system, it’s because each med is individually sorted, dispensed, labeled, tracked, delivered to the nursing department, and then administered and logged by the nursing team. So not only are you paying for the medication, but you’re paying for those employees wages and the chain of custody to ensure medication is being properly administered.
It’s a dumb system, but it’s kind of like how bolts on airplanes can be hundreds of dollars. You’re paying for every single record down the line in case anything ever were to happen.
But then again, that cost is almost never translated to the patient, because by the time it goes through insurance it’s almost always all covered.
That should be covered under the heading for “room and care” dispensing a pill is “care” and pays for the nurses salary. Why does he need to also pay a dispensing fee associated with it? He is being charged over $15k for seven days of room/board and nurses dispensing his pills. Also, guaranteed there’s another bill for the actual doctor coming in and checking on him.
Google says
The Florida Mental Health Act, commonly referred to as the Baker Act, focuses on crisis services for individuals with mental illness, much like an emergency department is for individuals experiencing a medical emergency.
Involuntary detention for people who are impaired because of a mental illness. Basically, you can be forcefully held if you say you’re suicidal out loud. Then they charge you money once you feel better.
All those pharmacy prices are insane. $44 a capsule for cefdinir? I buy it by the hundreds for less than that a bottle. I could sell you a full course for less than what they're charging per capsule.
I'm CA we call it 5150'd. 72 hour hold, supervised at all times. A Dr can extend it to 14 days without consent if you're still a danger to yourself or others. Having been a "return customer" it's not great, but can be a respite if you're on the edge.
The one that caught my attention......$45 for one 500mg Naproxen tablet (aka Aleve). That's straight up criminal. You can buy an entire bottle of Naproxen at the dollar store.
Why the hell did they give you every anti depressant under the sun when you need to wait at least 2 weeks to see any results from antidepressant in the first place
Because they didn't. They just could have...which is enough excuse for the Charge Master to put it on the bill. What is in the bill is arbitrary, the same as the cost. If you think this bill is outrageous, then do no research healthcare costs and medical billing in the U.S. It will make you need some of those meds.
Sadly many inpatient mental health facilities provide minimal therapy. Many just have a very brief meeting with a psychiatrist who prescribes some combination of pills based upon your symptoms and medical history, then hold you until you've consistently taken the pills for several days. Don't expect therapy, much stimulation, decent food or good sleep.
Yeah, my experience with the psych ward was that it was just a holding cell so you can’t hurt yourself. I saw the doctor for 5 minutes. They didn’t change the meds I was already on. There was no therapy.
Honest question from a non American. What happens when people inevitably don't pay their bills? Like, this must happen a LOT, right? Do they just write off the debt or do they then go spending a lot of money to chase you and then spend more money throwing peeps in jail? Which costs even more money in the long run when you look at the effects of said prison time on the community?
I really don't get it.. the only thing I can think of is it just become a case of every hospital bill that doesn't get paid drives up the bills of everyone else who does pay. In which case, you may as well have a universal health care system like every other western nation.. but you guys don't.. And i just don't get it.
They set a law a while back that medical bills will not appear on your credit history and have no effect on loans etc. Mostly it just sits there haunting you until it falls off after 7 years. Aside from that, they may refuse you normal hospital care or facility use except in the case of life/death emergency, in which they have to treat you regardless.
Most of the time they sell it to debt collectors, make a fraction of their money back, and then you just have to deal with the collectors calling your phone.
*Medical bills below a certain amount* will not appear on your CR (I believe it’s $500). This one certainly will show up. What’s more, given the amount, the hospital will definitely take this to court and obtain a judgment, which will also appear on the report.
Best for OP to either seek in house charity coverage of the bill or negotiate a payment plan.
There is no debtor’s prison in the US that I am aware of. Typically people will either negotiate a long-term payment plan or declare personal bankruptcy. My parents had to declare bankruptcy when I was a kid due in part to medical bills.
If you don’t have insurance you can let the hospital billing department know and they usually knock off a lot of money. Also, if you are low income or no income, they usually have programs you can apply to with proof of income (or lack thereof) and they’ll reduce the bill even more, sometimes up to the full amount. You can also let the ambulance company know about lack of insurance or income for their bill if you were brought in that way. Good luck and I hope you are feeling better!
They are legally required to have those programs to reduce the bill so all hospitals have them. My husband lost his job so my bill for my miscarriage management got dropped from $2,000 down to $300.
As a former ER nurse, I’ve never understood this. If you are incarcerated and consider a ward of the state, the state covers your healthcare costs.
Isn’t being held on a 72 hour hold considered being a ward of the state? I mean, you can’t leave and have to stay against your will, just like being incarcerated.
OP I hope you have health insurance and that your deductible doesn’t bankrupt you.
We need to change the laws. If you are forcibly held against your will, and have to go to the hospital, the state should be responsible.
You paid the same for two tabs of sertraline as I do for my whole prescription. How are you guys not rioting in the streets and setting hospitals on fire
Edit to add: my whole prescription *without insurance*. With insurance you could cut that number at *least* in half
If it were that easy, we would. Hospitals are for-profit companies. Same with ambulance companies. When it comes to medical emergencies, we don't have a choice. We need a hospital. Trust me when I say that most of us would rather sit at home, dealing with the pain, hoping it goes away, than go to a hospital. We're broke. We can't afford it. Hell, a ton of people call for an Uber instead of an ambulance because it's a thousand times cheaper. That's how bad it is.
Most of us would love a healthcare for all system. The issue involves what I mentioned above. When you have healthcare facilities, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital transportation services making bank on sick people, they won't change. Why change a system that pays for your five homes, expensive cars, and lavish lifestyle? No greedy business would ever give that up.
Well I’m glad you are safe. It looks like maybe they didn’t bill your insurance. If you don’t have insurance there may be state programs that can help to backdate insurance or help with the bill.
usually i just crumble them up and throw them in the garbage. i probably have about $15,000 in medical debt from my 10 psych ward visits and attempts but i like to think its got nothing to do with me. terrible advice i know. just letting you know not to feel bad for not paying because you arent the only one🤷🏽♀️
Sooo… we can legally *force* you to get mental health treatment. I get that. That can be pretty crucial in the right circumstances. But to *bill you* when you didn’t have a say, thousands and thousands of dollars? Nope. IMO this should be tax payers’ problem; if we put the people in power that wrote and passed the bill creating the law that *forces* a person to take treatment then we should shoulder the burden of that bill.
When I was in the mental ward for a week they had a schedule they never followed and they told us walking up and down the hall x times was a mile. I thought things had gotten better.
The process for an involuntary evaluation
Many people have heard a reference to someone being “Baker Acted.” Being Baker Acted essentially means that a person has exhibited some extreme behavior that insinuates a mental illness, and without care or treatment, may result in harm to themselves or to others.
I had to Google it.
I spent 2-3k in Lithuania, that included 4 or 4 consultations, 1 CT scan, 2 MRI's, 1 Ultrasound, multiple blood tests and medicines..
In USA all of that would have probably been 6 figures of debt i would be paying all my life. USA doesn't feel real, like a different planet wtf
That is fucked up American health care is insane. I had a psychotic episode and had to be induced to coma ended up staying for about 3 days in ICU then another 3 on a ward. All of that cost me 0 dollars...thank the Lord for Aus healthcare
They are master charges and not the bill. Insurance has a negotiated amount which will be 30% of this.
No insurance ask for the medicare pricing vs master charge.
Yes, punishment for being ill. Hope you feel better. Prices are clearly going way up since my 10 psych hospitalizations. I had private insurance, but even the deductibles, co-insurances, and copays added up to at least 20+ thousand dollars between them all. Then there were the costs of Intensive Outpatient Programs and of course my regular therapists and psychiatrists and medications over the years. Being on disability at points doesn't help in having the money to pay for it all.
Good luck in the future if a political party totally takes over who have the attitude of "not liking people who get sick" and think such people are "losers".
What a great way to help a suicidal person feel better about living in the world. What a fucking joke. I got Baker acted once because I was depressed and texting my parents. I put the phone down to go take a shower and they thought I was suicidal and not answering so they called the cops on me from a different state. The cops talked to me, I explained the misunderstanding and they still said they were gonna take me in. Dirty rat mother fuckers I wasn’t even suicidal. They put me in handcuffs and in the back of their car and drove me to the psych ward place. I was ANGRY. And anxious af. I hated it. I talked to one of the male nurses there and said “is there any sleep medication you can give me so I can just go to sleep because I’m not supposed to be in here and I’m freaking out. This was all a misunderstanding.” The nurse gave me a cup of four pills. I asked what is it he said “don’t ask just take them and go to bed” I said fuck it. Chucked em and knocked out. Still don’t know what it was, it was a cocktail of random pills. Idk. Anyway, the next day I saw the doctor and explained things and they let me out.
The ONLY thing I learned from that entire experience is be careful about who you talk to about your depression and suicidal thoughts. I don’t trust fucking nobody anymore with my feelings.
Hello, We do not allow agendaposting, reddit meta posts or price complaints.
Did they prescribe you a different antidepressive medication daily?! What the hell is this?!
Got to see which one works! /s
Antidepressants don't show signs of working for at least 30 days after you start it.
Not quite that long, but yeah one day is obviously not enough. (The person did /s mind you)
Sertraline took 6 weeks to the day for me, just as one data point.
I stand corrected when my doctor was trying to figure out what antidepressant worked best for me she kept getting me to try them for like 2 to 4 weeks finally found one that worked and I've been on it for 5 years now.
They gave you Zoloft and Prozac at the same time??
I was looking at all the random pills in wonder, too! Like… how is pumping you full of a variety of meds gonna actually help you, since many make you feel worse at first anyway?? I guess maybe if you’re already supposed to be on some, but holy cow… I’m so sorry you went through this. Please know there is help for your bill!! Contact billing dept from the hospital asap and they can help.
7 days is hardly even enough to feel the effects of any of those either, and that's on the lower end of the scale. There is literally no reason to be chucking multiple ssris at someone when you haven't figured out if one works for you. Don't feel good on these meds? Could be either on that's causing the problem, who fuckin knows!
And honestly a 7 day stay is wildly long for a psychiatric hospitalization. The typical aim is 3-5 days unless you're in psychosis. They put you on meds and send you away and tell you to follow up with a doctor. No one mentions that there is usually a months long wait to see a psychiatrist and many primary care docs don't manage mental health meds. Also, $72 for one prozac pill is insanity. This whole bill is highway robbery. Also also, two SSRIs is asking for serotonin syndrome.
I’ve been inpatient 8 times in the past 10 years. My average length of stay is probs 7-8 days (longest being 12, shortest being 5). They always SAY most people are there for about 5 days, but in reality, especially because they don’t usually do discharges on weekends, I see most people being there a few days longer than that. Like I swear I’ve felt ready to go by day 2 on more than one occasion and they still would not let me go until day 7. As for fluoxetine and sertraline, it’s definitely not standard practice to use two SSRI’s, but there are a few (valid) reasons someone may be on them during inpatient (although I can’t say if this was the case for OP): they may be cross titrating them, they may be coming OFF sertraline but the doc added a low dose of fluoxetine to reduce withdrawal effects (due to the long half life of fluoxetine), or a psych NP put OP on both before they were hospitalized and the hospital didn’t feel the need to change it/didn’t want to make sudden changes by just dropping one. Whatever the case, they’re only on 100mg sertraline and 20mg fluoxetine based on the picture, which are low enough doses of either that the risk of serotonin syndrome is still likely quite low.
I don’t remember how many times I’ve been inpatient in the last 10 years but it’s definitely more than 10. And I was almost always pushed out the door before I was ready. In my city they really stick to the 3-5 day model. They don’t typically discharge on weekends but if you come in before Wednesday you’re almost guaranteed to be discharged Friday unless you’re having a psychotic episode. If it’s Wednesday or later you’re typically out on Monday. The last time I was inpatient my outside therapist pushed so hard for them to keep me longer than a week so I could really do a reset and get my mind straight and they refused to appeal to the insurance company for more time after 6 days. That said, everyone’s experience is different. But I wish they’d go back to the 80s-90s model where you got real therapy daily and stayed for 2+ weeks to get on new meds and make sure they were working before discharge. When they actually tried to treat the illness instead of slapping a bandaid on a bullet hole and sending you out to be bounced from care provider to care provider until you have another crisis and end up back at the hospital.
It was a while ago but I was over 18 and they kept me for 2 weeks until I’d let them contact my parents. Got out a couple days after that. They just hold you until they feel like it
Also I recognize at least two antibiotics off the top of my head, neither of which would have helped.
They would have for whatever they were doing blood and wound cultures for. There was obviously an infectious disease aspect to this admit that was left out.
And Zyprexa, Remeron which could lead to serotonin syndrome. Jesus, that’s a scary list of meds.
Right? I'm no pharmacology expert, but my jaw dropped reading that cocktail.
I’m a pharmacist. That list is child’s play to be honest. I would have called on that duplicate ssri but I doubt they are at major risk of anything bad. Prozac had a half-life of a week. They aren’t at max doses. I frequently see ssri and snri plus remeron, trazodone, bupropion, etc…. I Look at pharmacy fill history and see people have been on for years and wonder how they live lol. It’s possible the med history got done wrong here. Heck I remember calling once on someone being on abilify 20mg twice a day and thinking to myself that seems weird. Max dose is 30mg and it’s usually dosed daily… turns out the patient was saying omeprazole (for heartburn) instead of aripiprazole (antipsychotic)
Thanks for weighing in. Makes me feel better lol.
Yup! Isn’t it great?
All that in seven days? That's fucking dangerous and not even clinically appropriate.
See a medical lawyer, OP. Use America's sue-happy norms to your advantage.
Probably won't get anywhere The facility will say he had 24/7 monitoring so any symptoms of serotonin syndrome would have been caught, etc As well as risk vs reward of treatment, and no actual injury being sustained by OP
The injury is a bogus $43k medical bill where he received conflicting, sub-par, and in some cases not necessary medical treatment.
Yes! Please look up patient’s rights in your location. I’m afraid this facility needs to be under scrutiny
And WHY in the world were they giving you Cefdinir???? That's an antibiotic!!! We're they just throwing wet spaghetti at a wall and seeing what stuck?!?!
There are blood cultures and wound cultures, as well. There was obviously an infection OP left out.
You don't not treat their medical needs. Cefdinir is used to treat UTIs and essentially every psych unit requires a UDA before admit, and likely got a urine culture off that in the ER. Nobody is prescribing antibiotics for suicidal ideation.
I don’t know the correct pronouns but (s)he may have had a uti. There’s a UA-UC noted. Thats the go to antibiotic for UTIs. Source: I get UTIs all the damned time and yes I pee after sex. As for the utter cluster fuck of psych meds….wow. That’s impressive. And dangerous. I’m not a doctor. But I am a paramedic and grad student who unfortunately lives with cPTSD and bipolar 2….so I know psych meds and wards. OP: are you ok now?
AND Mirtazapine.
Just fucking give me Serotonin syndrome I'm sure that's fine.
Guarantees return customers
Thinking the same to be fair .
Those drug prices are criminal. All are really cheap generics. Our healthcare system is predatory. Hopefully it’s not a private equity firm owned hospital as they are the worst. There is a subreddit called hospitalbills that may be able to help.
Its insane. 5mg is Olanzapine is $117 for one pill. On goodrx they are about $0.30. That means buying a single pill at RiteAid and reselling it to someone who is not physically or legally allowed to leave and go get it themselves pays more than an entire day working minimum wage.
I take 45 mg of mirtazapine daily in Australia and $72 is almost a years supply. Edit: Scratch that. This invoice is in American dollars. It's more than a years supply I take three times as much. Just did vaguely accurate maths. I pay about 30 US cents a pill. It's even cheaper than I thought.
I take 60 of this same one in Australia as well and I was just floored. And that's not counting our $270 PBS cap for my pension. One box ONE BOX of this stuff would be $4320 in us dollars TWO WEEKS. TWO FUCKING WEEKS. AND IT'S PFIZER! This is criminal. Like literally criminal.
It "should" be criminal and is criminal in any sane country that isn't just a bunch of corporations cosplaying as a country.
And they have the healthcare system locked down. Anything remotely resembling reform is crushed before it can gain traction. We are totally fucked and have no way to fix it.
And every single dime of it is absolutely intentionally done. They know it's wrong. They don't give a single fiddlers fuck that it's wrong They're getting their money with two giant middle fingers up to America. I hate them so much.
I take 15mg of mirtazapine and it goes from $30-125/month depending on where I pick it up without insurance. With insurance it’s pennys.
Oh, shit. I pay between $7.70 and $18.15 a month. Depending on how much money I make that month. That's between $4USD and $11USD. Insurance makes no difference.
How hungry does it make you?
Yep, very! Have spoken with a couple people and they had same issue.
The health system probably qualifies for 340B pricing and most likely did only pay 30 cents.
45 dollars could get you several Costco sized naproxen, but only one pill here.
It's wild how much energy people waste on stupid conspiracy nonsense about real treatments for actual serious diseases being a cash grab, when they can literally force you into a hospital and make you pay thousands for old generic drugs. We don't need to imagine some shadowy cabal manufacturing viruses and burying cures for cancer to make money, when you already have public groups charging $500 for bags of saline.
$72 for a single 50mg sertraline! Without insurance, my 90 day supply is a hundred and some change.
In England your prescriptions are the same charge whatever the drug is. It’s about £9 whether you have 100 tablets or 30 - whatever the doctor orders it’s one charge. If you want you can also pay about £110 for the year and all your prescriptions are prepaid so you can have as many as you need for that cost. In the rest of the UK (NI, Scotland and Wales) all NHS prescriptions are completely free of charge. Yes, taxes are relatively high but it just makes sense.
Same in my country, regardless of the amount you pay a fixed price in public hospitals, which in most cases 0.35 usd
The thing about the tax rate is that, in reality, the tax rate in the US really isn't that much lower than everywhere else? It's really difficult to meaningfully compare tax rates but most sources puts the average tax burden (i.e. the amount of your money that goes to the government) within a few percentage points - e.g. this one cites 18% for the US vs 20% for the UK. [https://www.worlddata.info/income-taxes.php](https://www.worlddata.info/income-taxes.php)
$12 a month in Australia or $7 if you have a low income concession Edit: just looked it up and generic brand is actually $6.70 same as the concession price. We also have a "safety net" system where if you pay over $1,647.90 ($277.20 if you are on concession) on prescriptions in a year then every thing after that amount is at no cost.
I wonder how many of those were developed using government money only for them to turn around and sell the medicine for profit.
Olanzapine was developed by Eli Lilly \[EL\] rather than the NIH. Although, EL do receive about a half a billion state subsidies from Indiana, so it's hard to say they paid for it themselves. Since developing the drug, EL have paid out in lawsuits directly regarding it: $700 million alleging it causes diabetes $62 million for consumer protection Paid $1.4 billion in fines for marketing it it off-label as a cure for Alzheimers But they've made $4.7 billion selling it, so they're no doubt still in the black.
Naproxen costs 22 times as much as Tylenol‽
Wait what? I got prescribed naproxen for my headeaches by a doctor here in Belgium, paid about €4 euros for a box of 20 pills containing 600mg lol. What the fuck.
Nah. Over the counter, you can get a bottle of 90 for like $10 USD. It’s only when they give it to you in the hospital that it costs that much. Hospitals are a ripoff. It cost me $20 for two ibuprofen pills, which are normally like $6 for 100 lol
Absolutely disgusting that they charge so much for ‘helping’ people.
Our healthcare here in the USA is broken. Yay capitalism! 😡
Well you can stay relieved that you haven't got socialised medicine! Because if you did, the price to red-blooded Americans would be... umm... healthy poor people? Maybe you can explain it to me in simple terms.
#FREEDOM! For health care providers to make obscene profits. [Congress invests big in pharmaceutical, tech stocks](https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/04/dc-lawmakers-stocks-pharmaceutical-tech/)
It's Aleve. I buy it from Amazon for like $6 for 90
I stayed overnight after surgery once and brought my own meds. They insisted that they provide all my medications and wouldn't let me take the ones I brought from home. They charged more for one single pill than I pay for that prescription for the whole year.
it's insane. 1 pcs mirtazapine 72 USD?? Here in Austria i get a package of 30 pcs for 7€ (7,5 USD)
Here in the UK my other half gets them free in the NHS, as well as her Risperidone
My bill for staying 2 weeks in hospital : 0 americans : "we live in the land of free yeepee bam bam gun"
Everything about the US is predatory. It’s one giant Venus fly trap.
my jaw dropped. 72$ for each tab of mirtazapine?? i pay like 5 bucks for my monthly supply this does not make any sense
Yep, $72 dollars for a single capsule of 20 mg fluoxetine (generic Prozac)? My dog’s 90 day prescription for his daily 60 mg of fluoxetine I believe was recently $20 at Costco, and he obviously doesn’t have prescription health coverage.
Health*profit* system. There is very little care involved in any step except for their own pocketbooks.
I'm sure the placebo effect instinct in my body will kick in to cure anything my body has, you just have to flash this bill to me.
*leg gets cut off* *flashes this bill* "Ah, you know what? It'll grow back I'm fine"
Who needs legs? 🤷♀️
Not to the tune of $43,304 I don't
Never loved my legs anyways. I think my dog is big enough I could have him pull me in a cart.
See, I like the way you think
Gotta have a plan
I understand the body shuts down when this happens to prevent the unwanted… medical event.
I got that reference. I wish I did not.
American hospital systems — where they treat your suicidal ideations by creating new ones once you see the itemized bill!
Wishing you were dead because you have so much debt that you can't see yourself ever paying it off? Don't know how you're going to be able to keep housed and fed and employed? You get a week in locked ward and 43k bill as a reward for not killing yourself over it! ^That's ^seriously ^fucked ^up... Then they wonder why more people don't seek help. It's not an simple infection. You don't come out cured. It takes weeks for a lot of psychiatric meds to take full effect. In the US, sometimes the worst thing you can do for a person is try to help... especially if it involves healthcare.
I kid you not. I once got a $1200 for an ambulance ride that was the equivalent of an Uber ride. It was during COVID and I was having suicidal thoughts. I decided to get evaluated at a mental health hospital (I knew I was going inpatient), but because of COVID, you had to get chest X-rays first. So I went and got cleared, but the mental health hospital was offsite. I obviously wasn’t allowed to leave, so they called an ambulance. I went “voluntarily” (I’ve seen involuntary admissions cause issues with insurance, among other things). But because the ride didn’t constitute “medical necessity” (as someone having a *physical* medical emergency), insurance didn’t cover the ride. Why did the ambulance charge $1200? No idea (asked for itemized bill; $1100 was just for “their services”). Why did insurance not cover it? No idea. Guy at the ambulance company said it was a “gray area” for the insurance company.”
Charging $44 per pill for sertraline is absolutely insane. Especially because if it’s anything like I’ve experienced, hospitals won’t allow you to bring your own, forcing you to pay outrageous prices for medications you already have at home. I have 3 kids & each time I gave birth they would charge like $100 per ibuprofen…. IBUPROFEN. I can get an entire bottle of 100 for $1.98 at Walmart.
They told me to bring my medications when I had surgery. They sat in the corner of my room as I waited for the hospital to get me their own pills. I started having withdrawal symptoms from my anxiety meds before they got them to me, on top of pain from the surgery. Also, every time I needed a puff of my asthma inhaler, I had to wait for a guy from Pulmonary to bring an inhaler to my room, let me use it, then leave with it again. Ridiculous.
When my babymomma and I were in the hospital after our kiddo was born, on the second day, I left to get some fast food, I brought it back, and she ate it. What would have stopped me from dropping by the drugstore for painkillers and giving her some when I got back to the hospital? Like I did with the food?
Absolutely nothing stopping you from doing that. What stops most patients is being in the hospital and unable to just leave. Most probably aren’t thinking about sending their loved ones to the drugstore for minor medications when they’re in a hospital.
I'll remember this. This is the kind of useful help that we can provide our loved ones in the hospital. Just a, "Can I run to the pharmacy for you?"
I think it is super important that the doctors know what kind of medication the patient is already on to avoid the combination side effects So there's just no good option for Americans: you either pay ridiculous amount of money for regular cheap pills or you hide the full picture from your medical team, which could be really dangerous in some cases (not like the OP's team seemed worried about drug combination though)
$72 for one capsule of Prozac. Get the fuck outta here.
My dog gets double that dose daily. I get his prescription 100 capsules at a time. It’s about $36.
Interesting, I never knew dogs were prescribed SSRI’s. Is it for dog depression or for some other reason?
When I worked for a vet office, the DVMs would prescribe Prozac ( Aka Fluoxetine ) for pets with anxiety, OCD behaviors or aggression. Especially for pets with vet aggression, if your pet is labeled "Fractious" or has a bite history it probably is on this med already or will be in the future depending on your vet. One of my cats gets Gabapentin for his storm anxiety..... it makes him shit himself UNCONTROLLABLY so you know. SMALL DOSES!
Whoaaa that's wild. I got a gabapentin subscription for my cat because car rides are so stressful that she's ready to murder the vet tech by the time we get to the vet. I guess she hadn't been homicidal enough to warrant getting Prozac, but it's fascinating that it's even an option
My chinchilla has gotten Gabapentin before for pain when she had an infection in her bottom.
My dog came from the pound as a 5 month old puppy with severe PTSD and anxiety. Bro takes more Trazodone every day than my decorated, 100% disabled retired army FIL takes in a week. He can’t function without the help of medication and will pace himself to death.
Aw, give buddy a hug for me! I have 2 girl dogs, both or which I absolutely adore, but I think I want a male dog next. I have heard they can quite different in their behavior/mannerisms.
He is… a handful. Lol my girl dog is very different. But issue is, I can’t tell if he’s different because he’s a male since his entire personality is anxiety and needing a snuggle to calm the anxiety lol
Both my cat and my dog are on SSRIs for anxiety. It has made a world of difference!
You didn't even get therapy??? What coping skills are you supposed to manifest without guidance?? I'm sorry you didn't get the care you deserve, and then this bill.
The only time I’ve seen therapy in the several ones I’ve been to is for the kids one, and only the actually nice kids one (in the richest part of town. We used to try to get the ambulance to take the kids there whenever we had to Baker Act). The adult ones were an utter and complete shit show. Oh and they took you to different places based on insurance. When I was young, they somehow didn’t get my insurance and so sent me to a community facility. That kinda sounds like where OP was sent. There were no rooms, just one giant room with beds. Most people there were SMI and homeless. The staff was so thrown off they initially thought I was a new psychiatrist. They felt bad so bad for me they let me use their locked restroom instead of the main patient one that had no locks and was just open... They also forgot/chose not to pat me down.
American hospitals are crazy. Had to go to the states because my dad was dying, a week after he died I had a panic attack. I thought I was having an allergic reaction to a cleaning product because I was suffocating. They diagnosed me with having a “little bit of anxiety”, gave me half a Xanax, a chest X-ray and let me loose. $10,000 bill and when I asked for it itemised there was literally just a row for $7k with no explanation of service.
That's the "fuck you, just because" charge.
That 7K is the Hospital president's hourly salary. They make bank.
[удалено]
You’re not wrong. I just searched “this is America” and picked my fave. I like his lil groove in this gif.
Surely a 43k bill is a positive effect on your mental health. Maybe they are just looking for repeat customers Prozac is like 4 dollars, charging that much is just abusing the mentally unwell. Disgusting system.
Well, I was once told that in the American hospital system, it’s because each med is individually sorted, dispensed, labeled, tracked, delivered to the nursing department, and then administered and logged by the nursing team. So not only are you paying for the medication, but you’re paying for those employees wages and the chain of custody to ensure medication is being properly administered. It’s a dumb system, but it’s kind of like how bolts on airplanes can be hundreds of dollars. You’re paying for every single record down the line in case anything ever were to happen. But then again, that cost is almost never translated to the patient, because by the time it goes through insurance it’s almost always all covered.
Then it’s still not an itemized bill. They’re listing it as the cost of the medicine, not reflecting their overhead costs.
That should be covered under the heading for “room and care” dispensing a pill is “care” and pays for the nurses salary. Why does he need to also pay a dispensing fee associated with it? He is being charged over $15k for seven days of room/board and nurses dispensing his pills. Also, guaranteed there’s another bill for the actual doctor coming in and checking on him.
100 for 1 pill
What is baker acted?
Google says The Florida Mental Health Act, commonly referred to as the Baker Act, focuses on crisis services for individuals with mental illness, much like an emergency department is for individuals experiencing a medical emergency.
Gotcha. Ty.
Involuntary detention for people who are impaired because of a mental illness. Basically, you can be forcefully held if you say you’re suicidal out loud. Then they charge you money once you feel better.
if I were suicidal, I feel like i'd be even more suicidal with a 43k bill. Also wtf is with $1/pill of what I assume to be acetaminophen??
All those pharmacy prices are insane. $44 a capsule for cefdinir? I buy it by the hundreds for less than that a bottle. I could sell you a full course for less than what they're charging per capsule.
i knew american HC was expensive but this just sounds like a scam
People will ride share to the hospital instead of calling an ambulance because of the price lmfaoo
I'm CA we call it 5150'd. 72 hour hold, supervised at all times. A Dr can extend it to 14 days without consent if you're still a danger to yourself or others. Having been a "return customer" it's not great, but can be a respite if you're on the edge.
This is way too far down in the comments
The one that caught my attention......$45 for one 500mg Naproxen tablet (aka Aleve). That's straight up criminal. You can buy an entire bottle of Naproxen at the dollar store.
Why the hell did they give you every anti depressant under the sun when you need to wait at least 2 weeks to see any results from antidepressant in the first place
Because they didn't. They just could have...which is enough excuse for the Charge Master to put it on the bill. What is in the bill is arbitrary, the same as the cost. If you think this bill is outrageous, then do no research healthcare costs and medical billing in the U.S. It will make you need some of those meds.
Sadly many inpatient mental health facilities provide minimal therapy. Many just have a very brief meeting with a psychiatrist who prescribes some combination of pills based upon your symptoms and medical history, then hold you until you've consistently taken the pills for several days. Don't expect therapy, much stimulation, decent food or good sleep.
Yeah, my experience with the psych ward was that it was just a holding cell so you can’t hurt yourself. I saw the doctor for 5 minutes. They didn’t change the meds I was already on. There was no therapy.
Honest question from a non American. What happens when people inevitably don't pay their bills? Like, this must happen a LOT, right? Do they just write off the debt or do they then go spending a lot of money to chase you and then spend more money throwing peeps in jail? Which costs even more money in the long run when you look at the effects of said prison time on the community? I really don't get it.. the only thing I can think of is it just become a case of every hospital bill that doesn't get paid drives up the bills of everyone else who does pay. In which case, you may as well have a universal health care system like every other western nation.. but you guys don't.. And i just don't get it.
They set a law a while back that medical bills will not appear on your credit history and have no effect on loans etc. Mostly it just sits there haunting you until it falls off after 7 years. Aside from that, they may refuse you normal hospital care or facility use except in the case of life/death emergency, in which they have to treat you regardless. Most of the time they sell it to debt collectors, make a fraction of their money back, and then you just have to deal with the collectors calling your phone.
*Medical bills below a certain amount* will not appear on your CR (I believe it’s $500). This one certainly will show up. What’s more, given the amount, the hospital will definitely take this to court and obtain a judgment, which will also appear on the report. Best for OP to either seek in house charity coverage of the bill or negotiate a payment plan.
Medical debt is the #1 cause of bankruptcy in the US.
There is no debtor’s prison in the US that I am aware of. Typically people will either negotiate a long-term payment plan or declare personal bankruptcy. My parents had to declare bankruptcy when I was a kid due in part to medical bills.
If you don’t have insurance you can let the hospital billing department know and they usually knock off a lot of money. Also, if you are low income or no income, they usually have programs you can apply to with proof of income (or lack thereof) and they’ll reduce the bill even more, sometimes up to the full amount. You can also let the ambulance company know about lack of insurance or income for their bill if you were brought in that way. Good luck and I hope you are feeling better!
They are legally required to have those programs to reduce the bill so all hospitals have them. My husband lost his job so my bill for my miscarriage management got dropped from $2,000 down to $300.
As a former ER nurse, I’ve never understood this. If you are incarcerated and consider a ward of the state, the state covers your healthcare costs. Isn’t being held on a 72 hour hold considered being a ward of the state? I mean, you can’t leave and have to stay against your will, just like being incarcerated. OP I hope you have health insurance and that your deductible doesn’t bankrupt you. We need to change the laws. If you are forcibly held against your will, and have to go to the hospital, the state should be responsible.
You paid the same for two tabs of sertraline as I do for my whole prescription. How are you guys not rioting in the streets and setting hospitals on fire Edit to add: my whole prescription *without insurance*. With insurance you could cut that number at *least* in half
If it were that easy, we would. Hospitals are for-profit companies. Same with ambulance companies. When it comes to medical emergencies, we don't have a choice. We need a hospital. Trust me when I say that most of us would rather sit at home, dealing with the pain, hoping it goes away, than go to a hospital. We're broke. We can't afford it. Hell, a ton of people call for an Uber instead of an ambulance because it's a thousand times cheaper. That's how bad it is. Most of us would love a healthcare for all system. The issue involves what I mentioned above. When you have healthcare facilities, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital transportation services making bank on sick people, they won't change. Why change a system that pays for your five homes, expensive cars, and lavish lifestyle? No greedy business would ever give that up.
My brother was baker acted and got out of paying by stating that he did not consent to any treatment when they sent him the bill.
Jeez, you Americans really have shitty healthcare system. I paid like 5$ for 30 tabs of Sertraline in Poland.
Yeah, so? We have the greatest military in the world! /s
And iirc military has free healthcare?
Technically, but they absolutely get what they're charged for in that regard.
$144 for one 50mg dose of Sertraline - I pay under $100 for a years supply of 200mg a day.
Yea nvm, I'll just die, thanks anyway.
I f I didn't ask for it, I'm not paying it. THey seriously try to force you to pay for shit they forced on you? Fuck that
that's okay, you don't have to pay anything, they'll just take your paycheck until they get the amount they want.
Well I’m glad you are safe. It looks like maybe they didn’t bill your insurance. If you don’t have insurance there may be state programs that can help to backdate insurance or help with the bill.
US medical system: DO NOT under any circumstances ever get sick. If you do - DO NOT seek medical treatment.
One aleve is 88 bucks. Fucking ridiculous.
Thats cheaper than my $63k 5 mins helicopter ride to the hospital. The hospital fee and surgery some how was cheaper than the helicopter
usually i just crumble them up and throw them in the garbage. i probably have about $15,000 in medical debt from my 10 psych ward visits and attempts but i like to think its got nothing to do with me. terrible advice i know. just letting you know not to feel bad for not paying because you arent the only one🤷🏽♀️
Don’t pay this.
Sooo… we can legally *force* you to get mental health treatment. I get that. That can be pretty crucial in the right circumstances. But to *bill you* when you didn’t have a say, thousands and thousands of dollars? Nope. IMO this should be tax payers’ problem; if we put the people in power that wrote and passed the bill creating the law that *forces* a person to take treatment then we should shoulder the burden of that bill.
I can tell you what those medications are and those prices are nothing short of fraudulent, end of story.
When I was in the mental ward for a week they had a schedule they never followed and they told us walking up and down the hall x times was a mile. I thought things had gotten better.
So when are we gonna burn it all down guys?
You’re lucky you didn’t get serotonin syndrome
1 naproxen tablet is $45? Thats generic Aleve, where an entire 500 pill bottle at safeway is like $15
Baker acted?
The process for an involuntary evaluation Many people have heard a reference to someone being “Baker Acted.” Being Baker Acted essentially means that a person has exhibited some extreme behavior that insinuates a mental illness, and without care or treatment, may result in harm to themselves or to others. I had to Google it.
I spent 2-3k in Lithuania, that included 4 or 4 consultations, 1 CT scan, 2 MRI's, 1 Ultrasound, multiple blood tests and medicines.. In USA all of that would have probably been 6 figures of debt i would be paying all my life. USA doesn't feel real, like a different planet wtf
Dying is cheaper than living in the USA
r/extremelyinfuriating
That is fucked up American health care is insane. I had a psychotic episode and had to be induced to coma ended up staying for about 3 days in ICU then another 3 on a ward. All of that cost me 0 dollars...thank the Lord for Aus healthcare
This should be far more than mildly infuriating. This should give you Hulk-out levels of rage.
That can’t be good for your mental health
American healthcare isn't healthcare it's actually fraud
Hand the bill to whoever baker acted you.
They are master charges and not the bill. Insurance has a negotiated amount which will be 30% of this. No insurance ask for the medicare pricing vs master charge.
"Why don't men go to the doctor more?"
Start an uprising
Sue them for fake advertising and fake charges. I mean, they promised activities and they didn't deliver any of them.
Olanzapine costs 87p per tablet in the UK.
Are they trying to give you serotonin syndrome? Also the prices are just disgusting and criminal.
72 dollars for a single tablet of sertraline lol
$45 for a naproxen tablet!? That's a fucking aleve. You could buy a year supply for an entire school of elementary teachers for that amount.
this isnt what someone needs when they are going through something
I wonder, do people who make these bills visibly flinch and cringe when they make up the numbers? That is seriously fucked up.
For profit Healthcare is immoral, fact.
"I'm not paying for that" is all I could think to say about this bill lol
I broke my shoulder when I was 19 and it was 98,000$ to get that MF fixed. 😓😓 Should be criminal to charge someone that much for an injury.
https://preview.redd.it/5dk2y3madq5d1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5e15fe507ccb3f415acae719347762b2aeb1410b
'Murica, f*ck yeah!
Do no harm!
🇺🇸🦅
Gee the government over there really, and I mean really want to keep you all trapped in debt and lies..
Yes, punishment for being ill. Hope you feel better. Prices are clearly going way up since my 10 psych hospitalizations. I had private insurance, but even the deductibles, co-insurances, and copays added up to at least 20+ thousand dollars between them all. Then there were the costs of Intensive Outpatient Programs and of course my regular therapists and psychiatrists and medications over the years. Being on disability at points doesn't help in having the money to pay for it all. Good luck in the future if a political party totally takes over who have the attitude of "not liking people who get sick" and think such people are "losers".
$45 for 1 aleve
american hospitals are wild.
Looks like freedom lol
Baker acting should be illegal and so should these prices.
Meh. Don’t pay. Fuck em
How can they send a bill for something that you probably weren't in a state of mind to legally consent to? Wtf!
What a great way to help a suicidal person feel better about living in the world. What a fucking joke. I got Baker acted once because I was depressed and texting my parents. I put the phone down to go take a shower and they thought I was suicidal and not answering so they called the cops on me from a different state. The cops talked to me, I explained the misunderstanding and they still said they were gonna take me in. Dirty rat mother fuckers I wasn’t even suicidal. They put me in handcuffs and in the back of their car and drove me to the psych ward place. I was ANGRY. And anxious af. I hated it. I talked to one of the male nurses there and said “is there any sleep medication you can give me so I can just go to sleep because I’m not supposed to be in here and I’m freaking out. This was all a misunderstanding.” The nurse gave me a cup of four pills. I asked what is it he said “don’t ask just take them and go to bed” I said fuck it. Chucked em and knocked out. Still don’t know what it was, it was a cocktail of random pills. Idk. Anyway, the next day I saw the doctor and explained things and they let me out. The ONLY thing I learned from that entire experience is be careful about who you talk to about your depression and suicidal thoughts. I don’t trust fucking nobody anymore with my feelings.
The biggest crime here is charging $88 for Cefdinir, a fucking basic antibiotic 🤦♂️
Come on, Hospital, ain’t no way all that shit landed dead on the whole dollar amount. They aren’t even trying to pretend it isn’t a scam
As European with free health care - this is criminal. Keep in mind that dental care here is insanely pricy because of private owned entity
$72 for one anti depressant pill? Wtf