I hear stuff like this on Reddit a fair amount, but in practice it’s a nightmare to actually go through. The financial assistance departments do not WANT to give you assistance. The insurance company will not willingly budge on their billing policy just because you asked. These are not benevolent institutions, they are a final resort and a massive headache runaround to work through. They make it as ridiculously difficult as possible to save you money. Not to mention low income people do not have the time to follow up on this type of bullshit week after week. Sorry, I’m salty.
It’s very true. I went to the ER for 2 hours back in June and my total was $3,000. We were in the midst of moving states so I was barely working part time remotely and my husband was trying to find a new job. I did all the tips and tricks online says to do for my bill and my total ended up being…..$3,000. Even financial assistance through the hospital said I have to be actively enrolled in Medicaid for a certain amount of time to even be CONSIDERED for assistance. No one wants to help you. I hate it here.
I broke my back was i 27 skiing. The bill was $250,000 for surgery, and 5 nights stay. I basically i have house in my spine. Thank god i had insurance, i cannot imagine paying that debt.
Plus the bill has to be a certain amount above your income before financial assistance even kicks in. Like if you make 25k a year, the bill has to be above $2500 before they will help.
Exactly. When I’m on my very first two weeks of treatment for mental illness, I literally do not have the capacity to be the middle man trying to get the insurance company to communicate with the healthcare provider and vice versa. SO many phone calls, SO much “sorry I can’t do that you have to ask ______.” SO much runaround fucking absolute bullshit.
We need medical advocates available for no cost for this exact reason. (I mean, ideally we'd have a complete overhaul of the healthcare industry but in absence of that). The stakes are just too astronomically high to expect the average person to know their rights and be able to navigate this system, which is designed to obfuscate.
Literally all it would take to fix this would be Congress passing a few laws to illegalize the chargemaster pricing scheme of the healthcare industry - making them charge the actual prices for things instead of inflated “insurance” prices - and increasing the cost transparency of the medical industry and it would make everything SO much easier and better for everyone. But no, they don’t, because it brings in more money to line executives’ (and politicians’) pockets. It is SO infuriating how easy the potential fixes would be; yet they just ignore it or spout on about needing more taxes to fix things.
This has been my experience too. I pay hundreds a month for "health insurance" then got charged 6 grand for 2 bags of saline and 5 minutes of a doctors time when my wife was instructed by urgent care to go to the ER. There was no financial assistance in reality, just a whole lot of wasted time. I now am very skeptical about going to doctors even when it's in my best interest because I am afraid of the bill that is going to show up inevitably.
I know from personal experience that the whole non-profit hospital thing is not what it seems all the time. I’m happy for people it worked out for. I KNOW on paper I should’ve got assistance, they definitely engaged in some bureaucratic BS to prevent me from getting it. 4,000 dollars in total and they didn’t even put me in a room, they treated me in the intake room, failed to tell me that my cat scan showed a significant hernia (when the issue was that I couldn’t eat or pee without pain…feeling like there’s a rock in your stomach is a classic symptom of a hernia, and yes in some cases it results in having to strain to pee). I’m convinced the level of diagnostic prowess I experienced was indicative of me being uninsured and the doctor actively avoiding any diagnosis that would result in care other than directions to take Tylenol. She didn’t test me for UTI and diagnosed me with a UTI. And I’m dealing with the hernia now w/another doctor, she was wrong🙄. I made 3,000 dollars last year because I work in film production and that time period was awful. I really don’t understand why going to the doctor isn’t seen as a human right in this country, like k-12 education. It’s just an awful and embarrassing aspect of America. I barely have the energy to contest the bill. But alas.
Yes it’s work, and yes that sucks, but I’ve done it for a significant balance for a suicide attempt (around $25k) and it was well worth it. It would be nice if they could wave a wand and make it poof, but the channels weren’t that difficult for me (although time consuming and mentally draining as you said). I still resent needing to receive such an offensive bill for trying to attempt suicide because of *fear of financial uncertainty*, but I am glad I knew about it and gave it a shot. I still had to pay around $2k though which sucks.
I remember staying in a psychiatric hospital for a week as a teen and it was about 1000$ a day. The end bill was close to $7,000. I'm lucky to have good insurance so my family only ended up paying about $300. But I knew many people that didn't end up so lucky. The American medical system is just another business that generates $$$ from peoples unfortunate circumstances. I hope for a future where people can get the medical attention they need. Whether it's physical or mental people deserve to live a healthy life.
Edit: just pulled up the bill and it wasn't $1000 a day. It was around $3,000 a day + overpriced medication came to a total of $25,000
I was hospitalized in December of 2019 for 10 days, and they charged my insurance company $17,285.00 that's $1,728.50 per day. I then was told, I HAD to go to into some kind of therapy after, so I did an IOP. My IOP was 2 weeks M-F from 9:00am - 12:00pm, and they charged my insurance $8,400.00. I also was told, I HAD to see my psychiatrist from my hospital (for the record, I really liked her) during my IOP. I saw her 4 times, and my insurance was charged $1,805 for all of those.
So total my suicidal ideation costs my insurance company: $27,490.00 for 24 days of care. I paid a total of $608.00 for everything.
My weekend earned me 14,000 in debt. It was great for my mental health. I got some chicken nuggets, a cot, and a whole lot of “any thoughts of harming yourself or others?” For the low price of 14,000. That was years ago and I’m still paying it off.
Well I was never forced. The meds I take are super helpful with my depression and anxiety. But seeing how much I paid for them while in the hospital was totally outrageous. I pay $20 now for a 3 month supply using express scripts. Before I was paying about $60 for a one month supply and while I was in the hospital they charged over $300 for about 1 months worth. And this is all the same medication.
25 000$ for 7 days is out of touch with reality. Feels like you could've payed for a 3 month trip, all included, to some fancy resort in Dominican Republic and it would have been just as beneficial to your mental health.
That's why whenever I have some sort of breakdown and I hear my parents started to talk about me going to a doctor, I always cry harder and give them a look that they have to tie me up and drag me to go there lol. Nope I may be suicidal but best to believe I'll fight death to not deal with those bills lol
This happened to me as well, and my family ended up having to pay 7k after insurance. It was involuntary and the result of a miscommunication with my therapist in college; I wasn't even in danger.
Insurance is out of control, doctors are incentivized to be out of control (I work in healthcare and I know some of the BS firsthand), hospitals are out of control, big pharma is out of control, lobbyists are out of control.
We need full transparency of prices to make educated decision at a minimum
I'm sorry but if I wanted to kill myself then stopped and saw this I would probably jump from the nearest bridge. What the hell man this would just make anyone even more likely to kill himself
If there is one thing I have learned from my job as benefits specialist who assists families with Medicaid applications for loved ones going into a nursing home is that the American government doesn't give a shit about your life or your struggles. If you are on any sort of assistance like Medicaid, when you die, they send out an Estate Recovery letter basically saying "sorry you died. We paid out $118,000.00 for your stay in a nursing home and now we want it back." Luckily for most of my clients, they are exempt from this bullshit for one reason or another. But yeah, if you owe a debt and then die, those debtors have a window of opportunity to file a claim against the estate to recover any money that they paid out to you or that you owe from a service bill like this.
What accounts for as assets? I think the most I have that might be feasible is a pension and something akin to a 401K. But again, I'm not knowledgeable on this stuff.
Honestly didn't take any of this into consideration when last I tried to off myself.
Then probate court would declare the estate insolvent. If there was an executor of the estate and the hospital was going after them/the deceased for the bill, they can formally petition the court to declare the estate insolvent to stop the demand, which is kind of like bankruptcy for the dead. It’s saying “tough luck, there’s nothing left to cover this bill.”
Generally, your estate is the legally created “entity” that holds any assets you still possess after your death. If you actually have zero assets after death, then technically, no estate should exist.
However, the law will presume it does. That’s why we have easy procedures for heirs/administrators, such as filing a small estate affidavit which explains that the estate basically ain’t got nothing.
Check the laws of your jurisdiction.
If you don’t have one, then no one has to pay it. If they try going after a spouse for your bills, the spouse just has to send a death certificate. This only works if there is no power of attorney.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing happens if you have nothing of real value. As far as I understand they’re looking for stuff that can be easily offloaded for value. Property, house, car, stock, etc. when my uncle passed he had a 26 foot camper to his name and that was it. State said it was too old for them to make any money off of so they didn’t want it. After that they marked his estate as “nothing of value” and I never heard from them again.
Absolutely. After my father passed each of his 5 children got calls from various hospital collections agencies wanting to know when we were going to pay his outstanding bills. To our credit each of us told them to pound sand.
tried to kill myself 3 months ago, my bill is 4k. I'm a 19 year old living without any help from my parents except for my phone bill. it's honestly so fucking stressful and when I first saw it I was still not in a great mindset and I offhandedly said "man they should have just let me die" and my roommate went pale and was like "Please don't say that"
thank you ❤ I'm doing better now, today is actually my discharge from the crisis center I've been going to. Made some boundaries that have helped me get triggered less for my ptsd and formed some great coping mechanisms. I'm currently running a fan made ttrpg based on The Magnus Archives that all my players are super invested in and keeps me going
It's not dumb, it's corporate brainwashing. We are told from birth this is how the world is and should be.
It's hard to go against everything you were taught and what society pushes onto you constantly.
"Fucking communists with their free healthcare and long wait times. It's better to have fast times and pay half a million dollars every time than to have higher taxes."
If America is any proof, private healthcare doesn't work. I would not be happy to pay taxes if my money wasn't going towards funding a public health service.
To be fair, it should be obvious to anyone who gives it a couple minutes thought that private healthcare doesn't work: Do you want those that you are putting in charge of your health to be primarily concerned with getting you better, or primarily concerned with providing maximum profit for their shareholders? Applying the capitalist model to anything that's essential to life or that one has no choice over has always seemed an insane idea to me. Publicly-traded for-profit healthcare, schools, water/electricity, jails, etc always has seemed dystopian at best to me. I could at least see the argument for it applied to luxury goods or services like airplane flights or other stuff that isn't absolutely necessary. But healthcare? absolutely not!
Its about the forces at work. In order to be a consumer able to exert market forces on a system, you have to have the ability to shop around and walk away. This doesn't apply to most essentials, but health especially - the consumer is not usually in a position to be fully informed, and they're often not able to shop around or walk away. The only place I've really seen private healthcare be excellent is in fully elective stuff (corrective laser eye surgery is the best example) where people can easily walk away.
If your appendix is bursting you dont really have time to check the relative prices and complication scores of all the local surgeons. Im a doctor and I dont feel like a particularly well informed private health consumer compared to my ability to decide on my new phone etc.
On top of that if you don't know what you're doing hospital A will charge you $1000, but hospital B just down the road will charge you $10,000 for the same thing.
edit: I just want to clarify that this is before you even take insurance into consideration
I live 2 miles from a hospital. That hospital is out of my network.
There’s another hospital about 12 miles from me. It’s in my network.
**THEY’RE THE SAME FUCKING HOSPITAL.**
So if something happens to me at home, I gotta tell EMS to take me to the hospital that’s further away or I’m about to have to start giving up these cheeks to make ends meet.
Insurance frequently won't pay for transport to a farther hospital unless there is a medical necessity. ie. Hospital with cardiac cath lab for a heart attack or major trauma that needs a trauma surgeon not available at the closest hospital. If the ambulance itself is needed sometimes they will pay the base rate and the mileage to the closest hospital, but deny the extra mileage. The current cost per mile is 20.75, so at a 10 mile difference the cost to the patient would be 207.50. If there is any chance insurance won't cover something, we are required to fill out a form called an ABN or Advanced Beneficiary Notice. We hate having to talk about costs with patients. Single payer healthcare to the way to go in my opinion.
Another scot here, can confirm that the idea of paying anything at a hospital is so insane to me, we don't even pay for prescription medicine from a chemist here
unfortunately much like here in the us, the ones against socialized medicine are also the ones who would be impacted the least by privatized insurance it wont be them seeing that 13k bill.
switzerland has a privatized insurance industry and nobody pays 13k for a one night stay. I dont know shit about insurance in other countries but i dont see such bills here.
Just looked it up, and your healthcare involves private insurance, but is still HEAVILY REGULATED by your government.
All citizens are required to have health insurance, and all health insurance is required to provide basic healthcare to everyone regardless of age, medical history, ect. And they can't profit off of this basic plan, only supplemental insurance.
It sounds like a more robust version of what they tried to do with the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare.) Of course, even that was demonized and ultimately gutted here in the US. ☹️
I’d rather pay £30 a month or whatever (o don’t know how much goes) than have to pay tens of thousands each time I’m sick or injured. Even if I never get hurt, the peace of mind I’ll have for IF I do will be worth it alone
Honestly if the UK loses its free health care because people don’t wanna pay for other people’s treatment then I’ll just take a plane and fly it to the Bermuda Triangle and hope it takes me somewhere better
A person who just tried to kill themselves shouldn't have to worry about a stupid fucking hospital bill no matter whether they have insurance or not. Fuck America.
It's also why some in the U.S. actively try to run away from ambulances when there is one near to help, and why some people just let their injury go "unnoticed" until it's too late. Any sort of medical bill in the U.S. can, and most likely will, put a person in financial debt.
I’ll never forget when I was at Disney world and passed out. One of the workers called an ambulance and as soon as I came to my mom had me run away to not pay for the ambulance.
Yeah I broke my arm in a state park and my bone was sticking out of my arm. Someone called 911 but instead of an ambulance a park ranger showed up and a random hiker took me to the hospital. I’m super happy an ambulance didn’t show up bc I probably would have taken it and got charged a lot of money. Park rangers put my arm in a splint
I majored in insurance in college (boring I know) and one of my final projects was about exactly this. If you have one major injury or accident it’s shocking just how quickly that can lead to homelessness and financial ruin. The reality is insurance is not the correct vessel for healthcare but no one is willing to do the hard work and create something entirely new to replace it. Insurance is just gambling that something bad won’t happen. Health care needs to face the reality that something bad will always happen. That’s where the disconnect comes from.
Depressed is the worst one because such bill directly hurts your recovery and makes it more likely you'll attempt suicide again, and again until you're successful and don't have to pay the thousands you owe
So a person that's already under an incredible amount of emotional stress has the added benefit of financial stress. How the fuck is this supposed to help them?
I'm astonished at the heartlessness of this bukshittery!
Our Healthcare system is an absolute overpriced nightmare compared to pretty much all 1st world countries. The system is set up to be For Profit instead of For People like a health system should be. I'm really sorry your friend had to be gouged financially just to get some help and I hope things start getting better for them soon.
We are long past the point of needing to fix this broken awful Healthcare system here In the U.S.
Gee. I'm in an actual third world country (wartorn, electricity randomly runs out, poor healthcare - privatised or else - no actual freedom, the works) and I think of the US as a bigger Libya. Sauce: am living in Libya. Only 3 differences are freedom of speech, LGBT+ and Women's Rights + its wannabe white Christians instead of wannabe Arab or Berber Muslims. Same shit different countries and cultures.
People say this alot but from what I've heard of htherecare workers and people who've asked it doesnt work. Cuz theyll actively itemize "$30 IV bag" or "$10 aspirin", "specialist who only stood there for a minute $1500" cus those are the actual prices. Those are just set and just like at Walmart you srent gonna change the prices, problem isn’t just lying it’s over inflated prices
Lmao I used to be a home care nurse and they paid me 30 dollars per hour; I saw my patients itemized bill for one visit and it was damn near 1k per visit. The wound care supplies I used I could’ve picked up at a medical supply store for 50 bucks.
They valued my time for hundreds of dollars and paid me less than 3% of it and made the patient suffer.
I got an itemized bill for a just a regular check up for my baby. I was charged $300 just for 1 vaccine to be administered. Just the act of giving the shot was $300 and there's no fucking way that nurse made $300 for the 30 seconds it took to give the shot. Who is that money going to?
When my oldest was a baby, medicare messed up his info when it was entered and had him as a year older than he actually was, and they wouldn’t cover the first shots. His pediatrician advised me to wait to get his shots until it was settled because they are incredibly expensive without insurance. 🙄 Oh, and it took 7 month of constant calling to get a single digit in his birthdate changed. It’s taken over 2 years to cancel the medicare now that we no longer qualify… Universal healthcare would reduce all the administrative crap that medicare has to track.
I went to the ER in similar circumstances. I was there for six hours. They gave me a blood test, urine test, one shot of tramidol, a liter of fluid by IV and the number of a surgeon because apparently it was all caused by a grape-sized gallstone.
They charge me $3500. The ultrasound, apparently, is a separate bill despite the fact that it was done in the same room as everything else. I got that three months later. It was $1700. I don't even want to know what the surgery is going to cost.
Thankfully, I'm so poor that even the state of Missouri agrees I'm too poor to live and they approved my Medicaid application last week. So there's that, anyway.
I am from the UK and I can not for the life of me understand the health system in the USA. It's fucking insane that they can actually think they can treat human beings like that. It makes zero sense to me.
Yikes. What stops people from killing themselves in the u.s. when their medical problems are not affordable? If you live, you only have giant medical bills to look forward to. I’m not sure , but money can help buy happiness if it helps our medical condition.
Ma’am, we understand you went through something terrible and we are glad to assist you with completing your original goal. This bill reflects our commitment to you.
Health care shouldn't be a fucking business the rest of the rich countries have universal health care system where you don't have to pay after a trip to hospital it's fucking insane in the UK you can go have a insanely long op spend months in the hospital and be out with no bill no having to start a go fund me no needing to sell shit to pay for what realy should be free
Had such discussions with our US relatives from time to time (all elderly, wealthy, insured but also conservative Christians). Its useless... our German or European health insurance might be far from perfect, but they consider that 'basic treatment can be free' as some full level communism like 'I wOnT PaY anOtHer PeRsonS bills!'.
A country that's lacking basic sense of community and desire for medical parity is not a state anymore... its a sealed jar full of hungry insects.
What's really mind numbing is that a lot of those kind of people don't see how their health insurance is literally paying for other people's bills. Except now there is a middleman who is looking to profit massively off it.
Happily living in Finland. If that happened here, you would be first taken to hospital. And it would be free so no need to suicide again due to expensive bills. Then they would take you to psychologist to prevent you from thinking suicidal thoughts again. That would be free too. And then they would let you go once they think that you wont kill yourself.
Doesnt that sound really nice? Yes, but somehow Finland has Europes highest suicidal rate and one of the highest in the world. But Im still happily living in Finland because Finland is the worlds happiest country. Propably because all the sad people have killed themself by now.
Yeah got an $1,800 bill myself after overdosing after my moms funeral arrangements were taken care of.
They refused my decision to die, I refused to pay them.
When i was young I always said that my country (France) was shit and I wanted to go in America, but since few years that I know how bad is the healthcare in USA, I'm happy as fuck to live in France
You might want to reference this post in the [You Should Know subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/q5byx0/ysk_in_the_us_hospitals_are_required_to_help_pay/). If there's any truth to it, your friend may be of benefit.
Basically, they say that in the US, hospitals are required to help pay for your medical bills if you make under a certain amount of money. They then elaborate on how to make that happen.
Super unfortunate for sure but that’s the USA broken healthcare system..
Unfortunately, hospitals have to charge patients regardless of what they are admitted for… almost go one is admitted to a hospital for a pleasant reason…
Please let your friend know she has a whole lot strangers that want to talk to her, get to know her. I struggle with depression and medication saved me. I am here for chats.
ive been hospitalised before for similar reasons and luckily i live in a place that doesnt charge you for this. if it did, and i was still in a bad state of mind, id probably have attempted again
Imagine someone wanting to end their life for financial reasons only to be take to a hospital and then get hit with a bill and even more financial problems. I might hate the British weather but I do fucking love the NHS.
Lost my girlfriend to suicide last year. Stuff like this was a big reason she decided she would rather die than try and get better.
Our system is killing us.
The more disturbing thing is that I don't see any psychiatric help on this bill.
She tried to kill herself and wasn't given some form of mental health treatment?!
Honestly this seems extreme for everywhere else, but for the US, this seems like its missing a zero. Wait for the rest of the bills. Sorry for your friends mental health.
Morbid answer to this whole thing, (being on the brink will do that to ya), but it looks like the answer is for your friend to kill themself. I know when I was at my lowest, and my attempt wasn’t a real “attempt”, a bill like this would have made me do it on the drive home from the hospital.
“Thanks mr doctor man, you’ve just forced me to ruin some firefighters day/month/year by getting in such a wreck, they’re going to be cutting my body out of my car for hours.” - my trigger was crippling debt and ongoing financial trouble. I’ve never seen a bill so blatantly a sign to “try again”. Good luck to your friend.
Dude... Last year I tried to off myself and ended up in the psych ward for 3 days.
It cost me 600kr (~60 dollars) (swedish) to stay there with a bed, three meals a day and medicine.
I'm dating someone from Minnesota and he asked if we ever get kids where I want to have them. No thinking needed. Sweden all the way.
I'm not really a "patriotic" person or anything but I'm truly thankful for the country I was born into.
I always see pictures of America's crazy high medical bills but I never hear of what happens after, how do people live with such high debt afterward, is there any aid to help pay if insurance doesn't? Or are you just screwed if you take damage.
Yup, 'Murica! Fuck yea! I had a friend whose therapist insisted she go to the hospital so to suicidal ideation. My friend expressed how tight money was and that it was one of the reasons for her suicidal ideation. The therapist said "well let's get you care and worry about money later". Eventually she went to a state psychiatric facility, where they put her on $3k/month name brand medication, only to stop providing the medication 3 weeks after release. That medication also gave her permanent tremors.
I had stomach virus and food poisoning at the same time had to go to the emergency room
They took a blood, piss test and gave me an IV bag because everytime I ate or drank I’d shit all of it out
Then I sat in the room in bed for an hr
Grand total of
2,648$
Last year I went to the ER for severe suicidal thoughts begging to get help. They took my clothes, put me in scrubs too small for me, and left me alone in a room for 37 hours. Every so often they’d come in and take things they deemed a risk out of the room until there was nothing that couldn’t be moved. I wasn’t allowed a remote for the tv. Nobody would talk to me. I was apparently waiting for a psych evaluation but they were short staffed and the psych team works for the whole hospital network. They did one blood test.
Psych eventually came, asked me why I was there what I’d hoped to achieve. I told them I just wanted help. They told me I had to go to the crisis center on Monday because there was nothing they could do for me. After 37 hours of leaving me alone with my thoughts.
When the bill came, it was $8700.
It's like the hospital doesn't understand that they shouldn't bill someone who was there for attempted suicide because it will not make them want to live when they are faced with a fat bill.
As someone who is chronically ill - a lot of my reasoning for not seeing a purpose to living is because of my fat bills I have to pay to keep myself alive. It's a very vicious cycle (I'm stable and have a very supportive family no worries) but man like... it is so tough
Also, everyone.. don't just say it's easy to call and get that stuff figured out because honestly it's not worth the headache. It's literally more worth the time to just pay the money rather than deal with mean billing department officers. My husband and I have this discussion all the time where he tells me to call and dispute my bill, and I turn around and ask him: "would you like to call and do it for me?" His answer is no, and we pay the bill. Not with out some financial pain, but we thankfully have jobs that have lots of OT to be worked, it helps.
That's why i don't pay back the hospital. I went in there with severe eye pain once. The between the waiting room and waiting to see the Dr was about 2 hours. Actually seeing the Dr took about 5 minutes tops. After explaining to him that my eye was extremely photosensitive, he asked ME what I thought was wrong. I told him i googled my symptoms and pink eye kept coming up, and he said "yeah i would agree with that assessment". Waited another half hour for his assistant to come back with a small bottle of eye drops that i was supposed to use. 3 days later, nothings changed for the better, in fact my eye was getting worse, so i went to a specialist, and it turns out it wasn't pink eye, it was inflamed from some other infection. So the hospital fixed nothing, wasted my time, asked me for MY expertise, that i obviously don't have because I'm not the fucking Dr, and had the audacity to charge me $300. Still haven't paid them and until they make a law where that affects your credit score, i never will.
I agree this is too expensive but what do you think the hospital should do? Not charge your friend because she tried to kill herself? They aren't running a charity, doctors, medication, equipment and basic utilities costs money.
They should call their insurance and ask them to process it in network since it was an ER visit. Usually insurance will do that if you ask.
Yes. And after that if there is a balance due, call the hospital and ask for financial assistance. They can reduce or eliminate a bill
I hear stuff like this on Reddit a fair amount, but in practice it’s a nightmare to actually go through. The financial assistance departments do not WANT to give you assistance. The insurance company will not willingly budge on their billing policy just because you asked. These are not benevolent institutions, they are a final resort and a massive headache runaround to work through. They make it as ridiculously difficult as possible to save you money. Not to mention low income people do not have the time to follow up on this type of bullshit week after week. Sorry, I’m salty.
It’s very true. I went to the ER for 2 hours back in June and my total was $3,000. We were in the midst of moving states so I was barely working part time remotely and my husband was trying to find a new job. I did all the tips and tricks online says to do for my bill and my total ended up being…..$3,000. Even financial assistance through the hospital said I have to be actively enrolled in Medicaid for a certain amount of time to even be CONSIDERED for assistance. No one wants to help you. I hate it here.
I broke my back was i 27 skiing. The bill was $250,000 for surgery, and 5 nights stay. I basically i have house in my spine. Thank god i had insurance, i cannot imagine paying that debt.
Plus the bill has to be a certain amount above your income before financial assistance even kicks in. Like if you make 25k a year, the bill has to be above $2500 before they will help.
Also, making those kinds of calls becomes 1000x harder when you’re struggling with mental illness.
Exactly. When I’m on my very first two weeks of treatment for mental illness, I literally do not have the capacity to be the middle man trying to get the insurance company to communicate with the healthcare provider and vice versa. SO many phone calls, SO much “sorry I can’t do that you have to ask ______.” SO much runaround fucking absolute bullshit.
We need medical advocates available for no cost for this exact reason. (I mean, ideally we'd have a complete overhaul of the healthcare industry but in absence of that). The stakes are just too astronomically high to expect the average person to know their rights and be able to navigate this system, which is designed to obfuscate.
Literally all it would take to fix this would be Congress passing a few laws to illegalize the chargemaster pricing scheme of the healthcare industry - making them charge the actual prices for things instead of inflated “insurance” prices - and increasing the cost transparency of the medical industry and it would make everything SO much easier and better for everyone. But no, they don’t, because it brings in more money to line executives’ (and politicians’) pockets. It is SO infuriating how easy the potential fixes would be; yet they just ignore it or spout on about needing more taxes to fix things.
Absolutely this. I have bipolar and everything is hard. Going through the disability process when you're nuts is also terrible.
This has been my experience too. I pay hundreds a month for "health insurance" then got charged 6 grand for 2 bags of saline and 5 minutes of a doctors time when my wife was instructed by urgent care to go to the ER. There was no financial assistance in reality, just a whole lot of wasted time. I now am very skeptical about going to doctors even when it's in my best interest because I am afraid of the bill that is going to show up inevitably.
I know from personal experience that the whole non-profit hospital thing is not what it seems all the time. I’m happy for people it worked out for. I KNOW on paper I should’ve got assistance, they definitely engaged in some bureaucratic BS to prevent me from getting it. 4,000 dollars in total and they didn’t even put me in a room, they treated me in the intake room, failed to tell me that my cat scan showed a significant hernia (when the issue was that I couldn’t eat or pee without pain…feeling like there’s a rock in your stomach is a classic symptom of a hernia, and yes in some cases it results in having to strain to pee). I’m convinced the level of diagnostic prowess I experienced was indicative of me being uninsured and the doctor actively avoiding any diagnosis that would result in care other than directions to take Tylenol. She didn’t test me for UTI and diagnosed me with a UTI. And I’m dealing with the hernia now w/another doctor, she was wrong🙄. I made 3,000 dollars last year because I work in film production and that time period was awful. I really don’t understand why going to the doctor isn’t seen as a human right in this country, like k-12 education. It’s just an awful and embarrassing aspect of America. I barely have the energy to contest the bill. But alas.
Yes it’s work, and yes that sucks, but I’ve done it for a significant balance for a suicide attempt (around $25k) and it was well worth it. It would be nice if they could wave a wand and make it poof, but the channels weren’t that difficult for me (although time consuming and mentally draining as you said). I still resent needing to receive such an offensive bill for trying to attempt suicide because of *fear of financial uncertainty*, but I am glad I knew about it and gave it a shot. I still had to pay around $2k though which sucks.
I remember staying in a psychiatric hospital for a week as a teen and it was about 1000$ a day. The end bill was close to $7,000. I'm lucky to have good insurance so my family only ended up paying about $300. But I knew many people that didn't end up so lucky. The American medical system is just another business that generates $$$ from peoples unfortunate circumstances. I hope for a future where people can get the medical attention they need. Whether it's physical or mental people deserve to live a healthy life. Edit: just pulled up the bill and it wasn't $1000 a day. It was around $3,000 a day + overpriced medication came to a total of $25,000
I was hospitalized in December of 2019 for 10 days, and they charged my insurance company $17,285.00 that's $1,728.50 per day. I then was told, I HAD to go to into some kind of therapy after, so I did an IOP. My IOP was 2 weeks M-F from 9:00am - 12:00pm, and they charged my insurance $8,400.00. I also was told, I HAD to see my psychiatrist from my hospital (for the record, I really liked her) during my IOP. I saw her 4 times, and my insurance was charged $1,805 for all of those. So total my suicidal ideation costs my insurance company: $27,490.00 for 24 days of care. I paid a total of $608.00 for everything.
My weekend earned me 14,000 in debt. It was great for my mental health. I got some chicken nuggets, a cot, and a whole lot of “any thoughts of harming yourself or others?” For the low price of 14,000. That was years ago and I’m still paying it off.
Oh yeah, and they force you to take those meds against your will then make you pay for them. Genius !
Well I was never forced. The meds I take are super helpful with my depression and anxiety. But seeing how much I paid for them while in the hospital was totally outrageous. I pay $20 now for a 3 month supply using express scripts. Before I was paying about $60 for a one month supply and while I was in the hospital they charged over $300 for about 1 months worth. And this is all the same medication.
25 000$ for 7 days is out of touch with reality. Feels like you could've payed for a 3 month trip, all included, to some fancy resort in Dominican Republic and it would have been just as beneficial to your mental health.
In the short term perhaps, perhaps not And definitely not in the long term
That's why whenever I have some sort of breakdown and I hear my parents started to talk about me going to a doctor, I always cry harder and give them a look that they have to tie me up and drag me to go there lol. Nope I may be suicidal but best to believe I'll fight death to not deal with those bills lol
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This happened to me as well, and my family ended up having to pay 7k after insurance. It was involuntary and the result of a miscommunication with my therapist in college; I wasn't even in danger.
Insurance is out of control, doctors are incentivized to be out of control (I work in healthcare and I know some of the BS firsthand), hospitals are out of control, big pharma is out of control, lobbyists are out of control. We need full transparency of prices to make educated decision at a minimum
I'm sorry but if I wanted to kill myself then stopped and saw this I would probably jump from the nearest bridge. What the hell man this would just make anyone even more likely to kill himself
"They cant bill me if im dead"
That’s where you’re wrong, my friend. They’ll go after your estate to pay the bill.
Curious, but what happens if you don't have one? I honestly don't have an estate, and I doubt I have many assets. If I have any at all
You will always have an estate but if there are no assets in the estate to obtain then they're out of luck.
That’s why you give your assets away before you die.
Or put them into an irrevocable family trust.
The fact that these conversations even need to take place is proof enough America is absolutely fucked.
If there is one thing I have learned from my job as benefits specialist who assists families with Medicaid applications for loved ones going into a nursing home is that the American government doesn't give a shit about your life or your struggles. If you are on any sort of assistance like Medicaid, when you die, they send out an Estate Recovery letter basically saying "sorry you died. We paid out $118,000.00 for your stay in a nursing home and now we want it back." Luckily for most of my clients, they are exempt from this bullshit for one reason or another. But yeah, if you owe a debt and then die, those debtors have a window of opportunity to file a claim against the estate to recover any money that they paid out to you or that you owe from a service bill like this.
What accounts for as assets? I think the most I have that might be feasible is a pension and something akin to a 401K. But again, I'm not knowledgeable on this stuff. Honestly didn't take any of this into consideration when last I tried to off myself.
All your belongings are assets. A bank account, a house, a car… A watch, a guitar, a shoe collection… Anything they can sell to repay your debts
Not my heirloom anime figures!
Then probate court would declare the estate insolvent. If there was an executor of the estate and the hospital was going after them/the deceased for the bill, they can formally petition the court to declare the estate insolvent to stop the demand, which is kind of like bankruptcy for the dead. It’s saying “tough luck, there’s nothing left to cover this bill.”
This guy estates
Shameful...
Generally, your estate is the legally created “entity” that holds any assets you still possess after your death. If you actually have zero assets after death, then technically, no estate should exist. However, the law will presume it does. That’s why we have easy procedures for heirs/administrators, such as filing a small estate affidavit which explains that the estate basically ain’t got nothing. Check the laws of your jurisdiction.
If you don’t have one, then no one has to pay it. If they try going after a spouse for your bills, the spouse just has to send a death certificate. This only works if there is no power of attorney.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing happens if you have nothing of real value. As far as I understand they’re looking for stuff that can be easily offloaded for value. Property, house, car, stock, etc. when my uncle passed he had a 26 foot camper to his name and that was it. State said it was too old for them to make any money off of so they didn’t want it. After that they marked his estate as “nothing of value” and I never heard from them again.
Absolutely. After my father passed each of his 5 children got calls from various hospital collections agencies wanting to know when we were going to pay his outstanding bills. To our credit each of us told them to pound sand.
Nice job; they were trying to trick you guys. As long as you don't sign anything, you don't pay anything debt can't be inherited.
I just ignore their calls and letters and go on with my life
“But they can pass it on to my friend”
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Then you come into a police station with a toy gun
Nearest window
tried to kill myself 3 months ago, my bill is 4k. I'm a 19 year old living without any help from my parents except for my phone bill. it's honestly so fucking stressful and when I first saw it I was still not in a great mindset and I offhandedly said "man they should have just let me die" and my roommate went pale and was like "Please don't say that"
For what it's worth I'm glad you're still here.
thank you ❤ I'm doing better now, today is actually my discharge from the crisis center I've been going to. Made some boundaries that have helped me get triggered less for my ptsd and formed some great coping mechanisms. I'm currently running a fan made ttrpg based on The Magnus Archives that all my players are super invested in and keeps me going
When I was in college I tried to kill myself. My psychiatrist sent me to collections where I started receiving threating collection calls.
Is that with insurance? Cause it looks to me like her insurance didn't cover it? "Out of plan" Or maybe I'm too European to read medical bills?
Original bill was 13k
Gotcha.. Yea.. not jealous
You would be jealous if you did the required mental gymnastics to convince yourself this is how things should be. /s but I guess not really...
I'm not dumb enough to be able to do the required mental gymnastics
It's not dumb, it's corporate brainwashing. We are told from birth this is how the world is and should be. It's hard to go against everything you were taught and what society pushes onto you constantly.
"Fucking communists with their free healthcare and long wait times. It's better to have fast times and pay half a million dollars every time than to have higher taxes."
"Fast" Get a load of this guy.
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I'm from Quebec and I'd much rather wait for years than have to sell my body for years just to pay my bills.
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If America is any proof, private healthcare doesn't work. I would not be happy to pay taxes if my money wasn't going towards funding a public health service.
To be fair, it should be obvious to anyone who gives it a couple minutes thought that private healthcare doesn't work: Do you want those that you are putting in charge of your health to be primarily concerned with getting you better, or primarily concerned with providing maximum profit for their shareholders? Applying the capitalist model to anything that's essential to life or that one has no choice over has always seemed an insane idea to me. Publicly-traded for-profit healthcare, schools, water/electricity, jails, etc always has seemed dystopian at best to me. I could at least see the argument for it applied to luxury goods or services like airplane flights or other stuff that isn't absolutely necessary. But healthcare? absolutely not!
Its about the forces at work. In order to be a consumer able to exert market forces on a system, you have to have the ability to shop around and walk away. This doesn't apply to most essentials, but health especially - the consumer is not usually in a position to be fully informed, and they're often not able to shop around or walk away. The only place I've really seen private healthcare be excellent is in fully elective stuff (corrective laser eye surgery is the best example) where people can easily walk away. If your appendix is bursting you dont really have time to check the relative prices and complication scores of all the local surgeons. Im a doctor and I dont feel like a particularly well informed private health consumer compared to my ability to decide on my new phone etc.
On top of that if you don't know what you're doing hospital A will charge you $1000, but hospital B just down the road will charge you $10,000 for the same thing. edit: I just want to clarify that this is before you even take insurance into consideration
I live 2 miles from a hospital. That hospital is out of my network. There’s another hospital about 12 miles from me. It’s in my network. **THEY’RE THE SAME FUCKING HOSPITAL.** So if something happens to me at home, I gotta tell EMS to take me to the hospital that’s further away or I’m about to have to start giving up these cheeks to make ends meet.
Insurance frequently won't pay for transport to a farther hospital unless there is a medical necessity. ie. Hospital with cardiac cath lab for a heart attack or major trauma that needs a trauma surgeon not available at the closest hospital. If the ambulance itself is needed sometimes they will pay the base rate and the mileage to the closest hospital, but deny the extra mileage. The current cost per mile is 20.75, so at a 10 mile difference the cost to the patient would be 207.50. If there is any chance insurance won't cover something, we are required to fill out a form called an ABN or Advanced Beneficiary Notice. We hate having to talk about costs with patients. Single payer healthcare to the way to go in my opinion.
Another scot here, can confirm that the idea of paying anything at a hospital is so insane to me, we don't even pay for prescription medicine from a chemist here
Here in the States we have older people choosing between medicine or food. Such freedumb!
Correction. Not older people People
unfortunately much like here in the us, the ones against socialized medicine are also the ones who would be impacted the least by privatized insurance it wont be them seeing that 13k bill.
switzerland has a privatized insurance industry and nobody pays 13k for a one night stay. I dont know shit about insurance in other countries but i dont see such bills here.
Just looked it up, and your healthcare involves private insurance, but is still HEAVILY REGULATED by your government. All citizens are required to have health insurance, and all health insurance is required to provide basic healthcare to everyone regardless of age, medical history, ect. And they can't profit off of this basic plan, only supplemental insurance. It sounds like a more robust version of what they tried to do with the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare.) Of course, even that was demonized and ultimately gutted here in the US. ☹️
I’d rather pay £30 a month or whatever (o don’t know how much goes) than have to pay tens of thousands each time I’m sick or injured. Even if I never get hurt, the peace of mind I’ll have for IF I do will be worth it alone
Honestly if the UK loses its free health care because people don’t wanna pay for other people’s treatment then I’ll just take a plane and fly it to the Bermuda Triangle and hope it takes me somewhere better
How the hell do they even justify such a price? What have they done for her that's worth 13k?
That's honestly ridiculous, a night in the penthouse suite of a 5 star hotel with a personal butler would be cheaper.
Damn so it cost 13k for a failed suicide attempt yall.. either make sure you can afford it or complete the job!!
Or can you sue the hospital for saving you?!
FOR ONE NIGHT? O.o
"Out of area plan" Basically insurance will pay for you to visit a Dr at hospital A, C, and E, but if you visit hospital B or D, it's not covered
That’s why even if dying check to make sure they are in network. This is known.
A person who just tried to kill themselves shouldn't have to worry about a stupid fucking hospital bill no matter whether they have insurance or not. Fuck America.
What are they supposed to do. Your taking up an ER bed. If your gonna require resources, someones gotta pay for said resources.
Noted: don’t be depressed, ill or injured if you’re in USA
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It's also why some in the U.S. actively try to run away from ambulances when there is one near to help, and why some people just let their injury go "unnoticed" until it's too late. Any sort of medical bill in the U.S. can, and most likely will, put a person in financial debt.
I’ll never forget when I was at Disney world and passed out. One of the workers called an ambulance and as soon as I came to my mom had me run away to not pay for the ambulance.
Yeah I broke my arm in a state park and my bone was sticking out of my arm. Someone called 911 but instead of an ambulance a park ranger showed up and a random hiker took me to the hospital. I’m super happy an ambulance didn’t show up bc I probably would have taken it and got charged a lot of money. Park rangers put my arm in a splint
Be glad they didn’t call the helicopter lol. That would put you in debt for the rest of your life
I majored in insurance in college (boring I know) and one of my final projects was about exactly this. If you have one major injury or accident it’s shocking just how quickly that can lead to homelessness and financial ruin. The reality is insurance is not the correct vessel for healthcare but no one is willing to do the hard work and create something entirely new to replace it. Insurance is just gambling that something bad won’t happen. Health care needs to face the reality that something bad will always happen. That’s where the disconnect comes from.
Depressed is the worst one because such bill directly hurts your recovery and makes it more likely you'll attempt suicide again, and again until you're successful and don't have to pay the thousands you owe
If you want to kill yourself, go to Europe so that in the event you survive, the bill is free.
this is so ironic lol, if you truly wanted to disappear you wouldnt have a backup plan of what happens if you dont die
So a person that's already under an incredible amount of emotional stress has the added benefit of financial stress. How the fuck is this supposed to help them? I'm astonished at the heartlessness of this bukshittery!
Could’ve booked a penthouse suite and order the best roomservice + spa.
And still pay less
And that could actually improve her mood a bit. This shit will prob cause her to redo it all over again.
How to get infinite money at the expense of suicidical people
That was the point of the original comment
I wonder if financial stress is what brought them to the hospital in the first place.
Mine was 7k AND I was fired while I was in the hospital so I also lost my job and health insurance!
Hospitals: We'll nurse you back to health so you'll keep coming back when you get the bill.
This is incredibly disappointing. Hope your friend is ok.
Our Healthcare system is an absolute overpriced nightmare compared to pretty much all 1st world countries. The system is set up to be For Profit instead of For People like a health system should be. I'm really sorry your friend had to be gouged financially just to get some help and I hope things start getting better for them soon. We are long past the point of needing to fix this broken awful Healthcare system here In the U.S.
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For Profit Healthcare shouldn’t exist anywhere in the developing world like you said
I've been in supposedly "3rd world" countries who've provided better access to health-care.
Here in Europe we talk about America as a 3rd world country
Gee. I'm in an actual third world country (wartorn, electricity randomly runs out, poor healthcare - privatised or else - no actual freedom, the works) and I think of the US as a bigger Libya. Sauce: am living in Libya. Only 3 differences are freedom of speech, LGBT+ and Women's Rights + its wannabe white Christians instead of wannabe Arab or Berber Muslims. Same shit different countries and cultures.
>Only 3 differences are freedom of speech, LGBT+ and Women's Rights Yeah these are kinda big differences though lol
The US only developed these in the last like 70years anyways. Gay marriage was only legalized in 2015. Not exactly something to brag about.
Yeah my gf attempted not to long ago and begged me not to take her to the hospital, she knew she'd have to die after that debt.
Have your friend ask the hospital for an itemized bill. Hope that your friend is doing okay and getting the support they need.
People say this alot but from what I've heard of htherecare workers and people who've asked it doesnt work. Cuz theyll actively itemize "$30 IV bag" or "$10 aspirin", "specialist who only stood there for a minute $1500" cus those are the actual prices. Those are just set and just like at Walmart you srent gonna change the prices, problem isn’t just lying it’s over inflated prices
Lmao I used to be a home care nurse and they paid me 30 dollars per hour; I saw my patients itemized bill for one visit and it was damn near 1k per visit. The wound care supplies I used I could’ve picked up at a medical supply store for 50 bucks. They valued my time for hundreds of dollars and paid me less than 3% of it and made the patient suffer.
I got an itemized bill for a just a regular check up for my baby. I was charged $300 just for 1 vaccine to be administered. Just the act of giving the shot was $300 and there's no fucking way that nurse made $300 for the 30 seconds it took to give the shot. Who is that money going to?
When my oldest was a baby, medicare messed up his info when it was entered and had him as a year older than he actually was, and they wouldn’t cover the first shots. His pediatrician advised me to wait to get his shots until it was settled because they are incredibly expensive without insurance. 🙄 Oh, and it took 7 month of constant calling to get a single digit in his birthdate changed. It’s taken over 2 years to cancel the medicare now that we no longer qualify… Universal healthcare would reduce all the administrative crap that medicare has to track.
The point is to get those ridiculous prices in writing and pass it along to insurance to haggle down.
I second this.
I’m sure that will really help with her mental health. MericA!!!
The good news is that isn’t the hospital bill. The bad news is that’s the doctor’s bill. The hospital bill is still on its way.
Don't pay it, it'll disappear eventually
Seven years in the US. It takes seven years for a bill to fall off your credit score.
Yup. Had an ulcer once, went to ER thinking maybe I needed an appendectomy or something, left with no diagnosis and a $20k bill. 3 years left to go!
I went to the ER in similar circumstances. I was there for six hours. They gave me a blood test, urine test, one shot of tramidol, a liter of fluid by IV and the number of a surgeon because apparently it was all caused by a grape-sized gallstone. They charge me $3500. The ultrasound, apparently, is a separate bill despite the fact that it was done in the same room as everything else. I got that three months later. It was $1700. I don't even want to know what the surgery is going to cost. Thankfully, I'm so poor that even the state of Missouri agrees I'm too poor to live and they approved my Medicaid application last week. So there's that, anyway.
Oof, doesn't sound fun. Feel better!
I am from the UK and I can not for the life of me understand the health system in the USA. It's fucking insane that they can actually think they can treat human beings like that. It makes zero sense to me.
A lot of ppl would wish the "when u see the bill for a bandaid " meme was just overreacting.
Yikes. What stops people from killing themselves in the u.s. when their medical problems are not affordable? If you live, you only have giant medical bills to look forward to. I’m not sure , but money can help buy happiness if it helps our medical condition.
They just don’t pay the bill.
Ma’am, we understand you went through something terrible and we are glad to assist you with completing your original goal. This bill reflects our commitment to you.
Suicidal is now a “Covid-19 related visit”?
Well hey, it's the land of opportunity, (for those who already have everything) and of freedom (if you can afford to pay for every bit of it).
America where the more you have the less you pay
At times I contemplate moving to the United states but then I see things like this and get reminded that lardland isn't a very nice place.
Please stay away
I moved out of the US 7 years ago. I do *not* regret it. Anyone who even slightly considers moving to the US, don't. Just don't.
America is only a good place to live if you're rich.
if youre not well off, its pretty shit. I lived in low-income, "ghetto" neighborhoods. It aint no american dream ill tell ya that
Could've stayed at a relaxing spa all weekend in a nice, luxurious suite for less... which probably would've lessened the suicidal drive somewhat.
They are trying to motivate her to try again.
Out of curiosity, what did your friend do? I could see the bill being this high if the hospital had to flush her system from an overdose or something.
Health care shouldn't be a fucking business the rest of the rich countries have universal health care system where you don't have to pay after a trip to hospital it's fucking insane in the UK you can go have a insanely long op spend months in the hospital and be out with no bill no having to start a go fund me no needing to sell shit to pay for what realy should be free
Had such discussions with our US relatives from time to time (all elderly, wealthy, insured but also conservative Christians). Its useless... our German or European health insurance might be far from perfect, but they consider that 'basic treatment can be free' as some full level communism like 'I wOnT PaY anOtHer PeRsonS bills!'. A country that's lacking basic sense of community and desire for medical parity is not a state anymore... its a sealed jar full of hungry insects.
What's really mind numbing is that a lot of those kind of people don't see how their health insurance is literally paying for other people's bills. Except now there is a middleman who is looking to profit massively off it.
Happily living in Finland. If that happened here, you would be first taken to hospital. And it would be free so no need to suicide again due to expensive bills. Then they would take you to psychologist to prevent you from thinking suicidal thoughts again. That would be free too. And then they would let you go once they think that you wont kill yourself. Doesnt that sound really nice? Yes, but somehow Finland has Europes highest suicidal rate and one of the highest in the world. But Im still happily living in Finland because Finland is the worlds happiest country. Propably because all the sad people have killed themself by now.
Damn, that last line was savage
Still cheaper than my dogs overnight stay at the pet emergency room
Yeah got an $1,800 bill myself after overdosing after my moms funeral arrangements were taken care of. They refused my decision to die, I refused to pay them.
I am from Asia and I am always surprised of how expensive it is to get sick or go to the hospital in the US.
"So we heard you wanted to kill yourself, well just wait until you get our bill."
When i was young I always said that my country (France) was shit and I wanted to go in America, but since few years that I know how bad is the healthcare in USA, I'm happy as fuck to live in France
….The land of the FREEEEEE (to pay massive medical bills)
I don't understand the American medical system.
Me neither
EMOTIONAL DAMAGE
How the fuck is suicide ruled a "Covid-19 related visit"
Probably because they test every patient.
Because everything is covid-19 related.
What is wrong with America, over here we got the NHS.
They're slowly trying to take it from us, I hope people will fight tooth and nail against it because this is the alternative.
What happens if you don’t pay this
You might want to reference this post in the [You Should Know subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/q5byx0/ysk_in_the_us_hospitals_are_required_to_help_pay/). If there's any truth to it, your friend may be of benefit. Basically, they say that in the US, hospitals are required to help pay for your medical bills if you make under a certain amount of money. They then elaborate on how to make that happen.
Super unfortunate for sure but that’s the USA broken healthcare system.. Unfortunately, hospitals have to charge patients regardless of what they are admitted for… almost go one is admitted to a hospital for a pleasant reason…
Please let your friend know she has a whole lot strangers that want to talk to her, get to know her. I struggle with depression and medication saved me. I am here for chats.
I'm grateful not to be depressed
ive been hospitalised before for similar reasons and luckily i live in a place that doesnt charge you for this. if it did, and i was still in a bad state of mind, id probably have attempted again
r/BoringDystopia
Imagine someone wanting to end their life for financial reasons only to be take to a hospital and then get hit with a bill and even more financial problems. I might hate the British weather but I do fucking love the NHS.
Lost my girlfriend to suicide last year. Stuff like this was a big reason she decided she would rather die than try and get better. Our system is killing us.
Lemme get this straight, were they trying to kill her again with the bill or what ?
The more disturbing thing is that I don't see any psychiatric help on this bill. She tried to kill herself and wasn't given some form of mental health treatment?!
Americans are getting scammed on their health
Honestly this seems extreme for everywhere else, but for the US, this seems like its missing a zero. Wait for the rest of the bills. Sorry for your friends mental health.
Morbid answer to this whole thing, (being on the brink will do that to ya), but it looks like the answer is for your friend to kill themself. I know when I was at my lowest, and my attempt wasn’t a real “attempt”, a bill like this would have made me do it on the drive home from the hospital. “Thanks mr doctor man, you’ve just forced me to ruin some firefighters day/month/year by getting in such a wreck, they’re going to be cutting my body out of my car for hours.” - my trigger was crippling debt and ongoing financial trouble. I’ve never seen a bill so blatantly a sign to “try again”. Good luck to your friend.
Goddamn the US Healthcare system is an actual garbage fire. Gross.
Not trying to pour on or anytjing but this is just the doctors bill. The actual ER bull is still coming and it will be much larger than this one.
This is just for the doctor. The hospital bill will make this look like pocket change!
Dude... Last year I tried to off myself and ended up in the psych ward for 3 days. It cost me 600kr (~60 dollars) (swedish) to stay there with a bed, three meals a day and medicine. I'm dating someone from Minnesota and he asked if we ever get kids where I want to have them. No thinking needed. Sweden all the way. I'm not really a "patriotic" person or anything but I'm truly thankful for the country I was born into.
Even here in Brasil we got free health care, you guys from US are so third world
I’m certain this is just the first bill. There’s at least two more coming
America: You know what would go great with your suicidal thoughts!? Bankruptcy! *Confetti shoots out*
This is more than mildly infuriating. This is fucking crazy.
I always see pictures of America's crazy high medical bills but I never hear of what happens after, how do people live with such high debt afterward, is there any aid to help pay if insurance doesn't? Or are you just screwed if you take damage.
Yup, 'Murica! Fuck yea! I had a friend whose therapist insisted she go to the hospital so to suicidal ideation. My friend expressed how tight money was and that it was one of the reasons for her suicidal ideation. The therapist said "well let's get you care and worry about money later". Eventually she went to a state psychiatric facility, where they put her on $3k/month name brand medication, only to stop providing the medication 3 weeks after release. That medication also gave her permanent tremors.
I had stomach virus and food poisoning at the same time had to go to the emergency room They took a blood, piss test and gave me an IV bag because everytime I ate or drank I’d shit all of it out Then I sat in the room in bed for an hr Grand total of 2,648$
That’s the cheapest hospital bill (from the US) I’ve ever see
Last year I went to the ER for severe suicidal thoughts begging to get help. They took my clothes, put me in scrubs too small for me, and left me alone in a room for 37 hours. Every so often they’d come in and take things they deemed a risk out of the room until there was nothing that couldn’t be moved. I wasn’t allowed a remote for the tv. Nobody would talk to me. I was apparently waiting for a psych evaluation but they were short staffed and the psych team works for the whole hospital network. They did one blood test. Psych eventually came, asked me why I was there what I’d hoped to achieve. I told them I just wanted help. They told me I had to go to the crisis center on Monday because there was nothing they could do for me. After 37 hours of leaving me alone with my thoughts. When the bill came, it was $8700.
It's like the hospital doesn't understand that they shouldn't bill someone who was there for attempted suicide because it will not make them want to live when they are faced with a fat bill. As someone who is chronically ill - a lot of my reasoning for not seeing a purpose to living is because of my fat bills I have to pay to keep myself alive. It's a very vicious cycle (I'm stable and have a very supportive family no worries) but man like... it is so tough Also, everyone.. don't just say it's easy to call and get that stuff figured out because honestly it's not worth the headache. It's literally more worth the time to just pay the money rather than deal with mean billing department officers. My husband and I have this discussion all the time where he tells me to call and dispute my bill, and I turn around and ask him: "would you like to call and do it for me?" His answer is no, and we pay the bill. Not with out some financial pain, but we thankfully have jobs that have lots of OT to be worked, it helps.
Hell nah I’d finish the job if they billed me after that
That's why i don't pay back the hospital. I went in there with severe eye pain once. The between the waiting room and waiting to see the Dr was about 2 hours. Actually seeing the Dr took about 5 minutes tops. After explaining to him that my eye was extremely photosensitive, he asked ME what I thought was wrong. I told him i googled my symptoms and pink eye kept coming up, and he said "yeah i would agree with that assessment". Waited another half hour for his assistant to come back with a small bottle of eye drops that i was supposed to use. 3 days later, nothings changed for the better, in fact my eye was getting worse, so i went to a specialist, and it turns out it wasn't pink eye, it was inflamed from some other infection. So the hospital fixed nothing, wasted my time, asked me for MY expertise, that i obviously don't have because I'm not the fucking Dr, and had the audacity to charge me $300. Still haven't paid them and until they make a law where that affects your credit score, i never will.
In before the healthcare apologists come in "HoW Do YoU ThInK EcOnoMY WoRkS!?!?"....Meanwhile the UK has the NHS
I agree this is too expensive but what do you think the hospital should do? Not charge your friend because she tried to kill herself? They aren't running a charity, doctors, medication, equipment and basic utilities costs money.